Text Type: Nonfiction/Descriptive
Page Count: 20
Word Count: 848

Book Summary
Bright yellow stars twirling in a navy blue sky. A sunny green meadow during a summer afternoon. Golden sunflowers arranged in a bouquet. These are just some examples of the more than 2,000 works that artist Vincent Van Gogh created during his lifetime based on his surroundings. Vincent's Bedroom is an introduction to the life and work of Van Gogh. Readers will learn about how incent's personality and lifestyle influenced his style of painting. Vivid color photographs of Van Gogh's most famous works, particularly The Bedroom Series, are included throughout the book.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Visualize

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text
• Analyze author's purpose in the text
• Identify and understand the use of adjectives
• Understand the use of the -ed suffix

Materials

• Book -- Vincent's Bedroom (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Visualize, adjectives, suffix -ed worksheets
• Discussion cards

     Indicates an opportunity for students to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reused.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: churned, content, despair, encouraged, glistened, haven, moods, museum, sketches, studio, style, versions

Build Background

• Show students a reproduction of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Ask whether they have ever seen this painting before. Ask them to share which medium it appears to be created with (oils, pastels, and so on).
• Explain that the painting was created by the artist Vincent Van Gogh. Ask students to share what they already know about paintings and Van Gogh. Point out that Vincent was a man of many strong feelings. Invite students to examine the painting again and tell what Vincent might have felt at the time he created it.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students their copy of the book. Guide them to the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers. Encourage them to offer ideas as to what type of book it is and what it might be about.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).
• Ask students to turn to the table of contents. Remind them that the table of contents provides an overview of what the book is about. Ask students what they expect to read about in the book based on what they see in the table of contents. (Accepts all answers that students can justify.)

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good readers often visualize, or create pictures in their mind, while reading. Visualizing is based on what a person already knows about a topic and the words the author uses. Explain that one way to visualize is to draw a picture.
• Read page 4 aloud to students. Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: Whenever I read a book, I always pause after a few pages to create a picture in my mind of the information I've read. This helps me organize the important information and understand the ideas in the book. For example, when I read the words sunlight glistened over the yellow wheat, I pictured a clear sky on a sunny day and the sunlight shining on fields of wheat, making them appear a rich, golden color.
• Reread page 4 aloud to students. Ask them to describe the pictures they see in their mind after listening to the words. Write their descriptions on the board.
• Point out to students that even though their mental pictures about the page may not be the same, they were each able to create a picture in their mind.
• Introduce and explain the visualize worksheet. Have students draw in the first box what they visualized when they heard page 4 read aloud.
• As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Comprehension Skill: Author's purpose

• Write the following terms on the board: inform, entertain, persuade. Invite students to share what they already know about the meaning of each word.
• Define each word for students and write the definitions on the board (inform: to give someone information about something; entertain: to amuse someone; persuade: to try to make someone think the same way you do).
• Ask students whether they can think of an example of each of these purposes from their recent reading. If needed, give examples, such as a fable, a social studies or science book passage, and an advertisement.
• Think-aloud: Authors write for different reasons. Some write to provide facts about something. For example, a passage from the social studies book might provide me with information about ________. Advertisements use words and pictures to persuade people to buy things. Sometimes authors intend more than one purpose for their writing. A fable entertains readers with a story. However, the author also uses the story to provide readers with a moral, or lesson, at the end.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Write the following words from the content vocabulary on the board: content, despair, moods.
• Give pairs or groups of students several pieces of blank paper. For each word, have them write or draw what they know about the word. Have groups discuss and create a definition for each word using their pictures and prior knowledge.
• Review or explain that the glossary and a dictionary contain a list of vocabulary words and their definitions.
• Model how students can use the glossary or a dictionary to find a word's meaning. Have students locate the glossary at the back of the book. Invite a volunteer to read the definition for moods in the glossary. Have students compare the definition with their prior knowledge of the word.
• Have students follow along on page 7 as you read the sentence in which the word moods is found to confirm the meaning of the word. Point out that a person's moods relate to the way he or she is feeling. Repeat this process with the remaining vocabulary words.
• Review with students that Vincent was a man of many strong feelings. Have students preview the paintings in the book. Discuss with them which mood (content, despair) Vincent may have experienced while creating each piece of art. Have them explain their thinking.
• For tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read to find out about Vincent Van Gogh, stopping after each section to mentally visualize what they read and to reflect on the author's purpose.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read pages 5 through 7. Encourage those who finish early to go back and reread. Have students draw on their worksheet what they visualized as they read.
• Model visualizing.
  Think-aloud: When I read the words the sky felt alive to him on page 6, I pictured a night sky full of activity. I pictured the twinkling lights of the stars dotting the darkness. I pictured clouds moving slowly across the moon, shadowing its light. Creating a picture in my mind helps me to experience and enjoy the information in a book.
• Invite students to share the visualization they drew. Ask them to tell how their visualization helped them better enjoy the book.
• Review the information so far in the book. Discuss what might be the author's purpose for writing the book. Write the examples on the board as students share them. (For example: the story entertains readers through the descriptions of the settings Vincent used as a basis for his paintings; the story informs readers by providing information about Vincent's personality and style of painting.)
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 13. Ask them to draw on their worksheet what they visualized as they read.
• Ask students to share what they visualized and how this helped them better enjoy the story. Invite them to share which words in the text helped them create the picture(s) in their mind.
• Review the information in the sections titled "A Comforting Bedroom" and "The Bedroom Series." Discuss how the information in these sections supports one or more of the three purposes for writing.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to stop after every few pages and visualize what they read. Invite them to draw more sketches on their visualize worksheet as they read.

      Have students make a question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. Encourage them to use the strategies they have learned to read each word and figure out its meaning.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Have students share any other sketches they made while reading. Ask how using the strategy of visualization helped them understand and enjoy what they read.
• Think-aloud: When I read on page 19 how Vincent loved the colors of the sky, butter, wheat, and light from the sun, I pictured an artist's palette with light and dark blues, creamy yellows, rich browns, and golden oranges.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the visualize worksheet. If time allows, have them share and explain their pictures when finished.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Review the three reasons why authors write (to inform, entertain, or persuade). Ask students what they think the author's purpose was for writing this book (to inform).
• Independent practice: Have students choose which purpose they believe to be the author's main intent for this book. Have them write a paragraph on a separate piece of paper to explain their thinking, using examples from the book to support their idea. As time allows, meet with students individually to discuss their paragraph.
• Enduring understanding: In this story, you learned that Vincent Van Gogh's moods influenced the subjects and style of his paintings. Now that you know this information, what does this tell you about the effects that emotions can have on an individual?

Grammar and Mechanics: Adjectives

• Write the following sentence on the board: Vincent liked the way the sunlight glistened over the yellow wheat that grew on the rolling hills. Ask students to identify the nouns in the sentence (Vincent, sunlight, wheat, hills). Point to the word wheat. Ask students to identify how the wheat is described (yellow).
• Review or explain that adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns. An adjective tells which one, how many, and what kind.
• Write the following sentences on the board: He painted the moon and bright yellow stars twirling in a navy blue sky. He understood that he needed a calm and cheerful place in which to live. Ask students to count the number of adjectives in each sentence. Ask them to hold up the same number of fingers as there are adjectives in each sentence after you read each sentence aloud (4, 2).
• Have volunteers come to the board and circle the adjectives in the sentences and underline the noun that each adjective describes.

      Check for understanding: Have students identify and circle all the adjectives on pages 11 and 12. Have them underline the noun each adjective describes. Discuss the results as a group. Ask volunteers to identify whether each adjective describes which one, how many, or what kind.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the adjectives worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Word Work: Suffix -ed

• Write the words liked and painted on the board. Ask students what the two words have in common (they end with -ed).
• Ask students to identify the root word of each word on the board (like, paint). Write each root word on the board.
• Explain to students that the -ed ending is called a suffix. Point out that when -ed appears at the end of a verb, the action changes from present to past tense.
• Model using the words like and liked in a sentence to illustrate the change from present to past tense. (For example: I like turkey sandwiches. I liked peanut butter sandwiches until I found out I was allergic to peanut butter.)
• Ask pairs of students to use the words paint and painted in two separate sentences. Invite them to share their sentences aloud.

     Check for understanding: Ask students to locate the verbs with the -ed suffix on pages 5 and 6. Have them write the present-tense form next to each word.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the suffix -ed worksheet. If time allows, have students discuss their answers.

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have them share their visualization sketches with someone at home.

Descriptive Writing Connection
Ask students to reflect on Van Gogh's style of painting (focus on nature, colors reflect a mood, used large brush strokes, and so on). Provide students with paint and brushes and ask them to create a scene in the style of Van Gogh. Then have them write a paragraph describing their scene.

Visit Writing A–Z for a lesson and leveled materials on descriptive writing.

Social Studies and Art Connection
With supervision, have students use the Internet to locate more information about Van Gogh and his paintings. If possible, have them visit the website mentioned on page 17, and have them read some of the letters that Vincent wrote to his brother Theo.

Skill Review
Discussion cards covering comprehension skills and strategies not explicitly taught with the book are provided as an extension activity. The following is a list of some ways these cards can be used with students:

• Use as discussion starters for literature circles.
• Have students choose one or more card and write a response, either as an essay or a journal entry.
• Distribute before reading the book and have students use one of the questions as a purpose for reading.
• Cut apart and use the cards as game cards with a board game.
• Conduct a class discussion as a review before the book quiz.