The House of the Scorpion

Letter to Author Nancy Farmer:

Dear Ms. Farmer:

My name is Aimee Rogers. I teach special education English at Cienega High School in Vail, Arizona. My students have a wide range of abilities, both academic and non-academic. The majority of my students are classified as having a specific learning disability and struggle with reading and writing. It is my teaching philosophy that young adults should read young adult literature; this has several benefits for my struggling readers as they can more easily relate to the topics presented in these young adult novels and the writing is more accessible to them.

I chose to read your novel The House of the Scorpion with my Junior Adaptive English classes. I could have not predicted the overwhelming results of this choice. My students immediately became enthralled with Matt and his life as El Patron's clone. As a result of my student's struggles in reading I chose to read your book aloud to them or listen to the audio version of your novel. However, for several students we were not reading fast enough so they asked to take books home to read. One of my toughest students, a football player with a major chip on his shoulder, would enter my classroom every day and ask, "Are we reading today?" because he wanted to get back into Matt's world.

It took us about three-quarters of the school year to read The House of the Scorpion. We completed such assignments as drawing a map of Opium, writing a eulogy for El Patron, and writing and performing scripts of favorite parts of the novel. The student's final assignment was to write you a business letter. The business letter was to include an introduction of him or herself, what he/she enjoyed the most in the novel, and what he/she would like to see in a sequel or movie of the novel. I hope that you enjoy reading these letters from some of your fans.

Thank you for writing novels that present young adults with challenging issues and compelling characters.

Sincerely,

Aimee Rogers
c/o Cienega High School
12775 E. Mary Ann Cleveland Way
Vail, AZ 85641

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