TEXT-TEXT CONNECTIONS WITH OLIVER BUTTON AND WILLIAM’S DOLL
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“Good Reader” Strategy: Good readers make connections, compare and contrast characters, plots,
conflicts, etc in order to dig deeper into the stories they are reading.
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Mini-Lesson Inspired by: Reading with Meaning, chapter 7 and Harvey Daniels book excerpt
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State Standard(s): R1-S2C1-PO2: Describe characters (e.g., traits, roles, similarities) within a literary
selection, heard or read.
Materials:
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o Oliver Button Is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola
o William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolotow
o Student’s individual notebook
o Classroom Whiteboard & marker
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Procedure:
1. Introduce Oliver Button Is a Sissy that I will be reading aloud today. Talk about Oliver Button
and how he enjoys dancing. His classmates make fun of him because dancing it is not a boy’s
activity. Explain how it in William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolotow (which I read aloud in class
yesterday) William is made fun of because he wants to play with a doll and that is not a typical
boys activity. Talk to the students about how we need to be accepting of others and their hobbies.
Everyone is different and we cannot judge or make fun of others.
2. Read Oliver Button Is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola.
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On page 1, ask the students if they know what sissy means.
On page 8, ask students how they feel if they have ever been the last chosen to play a game.
On page 16, have you ever seen someone make fun of someone or have you ever been made
fun of? What can we do if we see bullying?
At the end of the book, why do you think Oliver is a star? Also, if you were being made fun
of something you enjoyed doing, would you stop or continue?
3. Have students take a few minutes to think about what they learned about the main character
Oliver.
4. Ask your students to take their notebooks out. Turn to the page where we made a list together
about William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolotow yesterday in class after I read the book to the class.
5. Show the two books Oliver Button Is a Sissy and William’s Doll. Explain how there can be
connections between books. Students can compare characters, authors, strategies, plots, issues
and types of text. We want to understand characters, conflict or solution better. One important
first step of digging deeper is to make connections or comparisons to other books we have read.
6. Introduce Venn diagram to the class. A Venn diagram is a wonderful way to compare and
contrast two things and clearly show the similarities which are in the center and the differences
on the left and right. Explain how this is a great strategy that they can use when wanting to
compare two things to see what they have in common and how they are different
7. Draw a Venn diagram on the board. Talk about with the students that in a book club, we are
digging deeper to explore about a book. Name one circle “apple” and one circle “orange.” Say
what do apples and oranges have in common? You would put that in the center circle. Then you
would say describe an apple and list the descriptors in the left circle. Next, ask the class to
describe an orange and list the descriptors in the right circle. Have them copy this Venn diagram
in their notebook in order to refer back to. You would explain how you could do this for two
books or two characters.
8. On a new page in their notebook, tell them to draw two circles just like we did when we
compared apples and oranges. Instead of having them write apples and oranges, tell them to
write the Oliver on the left circle and William on the right circle.
9. Have them fill out Venn diagram.
10. Share Venn Diagrams with classmates in book club. Discuss the similarities and differences
between Oliver and William. They are allowed to modify their Venn Diagrams while discussing
with their book club. Remember to dig deep to really compare and contrast.
Comprehension Strategy Mini-Lesson: Visualization with “Messy Room”
 “Good Reader” Strategy: Proficient readers use images to draw conclusions, create unique interpretations of the text,
recall details significant to the text, and recall a text after it has been read.
 Inspired by: Reading with Meaning chapter 6 (Creating Mental Images)
 State Standard(s):
-R2:S2:C1:PO. 1: Describe literary elements of text including characters, plot (specific events, problem and solution), and
setting.
-R2:S2:C1: PO. 5: Identify words that the author selects in a literary section to create a graphic visual experience.
 Materials:
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Poem Title: “Messy Room” Author: Shel Silverstein
Blank paper (for students’ drawings)
Pencils
Crayons, markers, colored pencils
Easel with paper (poem written on it)
 Procedure:
1. Since the students will already have some background knowledge on how to develop mental images, the
introduction will not have to explain the concept of mental images too in-depth. To introduce the poem and
concept say something along these lines:
“Has anyone ever had a messy room? What made your room messy? Did you get in trouble for the mess? I am
going to read you a poem by Shel Silverstein that describes a messy room. When I read you the poem, I want
you to use what you have been taught about making mental images, to create a visualization of the messy room
described in Shel Silverstein’s poem. Remember that mental images are created in your head, and that your
mental image is unique; no one else will have the same image.”
2. Without students seeing the words or pictures to the poem, read Shel Silverstein’s poem “Messy Room.”
“Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or-Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!”
3. Read the poem through one more time slowly so students are given another chance to shape their image.
4. Ask the students which words they hear read to them that help them create their visualization [jammed,
wedged, carelessly, stuck, etc.].
5. Ask the students if they need the poem read one more time, or if they all have a clear mental image of the
messy room.
6. When all students have a clear mental image, have them go back to their seats.
7. Explain to the students that they will now draw out the mental image they have in their heads of the messy
room Shel Silverstein has described in his poem. Remind them that their image does not have to look like
anyone else’s and that it in fact should not look like anyone else’s exactly. Mental images are unique to the
person creating them.
8. Pass out a blank sheet of copy paper.
9. Pass out crayons, markers, or colored pencils for the students to create their image with.
10. Give the students about 15 minutes to draw their pictures.
11. Once the allotted 15 minutes is up, have the students gather back onto the mat with their mental image
drawings.
12. Have volunteers show their mental images and explain how they developed them.
13. Close the mini-lesson by showing the class the words to the poem and the picture that correlates to the poem.
 Assessment:
-The students drawings of what they invisioned while the poem was read can be used as an assessment. If a student
understands the material, their room will uniquely correlate to the words/description provided in the poem.
Inferring Word Meanings with Where Are You Going, Manyoni?
 “Good Reader” Strategy: Readers infer the meaning of unknown words by using their schema, paying attention to
textual and picture clues, rereading, and engaging in conversation with others.
 Inspired by: Reading With Meaning Chapter 8 Inferring
 State Standard(s):
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R1-S1C4-PO2: Use context to determine the relevant meaning of a word
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R1-S1C4-PO5: Determine the meanings, pronunciations, syllabication, synonyms, antonyms, and parts of
speech of words by using a variety of reference aids, including dictionaries, thesauri, glossaries, and CDROM and Internet when available.
 Materials:
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Book Title: Where Are You Going, Manyoni? Author: Catherine Stock
Glossary in the book
Talking sticks
Chart paper
Dictionary
Computer
 Procedure:
1. Open the lesson by having all of the students come sit down on the floor where you do your read alouds. Lead a short
class discussion reviewing what you have learned about inferring as a class. Key points you want them to come up with
in this discussion are that good readers use their schema and clues in the text to draw conclusions and make unique
interpretations about the text, good readers know that when answers are not explicitly stated in the text they need to
infer their answers, and good readers engage in meaningful conversation about the text to deepen their experience.
2. Next say, “Now that you are all experts at inferring we can learn one more way good readers use inferring. Good
readers also use inferring to determine the meanings of unknown words in a story by using textual clues. I am going to
read you a story now and we are going to try our new good reader skill of using inferring to determine the meaning of
unknown words in the story. There might be a lot of words in this story we have never heard of before, but if we pay
attention to the clues in the text and use our schema we can infer their meanings.”
3. Read the story “Where Are You Going, Manyoni?” aloud to the students. The little girl in the story will walk past many
things that have unfamiliar names on her way to school. One of the first things she passes is a baobab tree. Stop on this
page to model inferring the meaning of a word for the students. Use the thinking aloud strategy so the students can see
how you infer the meaning of the word based on textual clues and schema. Say something along the lines of, “I have
never heard the word baobab before, I better reread this page and see if it says anything that might give me a clue
about what that word might mean.” Reread the page and then point out textual and picture clues to the class like the
words great and gray. Then look at the picture and point to the big gray tree and say, “This tree is big and gray so I am
inferring that this is the baobab tree.” Ask the students what they noticed you doing when you were making your
inference about the baobab tree. They should notice that you were rereading, looking at the picture, paying attention
to the words, using your schema, and taking your time to think about it.
4. Pin up a piece of chart paper on the easel and label it Inferring the Meaning of Words in “Where Are You Going,
Manyoni?” Underneath make a chart with three columns. The three columns should be labeled word, what we infer it
means, and what helped us. Put the example that you modeled up first with baobab as the word, a big gray tree as the
inferred meaning, and schema, pictures, text clues as what helped us.
5. Then say, “Okay now it is your turn. As I read aloud when you hear a word you don’t know I want you to raise your
talking stick up into the air. When I call on you I would like you to share the word you do not know and we will infer the
meaning of it as a class just like we did for the baobab tree.”
6. Read the rest of the story aloud stopping each time someone has an unknown word. Record everyone’s thinking on
the chart for each word you come to. Words that will likely be included are forages, pan, kloof, krantz, Matsheloni,
Limpopo, bushpig, Zimbabwe, malala palms, kingfishers, and koppies. Some of the words are very easy to infer their
meaning (kloof is ravine, koppies is boulders, krantz is cliffs) and other are a little more difficult to infer.
7. After you finish reading the story and have recorded the class’s inferences about all of the unknown words get a
different colored pen. Tell the class, “Remember when we learned about making predictions and how it is important to
confirm or correct our predictions as we go along in a story? It is important when we are inferring about words too!
Now that we have inferred the meaning of all of the unknown words in the story we can go through and see if we can
confirm them or if we need to correct them. There are many different resources we could use. Can anyone think of
one?” Allow the students to come up with a few. Then say, “Today we are lucky because this is a special book. This
book comes with a glossary at the end that includes many of the words we inferred the meanings of. We will use this
glossary to confirm or correct our inferences.”
8. Go through the glossary and look for the words on the chart. If the inference on the chart matches the definition in
the glossary you can put a star or a smiley face on the chart so the students can see their inference was correct. If the
inference and the definition do not match up, write the correct definition and then go back to the page of the story the
word was on and talk about it again to see how the definition makes sense in the context of the story.
9. End the lesson with a class discussion about inferring the meaning of unknown words. Ask the students what they
have learned about inferring today. Talk about how the students might use inferring the meaning of words in their own
independent reading, if and when inferring the meaning of unknown words could be used outside of reading, and why it
is important to confirm or correct your inferences. End by suggesting that next time the students are reading and they
come across a word they do not know, give their new strategy of inferring the meaning of an unknown word a try.
 Assessment:
-While you are reading aloud and students are participating in the group think aloud filling out the chart you can assess
whether or not they are grasping the concept if they can fill in the ‘what helped us’ column on the chart. If they can fill
that column in with things like schema, picture clues, text clues, etc you can see that they are correctly using the
inferring strategy.
-One way to provide ongoing assessment of the strategy of inferring would be to have the students record
their inferences in their reading notebook while they do their independent reading in a similar chart.
Making Predictions with My Lucky Day
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“Good Reader” Strategy: Readers make predictions about text and confirm or contradict their
predictions as they read on.
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State Standard(s): R3-S1C6-PO2: Compare a prediction about an action or event to what actually
occurred within a text.
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Materials
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My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza with post-its on pages specified (pauses to predict)
Paper
Pencils
Art Supplies
Area to act in
Prediction Sheet
Chart Paper
Procedure
1. Show the cover of the book and read the title. The title of this book is My Lucky Day but if you look
closely at the cover, it shows a pig interacting with a fox. Whose lucky day do you think it is?
Sometimes we can use clues to predict what is going to happen in a story. I want everyone to pay
careful attention to the words, pictures, and their past experiences to think about what is going to
happen.
2.
Start reading the book. Stop reading on the third page, the page ends in “He grabbed the piglet and
hauled him inside.” Tell students, We are going to get into groups and see if we can think about
what is going to happen next. Not only are we going to predict or infer about what is going to
happen next, we are going to tell the reasons why we think it might happen.
3. Put students into about groups of 4. Hand out the sheet that is attached. Have students complete the
sheet as a group. Versus having groups just “tell” their prediction, students are going to “show” their
predictions. The groups, one at a time, will act out what they think is going to happen. All member of
the group must be in the presentation (explain that people can be doors, tables, objects, or other animals
or additional characters that they think might enter, but one student will have to be the pig and another
the fox). After a group presents, they will share their thinking, and then the next group will present.
4. Continue reading the rest of the book. Since the book ends in a twist, as a class talk about how the
predictions compare to what actually happened. Can use chart paper or a compare/contrast graph so
students can visually see the difference between what happened and predictions. (This activity can be
used as a class assessment).
5. So the book ends with the pig going to the Bear’s house. Does someone have a inference of what
might happen next? Why do you think that? Have a couple of students state their predictions. So
you can see that we can use what we have previously read, what we have seen, what we know to
infer what might happen in a story even though it might not say so in the story.