Making Connections Unit
Materials needed for Unit:
The Story of Ruby Bridges Thank You Mr. Falkner Thunder Cake Chicken Sunday
Text to Text Bridge Worksheet Mr. Lincoln’s Way My Rotten Red Headed connections summary frame
Older Brother worksheet
connections summary frame
poster
EQ: What connections can I make to the text?
Activator: Read aloud the book The Story of Ruby Bridges
Teaching: Explain to students what a WOW page is. A WOW page in a book is a page that gives you some kind of
reaction or feeling. It can be a feeling, what you hoped would happen, or remind you of something else. You have to
react to the page. Model marking the page in The Story of Ruby Bridges and discussing how I felt when the girl first
said she could see the invisible being, surprised but not sure if I believed her. He was after all, the Invisible Being, and
Day One
the two sisters had already failed. Model writing WOW and posting it in a page. Give student post its for their boxes
and ask students to mark their wow pages. We will share these tomorrow.
Summary: Students will share a WOW page that they made while reading. Show students how to store their WOW
pages after they have read the ENTIRE book. Open up to the next blank page in the reader’s notebook. Put the date
in the top right like always. At the top left of the page write the title of the book. A piece of tape (show how to tear off
a small piece) may be needed to lay across the post it lengthwise (show them how to do this) so the post it doesn’t fall
out of the notebook.
EQ: What text to self connections can I make?
Activator: Read aloud the book Thank You Mr. Falkner by Polacco
Teaching: Teacher will model the WOW page of when Patricia was struggling to read. Make a personal connection
about how hard it was for me in school with math. Define this as a text to self connection. Connect this back to the
Day Two
idea of a WOW page because some WOW pages are also connections- they remind us of something in our own life.
Create an anchor chart defining a connection as when a piece of text reminds you of something else. Mark example
connections on the anchor chart from the post it notes yesterday.
Summary: Students will share the connections that they made today to previously read books. Students will discuss
how making connections makes them have a deeper understanding of what they have read.
EQ: What text to text connections can I make?
Activator: Read aloud the story Thunder Cake by Polacco
Teaching: Explain to students that these two books really remind me of something. In both books the main character
changes. In Thank You, Mr. Falkner, Trisha couldn’t read and really struggled until Mr. Falkner helped her. In Thunder
Cake the little girl was terrified of thunderstorms until her grandmother helped her. Define this as a text to self
Day Three
connection. Add what a text to text connection is to the anchor chart. Model adding this to the anchor chart. Ask
student to share orally text to text connections and add to chart. Expect surface connections. Have students be
marking any connections on post it notes in their books from book boxes and then taping in reader’s notebooks when
they are done.
Summary: Students will share the connections that they made today to previously read books. Students will discuss
how making connections makes them have a deeper understanding of what they have read.
EQ: What text to text connections can I make?
Activator: Read aloud the story Chicken Sunday by Polacco.
Teaching: Teacher will review book from yesterday that they students are going to connect today's book to. Teacher
Day Four
will have a student use the time signal retelling phrases to retell briefly. Teacher will read today's book and model
thinking aloud some of the connections that she is able to make.
Summary: Students will write their connection on their Post-it and share with class. When complete, students will get a
copy of the bridge worksheet. Students will write the title of the 2 books read over the past 2 days in each of the flags
on the sides of the bridge. Students will write about their connection in the middle (where the bridge is).
EQ: What text to world connections can you make?
Activator: Read aloud the story Mr. Lincoln’s Way by Polacco
Teaching: Teacher will discuss what a text to world connection is and explain that there are a lot of things going on in
Day Five
the world that we can read books about. Discuss a few books (or even hold up and give a brief description of the
book) and tell about the world connections that they talk about. Remind students that a text to world connection is a
connection to something that is happing in the world around us. It could be something on the news like the flooding
we had. Ask student to share orally text to world connections and add to chart. Expect surface connections.
Summary: Students will share their text to world connections..
EQ: What connections can I make to the story?
Activator: Read aloud the story My Rotten Red Headed Older Brother by Polacco.
Teaching: Teacher will model how to write a connections summary frame. Teacher will model this using one of the
connections that she made previously in the week. After modeling, teacher will read aloud a story today that students
Day Six
could make self, text or world connections to.
Summary: Students will fill out connections summary frame and draw a picture at the bottom to go with it. Students
will glue into Reading Journal and teacher will check for assessment. This will be the reading response sheet that is due
at the end of the week.