Schema: windy days Personification: The wind takes on human traits and speaks in this tale. Cause and Effect: Because the wind blows the sisters’ cornmeal away, the effect is that Willa is determined to get it back or get something in return. Characterization: Willa is a strong woman character. She can be described as fearless [...]
Anne of Green Gables meets the animal version of Swiss Family Robinson in this coming of age novel that incorporates a realistic plot about a young girl, McKenna, who is passed from foster home to foster home seeking love while trying to find her place in the world. She believes she is related to the [...]
Schema: diesel trucks, Hansel and Gretel Compare and Contrast: Use a graphic organizer such as the Venn Diagram to compare with the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel, by James Marshall. Personification: The truck rigs are given personalities and speak as human characters. Reader’s Theater: This story would lend itself well to a reader’s theater presentation. Students [...]
Schema: sticks, playing with sticks Text-to-Text Connections: Over in the Meadow, an old rhyme about the animals in a meadow; the rhyme goes something like, “over in the meadow in the sand and the sun lived an old mother turtle and her little turtle one…” See the lyrics Also a connection with the Gingerbread Man [...]
Schema: ice from the fridge, icebergs Text-to-text Connections: Gingerbread Man stories, stories where characters are being chased Compare and Contrast: the animals that want to eat or cool off with the ice cube to characters in other versions of the Gingerbread Man. Compare the whale with the fox in the original story. Sequencing: Sequence from [...]
Schema: turtles, desert settings, Grandma’s house looks like a sand dome Text-to-text connection: other retellings of Little Red Riding Hood Predicting: What do you predict the animals will do in order to save the turtles from the coyote? Cause and Effect: Because Tortuga’s friends made the noise at Tortuga’s grandmother’s house, the effect is that [...]
Schema: Three Little other stories, food Text-to-text connection: The Three Little Pigs, Texas town of Laredo, the Spanish terms, Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. Sequencing: In both stories, the events follow a similar sequence, with the third house in each one being the strongest Compare and Contrast: How is the ending of this story [...]
Schema: handmade brooms, fall decorations, define widow Text-to-self connections: fantasy fiction with witches Cause and Effect: Because the witches broom lost its power suddenly, the effect is that the witch falls to the ground and is injured. Because the widow is kind to the witch by giving her a place to heal, the effect is [...]
Schema: visiting pumpkin farms, tricking someone Text-to-self connections: choosing a pumpkin, playing dunking for apples, biting a donut on a string, not wanting to play with a girl if you are a boy Predicting: Why to you predict Andy is hiding from Delores in the pumpkin patch? Maybe he is afraid of her, maybe he [...]
Schema: potatoes Text-to-Self Connections: the one potato two potato rhyme crows, rodeo, roots growing out of the potato Sequencing: counting, seasons Reader’s Theater: The text is simple and could be written into a reader’s theater. Each student could hold a real potato and add some features to it with a marker. Personification: The potatoes take [...]
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