Text-to-Self Connections: many students will identify with one of the seven characters

Text-to-Text Connections: Jessica refers to many great books that she is reading throughout the book. Students will relate to some of the titles. Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars is about a girl and her mentally handicapped brother, Charlie.  In this book, the students form a bond with a special needs class in their school.

The book is written from the point of view of seven different students in Mr. Terupt’s fifth grade class. Mr. Terupt is a first year teacher.  Use the characterization chart for each character to analyze their traits as you read through the book.  I think it would be fun to purchase seven additional copies of the book and let seven students take on the role of each of the seven characters in a reader’s theater. The seven student types are ones that students will connect with such as:

Peter who begins the story and is one who likes to play around;

Jessica, a new girl who is new to the area, whose parents are divorcing because the father found another woman;

Luke, a very intelligent boy, who consistently tries to achieve;

Alexia, a mean and devious girl;

Jeffrey, a quiet boy with a secret about how he had a younger brother who died, even though his parents had him to use his stem cells, and now deals with the depression of his mother;

Danielle, an over weight girl with parents who are extremely conservative;

Anna, a very shy girl whose mother is very young and had her while still a teenager.

Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of a different student.

The book is sequenced by months beginning with September and going through the school year.

Cause and Effect: One of the kids actions has a serious effect on Mr. Terupt, and the second half of the book is devoted to how each student deals with this effect.

Drawing Conclusions: Many opportunities can be found to discuss what conclusions you draw about each of the kids before you find out why they are the way they are from what you learn about their home lives as you read through the book.  The text makes you think about being negative towards kids because of their behaviors and comments before you understand why they are behaving this way.  Students will relate to these circumstances for many perspectives.

Voice: Include “voice” in the characterization of each character.  Their voice reveals their emotions.  Read some of the text aloud and have students tell you whose voice they hear.  Have them write something that sounds like the voice of each character.

Math: Mr. Terupt designs a math game to help students practice addition that Luke uses throughout the story.

This book would be a great example of how we have to make connections in our schema to understand and learn new things.

Personification: Robot Zot feels love for the toy phone.

POV: The story is told from Robot Zot’s point of view, but when he leaves we see the man’s POV as he thinks his dog destroyed everything.

Voice: We hear Robot Zot’s voice in the language and POV.

POV: The narrator is the young girl in the story who tells the story in first person.  The day is hot, and everyone on the farm is hot and lazy except for Dad, then a big thunderstorm begins.

Text-to-Self Connections: Being outside when a storm blows in, feeling the air get cooler; hearing the whole house shake when it thunders; having a dog that gets scared when it thunders

Character Analysis: Dad returns to the rain to rescue their chicken showing his caring nature.  Dad also agrees that they can keep the kitten showing his loving nature.

Mom tells the kids to let the clothes on the line go and get in out of the rain showing that she is caring toward her children.

Cause and Effect:  Because of the storm, the effect is that everyone has to run inside.

Drawing Conclusions: Students will conclude that Maizey is worried about something because she pecks Dad when he is bringing her in and fusses about being in the house.  We might conclude that she is worried about her eggs or a baby chick, but a twist in the story reveals that she was worried about a kitten which they name “Thunder-boomer.”

Sequencing: The family is outside and hot, the wind starts to blow, they run to put up the tractor, get the chickens in the coop, get the clothes off the line, something white blows away, Dad gets Maizey in, Maizey acts unusually fussy, Scooter is scared, they see the underwear outside, it hails,  the rain stops, they let Maizey out and she reveals that she was worried about a kitten.

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.

Text-to-Text Connections:  books with a mischievous fairy or sprite.

The term “hudgin” is not very common so “hobgoblin or sprite” might be a better term to use in explaining what it is.

Text-to-text connection: “glass slipper” for Cinderella, locked in tower-other princess stories such as Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel.  The manner or tone of the princess to Anabel connects with the wicked step-sisters in Cinderella.

Cause and Effect: Because “something” is waking Anabel, the effect is that she is tired, frustrated, and having trouble completing her assignment.

Text-to-self connections: people or things bothering you so much you cannot complete your assignments

Point of View: Anabel’s voice and POV is what we hear.

Drawing Conclusions: What text evidence leads to Mag’s conclusion that there is a Hinky-Pink?

There are many unfamiliar terms used as expressions and several of them refer to different types of pasta.  I found a link that provides a picture of many types.

Some  students may have a text-to-self connection with their favorite pasta or pasta dishes such as Ratatouille,  a vegetable stew with eggplant, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and other seasonal vegetables.

Italian terms:

Noioso: boring and tiresome

Portaspilli means pincushion.

Bellissima means beautiful.

Tarantella:  a dance with a  6/8 beat

References to fabrics and stitches may connect with  some students.

French knot: looping the thread around the needle several times before inserting it back into the same place the thread is coming from on the fabric.  It makes a little knot on top of the fabric.

Goblin Stitch: a special decorative stitch pattern

The setting is Firenze the Italian word for the city of Florence:

The illustrator, Brian Floca, has offered some coloring pages to go with the book. 

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.

Book Talk

Schema: 4th grade, parents fighting, science fair projects, friends moving away

Would you ever think to dig up a dead pet to use its bones for a science fair project?  How about realizing your parents have secretly given a pet away and told you it ran away?  These things support Camille’s realization that life isn’t fair.  Her father tells her this early on, and Camille finds many examples to support it during her fourth grade year.

Camille, a fourth grader, begins her year like a dingo–off to herself  since her best friend moved away to Japan.  She decides that she doesn’t need a friend and will do her own thing.  The title comes from a bad experience in which Camille slips and slides under the bus in her white coat.  Her lunch flies everywhere so she just goes home and gets in bed.  Thanks to a careful bus driver who counts the kids before she drives away, Camille is rescued with only her pride hurt.  The author has a very humorous way of wording things and has created a very strong voice for Camille.

Camille has also had  a bad run with her pets; three cats have disappeared or died.  She really misses one in particular and looks for her often.

Camille’s parents are not happy because of their finances.  Camille’s mother plans a little secret house renovation while her husband is on a business trip; Camille intervenes a wall excavation, but can’t prevent the house being painted purple.   Camille cooperates because her mother also keeps her secret from her father about her working as a mother’s helper and one time babysitter for a neighbor who home schools her wild children and just happens to be babysitting when one of the boys ends up handcuffed to a huge propane fuel tank.  Being a smart girl who knows when she’s beat, 911 is always a solution!

Camille could be your best friend and one that would never let you down.  Her feelings are ones we have all experienced on good days and bad.  If you want to read a book about a girl who struggles at home and school to be the best she can, then you will love this book.

Anne of Green Gable

She runs away from  her latest foster home to stay with a distant relative that she has never met, but while there bonds with  childless Augusta, an older widow woman, whose husband was taken by the sea thirty years earlier. The Prince Edward Island  story begins just after a big storm at sea.   Tango, a small Yorkshire terrier is found tangled in a lobster trap almost frozen.   Tango’s story begins in New England, where is is taken from his mother and sold to a pet shop in Manhattan.  He is bought  by a rich woman, who lives in Manhattan.  He lives a life of luxury and feels very loved.  His owner takes him on a sailboat  which was caught in a storm and Tango is washed overboard and later found frozen and wet in a lobster trap on Prince Edward Island.

Jack, a veterinarian, and Augusta feel a kinship with the lonely McKenna, who has been allowed to live temporarily in a small room  behind her uncle’s house until the end of the summer.  McKenna is allowed to paint the shed-like building and use it as a place to sell candles during the summer tourist season.  Augusta and Jack provide McKenna with the tools and supplies she needs to make candles to sell to the summer tourists.  McKenna had found a recipe for  “enchanted candles” in an old Bible and had wanted to make them to earn enough money to go to Toronto to find the only foster mother that she had loved, but who had moved away saying she was unable to take McKenna with her.

In a parallel fantasy storyline, Tango, Beau fox, and a gang of evil cats are communicating in their own language about turf wars, and general meanness.  Beau, a fox, saw McKenna abandoned as a baby and left alone wrapped in a fishing net  in the marshy brush.   Beau pulls the baby out of the water and closer to the road where she is found by a young woman who cares for her until she is killed in a car accident when McKenna was two.  The uncle that McKenna goes to stay with on Prince Edward Island is not her blood relative but related to her adoptive mother. Uncle Cody is  good man, but does not have the resources or a wife who will allow him to give McKenna a home.   McKenna knows the truth about her true background by looking at her folder during a visit with her social worker, but does not tell her uncle because she needs a place to stay.    Beau  follows McKenna from one home to the next always keeping watch over her.  Beau is all alone in the world too since his mate, Tawny, was run over and killed by the man that was married to the woman who found McKenna wrapped in the fishing net.

Once on the island, Tango does everything he can to find a silver heart that had his I.D. information on it so Augusta will see it and call his owner in Manhattan to come for him.  This involves fighting a rat and battling an evil gang of cats who all have names and talk to each other and the other animals too.  Tango agrees to fight a big white rat to the death of one of them in order to win the prize of his name tag which was found by one of the cats, Nigel called Stumpy, a cat with only three legs.  Nigel is one of the cats in the gang, but he doesn’t fit in with the rest of them.  He goes along to get along.  At the end, the mean cats turn on him and try to make him fight Tango.  Suddenly a huge storm overtakes the cat’s hideout called The Pitiful Place and washes it out to sea.  Just before they are washed away, McKenna  finds Tango and Nigel and rescues them.

Augusta is healing from a fall, and during this time McKenna has taken care of her.  Augusta  realizes that she can risk loving again after all her years of hurt over the loss of her husband.  She has come to love Tango and McKenna.

McKenna tells Augusta about the charm that Tango had in his mouth after fighting the rat just before the storm.  When Beau realizes that Tango, who he was also protecting along with McKenna, is going to be ok, and that McKenna has found someone to love her, he passes on to join his mate, Tawny, who has been calling to him in his old age.  When he dies, it is not sad because he has lived a long and good life.

When Tango is reunited with Augusta after fighting for his i.d. charm, he comes to the realization that he loves Augusta and Mckenna, and he feels he would not like living in an apartment in Manhattan anymore.  He loves his leash-less freedom.   Augusta  goes to sleep with the charm under her pillow to “sleep on it” and will decide whether to call his owner the next day.

This is a wonderful book for all ages, but so special because it is a great story without any curse words making it a solid addition to any young child’s library.  It is assigned a level of 4.8 in the A.R. system.

Point of View:  The story goes back and forth between the voice and POV of  Tango, McKenna, Augusta, and Beau.

Cause and Effect: Because Tango was washed overboard, the effect is he begins a new life on Prince Edward Island.

Synthesis: We can synthesize that introducing love and the feeling of being wanted into a person or animal’s life, makes them both feel contented and settled.

Author,  Eileen Beha, has a teacher’s guide for Tango on her website.