Gwendy - Discussion Director - The Cat Ate My Jumpsuit by Paula Danzinger - Pg. 24

Cover of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit

So , we are reading this really good book called the Cat ate my Gymsuit. It is about a rather depressed 13-year old who pretty much hates her life. I mean the first few sentences tell you this : ' I hate my father. I hate school. I hate being fat. I hate the principal because he wanted to fire Ms. Finney, my English teacher.

So I was the discussion director this time so I had to ask and answer 5 questions about the pages we had read (4 chapters, this time.) 

1.  So this one I chose because on the first page of the book, it mentioned that she was 13 and she was in 9th grade. So my questions is 'How come she's 13 years old and in the 9th grade?' I asked this because usually when you are 13 you are in 7th or 8th grade. Maybe she skipped a year because she was smart or maybe the school has a unique system. If it's the first one then it probably isn't good for her as it probably adds to the least of things others can tease her for. 

2. 'Will Marcy and Joel become good friends or anything close to that?' The reason I asked this is because I was really interested in the fact that Joel actually interacted with Marcy. Unfortunately though I think that Joel's friends will be like: Why are you being friends with Marcy, she's weird. So I think the relationship between them won't blossom into anything because of peer pressure on Joel. 

3. 'Will the after-school activity help Marcy?' I asked this because as soon as Ms. Finney declared that there would be an after school activity concerning different people's problems I immediately thought of Marcy. Unfortunately, though, I think that she won't be confident enough to share her problems as she thinks that people will tease her. I think she should share her problems with Ms. Finney as she seems to seem very sorry for Marcy though she has no idea what is wrong.

4. 'How did you feel when Joel and Marcy spoke at the end of chapter 4?' I thought that it was really sweet of Joel to speak to Marcy as he didn't seem to worry about his friends teasing him at that point. Actually, I was really proud of Marcy for (kind of) being able to reply. 

5. 'Do you think Marcy will ever participate in P.E?' Actually I think she probably will as I think as the book goes on I think her confidence will grow with Ms. Finney's help, and just maybe, Joel's.

So that was that for the discussion today. Now we are reading up to page 53 (chapter 10.) and I am the vocab person for this time.