Stuck in Neutral

1. Stuck in Neutral Author: Terry Trueman

2. What if you couldn’t control • Your fingers • Your hands • Your left foot • Your stomach • Your tongue • Your throat • Your eyelids

3. Summary • Shawn McDaniel is a 14 year old boy with cerebral palsy growing up in Seattle • Continually gets called stupid • Shawn is able to remember everything he hears with total recall • Shawn wonders what it would be like if someone knew the real him • Afraid his dad wants to kill him to end his suffering

4. Characters • Shawn McDaniel: When he was born he had brain damage because a tiny blood vessel burstedin his head that was in the wrong spot. As a result the blood vessel wiped out his muscle control and confined him to a wheelchair. • Linda McDaniel: Shawn’s loving and patient mother who is 45 years old. Although she has a part time job her full time job is taking care of Shawn. • Sydney E. McDaniel:Shawn thinks his dad is a basic, slightly smarter than most human being. Sydney wrote a poem about him and his son that won him a Pulitzer Prize. Also, he films a documentary trying to figure out why we teach children who cannot learn.

5. Characters Continued • Cindy McDaniel: Helped teach Shawn how to read when he was 7 years old by playing school with him. Shawn thinks Cindy is a lot like her mom, in that she is very loving and patient toward Shawn’s condition. • Paul McDaniel:Helped save Shawn’s life when two teenagers were going to burn him by beating them up and making them leave. • Mrs. Hare: According to Shawn she is an older teaching lady. She has little reading glass and is nice, patient, a little boring but really caring.

6. Characters Continued • William: A teaching assistant to Mrs. Hare. He is fifty years old, strong, big, and not afraid of his students. • Becky: A teaching assistant to Mrs. Hare. Becky has red hair that is long and soft. • Earl Detraux: He is in jail because he killed his two year old son who was brain damaged. He killed his son to end his pain and agony, which he suffered from every day. • Vonda: Shawn’s respite care provider. She is nice and sometimes impatient with Shawn’s feeding times.

7. Connections • Many students parents are divorced • Most students can relate to knowing someone with a disability whether it being a sibling, friend, or family member

8. Terry Trueman • Has written 7 other books • Sequel to Stuck In Neutral is Life Happens Next • Cruise Control – From Paul’s point of view • Has a son Henry who has cerebral palsy and has been diagnosed as profoundly developmentally disabled

9. Incorporation • I would use this text in a unit about discrimination • Have students read the book independently • Assign a chapter each day to students • Class discussion: about what happened, their reactions, if they think this is realistic, and predicting what is going to happen next • Students will have their own personal journal to reflect on what their reading. They have the option of turning it in but will not be graded.

10. Activities • Split class into ten groups of 3-4 students • Assign a different character to each group • Have students use poster board to make a scrapbook of their character • When finished groups will share their reasoning behind the items on their poster to the class • After posters have been graded they will be displayed throughout the classroom

11. Vision • For students to have a deeper understanding of cerebral palsy • People with disabilities aren’t stupid and are very smart in their own way.

12. Works Cited Trueman, Terry. Stuck in Neutral. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2000. Print.