The Day Eddie Met the Author

Eddie is anxiously awaiting a favorite author's visit to his school. Eddie has been reading the author's books and wants to know how a writer can write parts meant just for the reader, so his teacher encourages to save his questions to share with the author. As the class prepares for the visit, students come up with questions to ask during the question-answer sessions.

I've used this book to talk to students about how to write meaningful personal stories. How many stories have you read that are "bed-to-bed" stories? This book coupled with what Ralph Fletcher calls "small moments," can help kids to zero in their writing to expand a meaningful event and end up with a piece that matters.

Before starting to read, we briefly got ideas from the group about what it meant “to write a meaningful story.” Students were asked to listen for what tips the author gave to being a good writer. After completing the story, we created an anchor chart to help them as they worked on personal narratives. Students, then, created a list of topics and met in pairs to share their top three choices. Partners were asked to give input on which story they could connect with the best and why.

It is also a story that helps teach questioning. The idea of “Thick and Thin Questions” was introduced. As a group we sorted the questions from the book and brainstormed some questions readers could ask before, during, and after they read.

A Sense of Place

Where I Live by Frances Wolfe is one of those stories I share with kids often. The short text is full with wonderful language that describes this place without mentioning where it is until the very last page. The language is great to show students that authors not only use adjectives to describe, showing the importance of using vivid verbs and specific nouns.

When I share this book, I don't show the pictures. Yes, my students hate it...but I love it! I ask students to listen for words that really describe the place for them and they jot them on sticky notes as I read. By the end of the story all the students know where this place is without me reading the last page. It is then they get to see the pictures.

We create a chart where we sort the words they jotted into nouns/verbs/adjectives. Then they are challenged to describe a place so well, that others can guess it. As they finish, they share with the class. If after 2 guesses the class doesn't guess correctly, the writer has to go back to revise using more specific nouns, vivid verbs, or lucious adjectives. Those who have written well enough for the class to guess become the helpers to those who need to add more.

Reading IS Thinking

It never ceases to amaze me how similar upper grade students are to lower grade students. Just like young students, most 4th and 5th grade students love being read to, and still enjoy having a picture book read aloud. Pair that with a cut-and-paste activity and, suddenly, you have everyone hooked in.


To get students thinking as they read, try doing a word sort. Prior to reading aloud, choose words from the story for students to cut out for sorting. Either make a sorting mat to copy, or have students draw it in their reading notebooks. All they need is to divide the paper into 4 boxes and label each box: Setting/Characters/Problem/Solution.


Before starting to read, show them the book and title. Students predict by sorting the words into the set categories. As you read aloud, make stops throughout the story for students to make changes to their original sort and talk to a partner about why they are making changes. Ask for some volunteers to share their new thinking and continue reading the story. When the story is finished, students can make final changes and glue their words down. They, also, need to write a response to the book discussing how their thinking changed.


Dandelions by Eve Bunting is a book I've used because it ties in to our 5th grade's study of western expansion. These are the words for the sort: WELL, WATER, WAGON, KNEE-HIGH GRASS, MAMA, PAPA, ZOE, SISTER, NEW BABY, TRANSPLANTED, DANDELIONS, FORKED TREE LIMB, BEETLES, FLAT LAND, ROCK PILE.

Try it and see how it works for you.