The Day the Crayons Quit- A literacy lesson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcFJIkrNwMo&list=UUYXl7-RbC728R-Tzt_AmpiQ

Above is a link to my first YouTube video! It is of me reading The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book let me provide a brief summary. Duncan is the main character and when he reaches for his box of crayons he finds a large pile of letters.  These letters are from all of his crayons. Some are happy with how they are being used but most are unhappy. In a unique way each crayon writes to Duncan.

This is a level R text, or a great book for third graders. We know it is a level R book because when we compare it to the book Neighborhood Mystery by Ray Ramos from the website www.readinga-z.com we see several similarities including words per page, use of illustrations, and vocabulary level/literary devices.  Neighborhood Mystery has about 80 words per page on average, this is the same as The Day the Crayons Quit.  Furthermore both text use illustrations that are described in the writing but are not essential to understand the plot of the story. By which I mean, pictures alone would not be enough to understand what is happening in the text. The student would need to read to understand.  Both texts also use italics, bold words, and a variety of punctuation marks in the text.  Finally both text use a variety of words that would improve a students vocabulary, for example in The Day the Crayons Quit there are words such as - gorgeous, Humpback Whale,  and brilliantly; whereas  Neighborhood Mystery uses words such as - accidently, violinist, symphony, and eerie.  When you compare these two text, one which (Neighborhood Mystery) we know is leveled R we can see that they are both of similar levels.

This would be an excellent book to use for whole group or small group instruction.  The book is engaging for all students. It is funny, and could be adopted for several smaller lessons, including a variety of writing activities. Such as answering the crayons in a letter back, or writing a letter to your own crayons.

Throughout the video I will stop and model several literacy skills as well as ask several sample questions that could be used. Of course as no students are present I had to pretend that students responded correctly. The type of question and the questions that I asked were: (editor’s note these are the written questions, I was a little nervous while reading and they may not be word for word translations)

1.       Let’s re-read these two sentences. They end with an exclamation point not a period.  How does this change the message of the sentence?-Literal question

2.       Let’s re-read the first sentence. What does the word gorgeous mean? What other words could we use instead o gorgeous? - Vocabulary question 

3.       Look at all these question marks? What should we do when we read a question? How does our voice sound?-Literal question

4.       Based on what the Green Crayon said what do you predict we will hear about on the next two pages?-Inferential or prediction question

5.       Look at the last sentence. Let’s re-read it. What does the phrase splash of color mean?-Vocabulary question

These questions are effective because they involve the text, students cannot simply rely on the picture to answer the questions. They must interact with the text. By stopping and engaging the students we ( as teachers) are drawing the students in.

I hope this video will help you plan out future lessons.