Author’s purpose: to share African American history

Author’s Point of View: 3rd person omniscient as we see the story from more than one character’s point of view

Cause and Effect: Because Henry’s family was sold, the effect was that Henry went to the extreme of mailing himself to escape the sorrow of slavery.

Characterize Henry: hard working, good listener, loving, strong

Mental Images: Henry imagined the carts carrying away his family and all that he loved every night.

Drawing Conclusions: Henry knew that the mail was delivered everywhere. He thought he could stand being in a box for many hours. He drew the conclusion that he could mail himself north to escape slavery.

After Henry’s family is sold, he purposefully pours sulphuric acid on his hand so that he could stay home from work in order to get some help in mailing himself to the northern states to escape slavery in the southern United States.

Text-to-text:  Freedom on the Menu: the Greensboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford

Metaphor: The story uses an extended metaphor to compare the Civil Rights movement to a recipe throughout the story.

Author’s Purpose: to share a story about the civil rights movement and to teach us about African American history

Author’s POV: 3rd person

Cause and Effect: Because the demonstrators were nonviolent, the effect was that the national news only captured the violence of the angry white people which made Dr. King’s message even stronger.

Mental Images: Imagine having salt, ketchup, and coffee poured on your head and pepper thrown in your eyes and still sitting calmly

Organizational Strategies: the story is organized like a poem

This is the story of the four college men who began the Woolworth sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, February 1, 1960. The author shares a story in language and illustrations that tell what happened with a positive point of view and a message of hope for the future. The metaphor of a recipe is used to mix the ingredients needed to end segregation. 

The goose man is Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian born doctor who devoted his life to the study of ethology, an animal behavior involving instinct. This focus of this book is on the his work about geese and how they communicate with different types of honks and how they imprint on the first living creature they see.  Konrad learned how to imitate the goose honks to communicate with them. He had several pets throughout his life, and he won the Nobel Peace Price in 1973. The lively illustrations and amount of text on the page makes this book a very interesting read aloud that students will enjoy.

Author’s purpose: to share information about a famous scientist

Cause and Effect: Because Konrad was the first creature the baby goose saw, the effect is that the goose imprinted on him.

Drawing Conclusions: What conclusions does Konrad draw from observing the geese?

Mental Image: Several remarks are made in the book about the mess the animals made in the house.  Can you make a mental image of what a mess a monkey or a goose inside the house would make?

Text-to-Self Connection: mind runs free, letting our imaginations run wild

Text-to-Text Connection: Both books are about kids who are outside at night with a full moon.

Compare and Contrast:

Similarities:  In both books the kids are out after dark, and in both, they are a little afraid of the dark, the full moon, and the night sounds.   Both books feature the oooo sound of an owl or the wind.  Both books refer to the  moon as an eye.

Differences: Ghost Eye is about a boy and his big sister.  Night in the Barn is about brothers and a cousin, all  boys and a dog.  In Ghost Eye the mother sends the kids on the errand.  In Night in the Barn, the boys think up the challenge themselves.

Author’s purpose: to create a connection with a scared feeling when in the dark at night and showing how the imagination can run away with itself.

Mental Images: The image of the “mind running free” in Ghost Eye, imagining scary things in Night in the Barn when the dog comes in at the end,  imagining the bare tree, the full moon, the owl’s eyes, the cat’s eyes

Inference: What makes you infer that the big sister loves her little brother more than she lets on  in The Ghost-Eye Tree?

Sequencing: Both stories can be sequenced with the events leading up to feeling safe again at the end.

Setting: a pond and surrounding area

Characters: a tadpole who grows into a frog and a minnow

Mental Images: What a perfect book for showing students how to make a mental image. Frog describes the above water world to his friend,  fish, a minnow.  Minnow tries to visualize what cows, people, and birds look like from frog’s description. Leo Lionni’s illustrations make practicing a mental image fun.  Minnow does not have any of the above water creatures in his schema, so he has to connect what frog is telling him to what he does have, fish; therefore, every creature he imagines has a fish body with the extra features of birds, cows, and people.

This is a great book to introduce making a connection in your schema and  mental imaging to young readers.

Questions to activate background knowledge:

Can you think of another time in history where a group of people have been treated unfairly because of the color of their skin?

Can you imagine being taken away from your family because of your ethnicity?

Why is the title so far from the sea when it looks like the sea behind them?

Why does the woman have spring flowers in the winter time?

Have you ever heard of World War II?

Who was locked up and killed during that war?

What is a spy?

Point of View: Who is telling the story?

Text-to-Self Connections: going somewhere that makes you feel nervous, making emotional connections

Inference: I am inferring that it is winter because they are putting on their jackets.  The wind is cold from the Sierra.

Setting: 1942, popular song: Don’t Fence Me In

Drawing Conclusions: Look at the location of Manzanar and draw a conclusion about why the author made the title “So Far from the Sea”

Mental Images: the field bigger than a football field, seeing it empty like erasing a blackboard, imagining he could climb on the mountain’s back and it would become a big eagle to fly him away, boat( a real American scout sail)  moving on as a way to say his grandfather had moved on, and so were they

Cause and Effect: Because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States, the effect is “the U.S. was suddenly at war”

Metaphor: What could the author mean when he says the grandfather began dying the moment he was put on the bus and taken to Manzanar?  The author is comparing dying to being taken so far from the sea and losing his boat and freedom.

Metaphor: What is “moving on” a metaphor for as the family leaves the cemetery? a boat moving on, the family moving on to Boston, the family moving on and letting the hurt of the grandfather’s mistreatment go

Organizational Strategies: What did you notice about the way the illustrator organized the illustrations with the color pages and the sepia no color ones?  What is he trying to show? Can you think of any other text-to-text connections that show a shift in time?

Compare and Contrast: The way the camp looks before and after the war.

Text-to-Text Connection: Tree of Cranes by Alan Say is set in Japan and a mother is telling her son what Christmas was like in America when she was a child.

Synthesis: Can you think of other groups of people who are thought of as suspicious because of their heritage in our present day time or in the past?–Jewish people during WWII, slavery in the U.S., today’s airport security with certain names, appearances, the Muslim religion, the controversy in NYC about the Mosque being built near the 9/11 site?

Synthesis: Can you think of a time when you had to “move on” and let something go that has hurt you?

Before beginning, read the guide produced by the publisher which provides a background for understanding:

Author’s purpose: The author takes us into the world of a refugee and helps refugee’s to see that they are not alone.

POV: The story is told from Kek’s point of view.

Voice: We hear Kek’s voice throughout the story as we experience his situations from his POV.

Text-to-Text Connections: 14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy

Drawing Conclusions: We quickly draw the conclusion that Kek is new to the United States.  What text evidence leads you to this conclusion?

Mental Images: The reader is forced to make a mental image of Kek’s description in order to follow his thoughts.

He describes common things in unique ways without using the common name for it such as the flying boat for the airplane.

Characterization: Use the Describing Wheel to list Kek’s traits: Eleven years old, maybe an orphan, afraid, sad, brave

Symbolism: How is the title a symbol for the way Kek thinks of America?

Note about an African custom from Alan Cohen’s “Eyes on Africa” page on Facebook

Schema: cows, feeling sorrow for someone’s pain

Text-to-self connection: remembering or hearing about September 11, 2001;  being kind to others; feeling the emotion of something being “sweet and sad” because it can not be lasting for long

Background information: The Maasai people believe that ownership of cattle represents well-being and wealth.  To own a large heard is something to strive towards.

Author’s purpose: to share the Maasai values and compassion toward America and to encourage others to be practice ‘Ubuntu.”

Cause and Effect: Because the U.S. was attacked on 9-11-01, the effect is that Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah wanted to do something to help with the sorrow and ended up making the cow donation as a symbol of  Ubuntu.

POV:  The people of Maasai;  Think of the African people listening to the story of how the city was attacked.  They are trying to make mental images of buildings that touch the sky and fires melting iron.

Voice: We hear the voice of Kimeli in the story.

Symbolism: cows symbolizes life

Synthesis: The Maasai leaders synthesize that to make the U. S. feel better, they must be humane and give something from their hearts to the U. S.  The U. S. diplomat synthesizes the great sacrifice of the Maasai to give this many cows and it moves him to tears.

Read the note at the back of the book so the students can understand the problem better before you begin the book.

Text-to-self connections: doing a project with a sibling, feeling sorry for the birds, seeing problems that wild birds cause

What city animals help keep the balance of nature in our area?  Some insects and birds eat mosquitoes, coyotes eat rats, and ladybugs eat aphids that harm our roses

Text-to-Text Connection: Trout Are Made of Trees by April Pulley Sayre

Organizational Strategies: the cycle of the story begins and ends with Ming-Li as a wise one about  farming.

Mental Images: “Scratching at her thoughts like a monkey.”

Cause and Effect: Because the sparrows were eating the grain from the fields, the effect is that the rulers want to scare the sparrows away.

Because Ming-Li felt so much empathy for the sparrows, the effect is that she rescued some of them.

Because the food chain is broken with the absence of the birds, the effect is that the locust, worms,  weevil, and grasshopper  population grew and devoured the crops even more than the sparrows did.

Voice: Ming-Li’s voice is the strongest one in the book.

POV:  The story is told from Ming-Li’s POV.

Author’s purpose: Historical fiction is a way to teach history in a way that readers can relate in a personal way to the events of the period in history.  The characters make the story more passionate.

Text-to-Self connections: helping mother, wishing to be older

Sequencing: The book begins when Ana is 6, and she goes through each part of the book with her age increasing.

Math: numbers are added by 2′s throughout the story

Mental Images: The story provides some good examples of images that young students can practice making such as: riding a bike without training wheels; the steps of making tamales

Cause and Effect: Because of being more mature at each age, the effect is that Ana will be able to do more responsible things.

Compare and Contrast: Compare what Ana can do now with what she can do as she gets older.

Synthesis: Can you synthesize from what you like now, what you think you will be doing when you are twenty?