Connections Text to Self, Text to Text, Text to World

Kids need reminders to connect what they read and write, to themselves, to other text and the world.
Writing about themselves is easy. Ask students to express their feelings about pets or sports they play or family vacations and you'll hear connections immediately.

Making connections to other books, articles or magazines they've read is a bit easier too. If you ask them to connect two characters in different stories they're usually able to do so. I use character personality trait charts for this connection.

From my experiences, teaching writing for many years, the most difficult of all is making connections to the world. I usually model this connection by selecting a short story or book we've read, as a whole group, and have them think of the problems that had to be solved.

An example I use is the novel Hoot and the middle school kids who decide to fight "city hall" because construction at a restaurant is going to endanger some burrowing owls on the property. I ask if anyone knows what endangered means and if they've read any books about endangered animals and the problems they face. As we brainstorm for connections, I record their responses for everyone to see.

As a culminating activity, we write a good solid paragraph together explaining the connections of two problems from two sources.

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Trifold Book Report

I'm always thinking of new ideas for book reports, so the kids can have fun yet demonstrate to me that they understand strategies and skills. I also love giving kids choices. 


I remember doing book reports when I was in elementary school and it was always the same. No creativity. Nothing fun. We never had choices of what we could do. Write a book report for the book you're reading. That was it! BLAH!


When I became a teacher, I told everyone that I would NEVER teach like some of the teachers I had. I'm from a very musical and artistic family so I was always creating something new and different. Playing the piano, writing miniature symphonies when I was ten, poetry, pen and ink drawings, designing terrariums for the salamanders I caught, knitting... just to name a few. 


Not all of my teachers were like that, though. I had one very special high school English teacher who rocked my world! He taught us grammar by using lyrics to songs. He got us out of our seats and we could have rocked and rolled 'til the sun went down! When I run into him, I always tell him that he inspired me to become a teacher. He beams! So do I!!


My trifold book report can be done using any fiction book. There are three trifold pages and a "bonus" page with all kinds of activities that the kids can choose from in order to earn bonus points.  Have a share day so that all of your students can read their friends' reports, then put them on display! It's also a great way to expose kids to new titles that they might want to read!