Resources
RL 3.9
Suggested Text:
 Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco
 Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco
 Babushka’s Doll by Patricia Polacco
 Babushka’s Mother Goose by Patricia Polacco
 Gooney Bird is So Absurd by Lois Lowry
 Poppleton series of books by Cynthia Rylant
 Amos & Boris by William Steig
 The Lighthouse Family: the Storm series by Cynthia Rylant
 Dyamonde Daniel series by Nikki Grimes
 Alvan Ho series by Lenore Look
Suggested Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTOj9ApXs9k
Comparing and Contrasting Series Instructional Video This eSpark Learning video aligns with Common Core Standard RL.3.9: Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters. http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/podcastepisodes/podcast/chapter-book-series-worth-30260.html
Chapter Book Series Worth Starting-*for teachers
Suggested Activities:
 Compare Characteristics - Classroom materials that may be used for independent student center activities to support narrative text structures and elements. See C.002: Compare-a-Character. (Source: Florida Center for
Reading Research)
 Side by Side Stories - Classroom materials that may be used for independent student center activities to support narrative text structures and elements.
See C.010: Side-by-Side stories. (Source: Florida Center for Reading
Research)
Suggested Websites and Apps:
BetterLesson.com-Teacher created lessons aligned with Common Core http://betterlesson.com/lesson/572629/folktales-exploring-the-genre

Resources
RL 3.9 http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/schemabuilding-study-with-996.html
Building Schema -- This lesson plan, designed for grades 2-5, uses two books by
Patricia Polacco with similar themes, Chicken Sunday and Rechenka’s Eggs. The strategies Semantic Impressions and Possible Sentences are used to assist students with vocabulary and comprehension within and across texts. The online Character
Trading Cards tool is included to support students in comparing and contrasting characters in the stories. (Source: Read Write Think, International Reading
Association, NCTE) http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/authortoolkit_rr.pdf
Author Study Toolkit -- The Author Study Toolkit includes a wealth of information on how to plan and implement an author study as well as a list of useful resources. http://www.readingrockets.org/blog/31538
Books in a Series-In this blog post, titled Series Books, Maria Salvadore discusses the benefits of reading books in a series, including increased motivation and exposure to literary patterns. (Source: ReadingRockets) http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/mappingcharacters-across-book-409.html?tab=4&tabs
Mapping Characters -- In this lesson for grades 3-5, students explore character development in a book series. Many online interactive activities, such as the Online
Character Map and Graphic Map, are included in the lesson to support students in their analyses. This lesson can be used with any book series. (Source: Read Write
Think, International Reading Association, NCTE)
Florida Center for Reading Research These activities were designed as small group activities to provide students with additional opportunities to practice skills that were previously instructed. http://ccss3.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=39809&CategoryID=15137
This video version of The Lighthouse Family: The Storm, written by Cynthia Rylant, includes text, narration, and pictures. It is listed on the CoreStandards.org website as suggested reading material for grades 2-3. (06:55) This would also be good to compare characters, plot, and setting in other books of this series (RL.3.9). http://www.teachingbooks.net/crc.cgi?id=5
The website link is a comprehensive list of series books and accompanying online resources. Audio clips of the authors describing their series are included for most of the series on the list. Videos of the author(s), video book trailers, and audio excerpts of books are also included for many titles.