This unit based on Ann M. Martin's A Dog's Life challenges students to create stories from a first- or third-person point of view, make plot decisions, and examine the author's writing process.
Grades
3–5
Duration
7 DAYS
Ann M. Martin takes readers on a journey with Squirrel through the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of the stray dog's life. Creatively told from Squirrel's perspective, A Dog's Life gives readers an inside view of the kind of life a homeless dog might experience and helps raise awareness of the responsibilities of pet ownership. The interactive elements of the A Dog's Life Flashlight Readers activity and the lessons in this teaching guide challenge students to create stories from a first- or third-person point of view, make decisions to drive the plot of a story, and examine the author's writing process in order to apply some of her techniques to their own writing.
Students will:
Students will use the Flashlight Readers activity to choose characters and settings and use them to create scenes for a story. Students will use an outline to organize events into sequence then write stories from the first-person or third-person perspective.
Students read the chapter entitled "Throwaways" from A Dog's Life, and put themselves in the character Bone's place. After a discussion about plot, students will use the online activity to explore what could have happened to Bone, a secondary character in the novel.
Features a lesson plan in which students learn about author Ann M. Martin's writing process for the book, A Dog's Life. Students then use the author's model to inspire their own writing.
Ignite your students' love of reading with an Ann M. Martin Author Study and introduce them to the tween-pleasing The Baby-sitters Club and Main Street series, plus her stand-alone novels including A Dog's Life, and the Newbery Honor-winning A Corner of the Universe.
