Humanities News

Jo Watson Hackl is the author of Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, which won the Southern Book Prize and is a Publisher’s Weekly bestseller. A first-generation college graduate, Jo has shared with over 17,000 students the story of how writing helped her earn scholarships to attend both college and Yale Law School. Her goal is to use the book to equip students with practical tools to take their writing to the next level, to inspire students about the power of writing to transform their lives, and to help them increase skills that promote grit and resiliency. Jo also believes in the power of exposure to natural elements to support learning. She founded Outdoorosity.org and offers free educator presentations about incorporating nature into the school day to schools she visits. In lieu of an honorarium for author presentations, Jo requests that children in need selected by the host organization receive free copies of the book and she autographs each book with a personal note of encouragement. Working with experienced educators, she and her team have developed the free resources below, available at www.johackl.com/activities: A “Building Grit Kit” to help students increase empathy and promote grit, resiliency, and social and emotional learning; A Writing and Revision Toolkit; An Educator’s Guide and additional lesson plans; A book trailer for readers and a series of “Woods Time Adventures” to encourage engagement with the natural world, available on Jo’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbAUWlJcBM1dicuK82P4d0w; An Activity Guide with activities that can be performed in classroom, home, and community settings; An interactive map with links to the real places that inspired parts of the book; A “hidden objects” search featuring items from the clue trail in the book; Book Club discussion questions & Book Club menu featuring book-inspired recipes; A series of “Cricket Challenges” for readers to extend their reading experience into the real world; Bookmarks with fun, free things to do outdoors and ways to make reading more fun; and An interactive clue trail that readers can solve using things that they learned from the book; Readers who solve the clue trail receive a printable clue solvers badge.