Out of My Mind

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What is synesthesia?

Teaching Suggestion: Gauge students’ understanding of synesthesia and how much they know about it. Discuss how the phenomenon allows one sense to become another and ask for examples of what this may look like. Link this discussion to Melody’s experiences with hearing music and seeing colors, and to how Self-Acceptance plays a role in the experience of synesthesia.

• A Science News for Students article delves deeper into synesthesia, including what it looks like and what researchers have discovered about it.
• “The Ragpickers’ Wine” by Charles Baudelaire is known for its descriptive language. The poem illustrates synesthesia and provides examples to analyze.

2. Keeping in mind that cerebral palsy can look different for every person who has it, what is your current understanding of cerebral palsy? What do you know about it?

Teaching Suggestion: Introduce cerebral palsy and ask students what they know about the diagnosis. Discuss how diagnoses like cerebral palsy should be accepted and how The Importance of Communication helps everyone feel seen and heard, regardless of their abilities.

• The Britannica Kids entry on cerebral palsy explains the disability, different types of cerebral palsy, causes, and treatments. This reference resource can help students gain a fuller understanding of the diagnosis.
• A video from Demystifying Medicine (a YouTube channel featuring content produced by students at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada) provides a three-minute overview of cerebral palsy diagnoses and how cerebral palsy can present in people who have it.

Short Activity

Plan a group trip to a new destination. The plan should outline where you will stay, what you will do, and how you will travel to, around, and back from the destination. Money is no object, and you may plan to your wildest dreams—but you cannot speak to your group members throughout the process. Focus on The Importance of Communication in planning your trip and remember to remain patient.

Teaching Suggestion: Introduce this activity by explaining to students that they are to plan a destination trip with their group. The destination can be anywhere and price is no object. Excite students with this description and then explain the communication restriction to inspire deep thought on how the group will share ideas in order to complete the plan. Reflect after the activity about difficulties students encountered and what they learned in the process.