Build Background

• Ask students if they've ever had a pen pal. Invite them to share their experiences. Ask what types of information they learned, or could learn, from a pen pal (family traditions, different food, types of clothing, and so on).
• Ask students if they have ever visited or read about Canada. Invite them to share what they know.

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, illustrator'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 based on what they see in the table of contents. (Accept all answers that students can justify.)

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 of the words.
• Define each word for students and write the definitions on the board (inform means to give someone information about something; entertain means to amuse someone; persuade means to try to convince someone to think the same way you do).
• Model each purpose for writing by reading a brief passage from a social studies book; a fiction story with a moral, such as The Fox and the Crow; and an advertisement from a newspaper or magazine.
• Think-aloud: Authors write for different reasons. Some write to provide me facts about something. For example, the passage from the social studies book provided me with information about ________. However, the purpose of the advertisement was to make me think that I need to have this item. The purpose was not to teach me something. Advertisements like this use words and pictures to persuade me to buy something. Sometimes authors intend more than one purpose for their writing. In The Fox and the Crow, the readers are entertained by the story of how the fox tricks the crow into dropping the piece of cheese in her mouth. However, the author also uses the story to inform the reader of a moral, or lesson, at the end: do not trust flatterers.
• Introduce and explain the author's purpose worksheet. Read the first chapter aloud to students. Have pairs of students work together to record information on their worksheets.
• Create a three-column chart on the board with the labels to entertain, to inform, and to persuade at the top of each column. Discuss with students the information they recorded on their worksheet. Write the examples on the board as students share them. (For example: the story entertains through the use of friendly emails and a communication between two pen pals; the story informs readers by providing information about Canada and its provinces.)

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Summarize

• Explain that one way to understand and remember information in a book is to summarize paragraphs, sections, or chapters mentally or on paper. Explain that a summary is a brief overview of the most important information in the text. The summary usually tells who, what, when, where, and why about a topic.
• Create a chart on the board with the headings Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Model summarizing the information in the first chapter.
  Think-aloud: To summarize, I need to decide which information affects the meaning or outcome of the chapter that would be important to remember. Then, in my mind, I organize the information into a few words or sentences. This chapter is mostly about Jacqueline, so I will write her name under the heading Who. Based on the information in the chapter, I know that Jacqueline is writing to her pen pal, Stephanie, who lives in the United States. I will write this under the heading What. There is no date on the email in the text, so I can't write any information under the heading When. Jacqueline is writing to Stephanie from Vancouver. I will write this information on the chart under the heading Where. Finally, Jacqueline is writing to Stephanie because Stephanie asked for help on her Canada report. I will write this information on the chart under the heading Why. I can use the important information about the chapter listed on the chart to create a summary in my own words. For example, a summary of this chapter might be: Jacqueline, who is from Vancouver, is pen pals with Stephanie, who is from the United States. Jacqueline answers Stephanie's email to help her with her report on Canada.
• 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 Vocabulary

• Write the following words from the content vocabulary on the board: confederation, constitutional monarchy, democracy, republic, Parliament.
• Give groups of students several pieces of blank paper. For each word, have them write or draw what they know about the word. Create a definition for each word using students' prior knowledge.
• Give groups of students dictionaries to look up each vocabulary word. Review or explain that a dictionary contains words and their definitions.
• Model how students can use the dictionary to find a word's meaning. Have students look up the word democracy. Invite a volunteer to read the definition for democracy. Have students compare the definition with their prior knowledge of the word. Then have students follow along on page 9 as you read the sentence in which the word democracy is found to confirm the meaning of the word. Repeat the exercise with the remaining vocabulary words.
• Invite students to locate the glossary at the back of the book. Have them compare the dictionary definitions with those from the glossary. Ask students to compare and contrast the elements of a glossary and a dictionary (the glossary tells the page number in which the vocabulary word is found in the text; the dictionary gives pronunciation and part of speech, and so on).
• For tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

    Have students read to identify examples in the book that illustrate the author's purpose for writing the book. Introduce and explain the summarize worksheet. Ask students to write important information about the chapters as they read on their summarize worksheet.

During Reading 

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read from page 6 to the end of page 9. Encourage those who finish early to go back and reread. Have them write information from the chapters on their author's purpose worksheet.
• When students are finished reading, discuss the important information they wrote on their summarize worksheet for the second chapter titled "Subject: My questions." Model summarizing important information in second chapter.
  Think-aloud: I made sure to stop after reading the second chapter to summarize what I had read so far. First, I decided which information affected the outcome of the chapter that was important to remember, answering the questions who, what, when, where, and why. This time, Stephanie wrote an email to Jacqueline. I will write both names under the heading Who on the chart on the board. Stephanie provided Jacqueline with topics for her report. She also shared information about her family and asked Jacqueline about her family. I will write this information under the heading What. Stephanie provided the report topics because Jacqueline asked for more specifics in her last email. I will write this information under the heading Why. In my mind, I organized the important information into a few sentences to help me remember the chapter. A summary for the second chapter might be: Stephanie answers Jacqueline's email, providing her with specific topics for her report. She also shares information about her family and asks for information about Jacqueline's family.
• Have students review the information they wrote for the second chapter on their summarize worksheet. Allow them to make corrections as necessary. Have small groups of students work together to summarize the third chapter titled "Subject: My family," using the important information they wrote on their worksheet. Have students write their summary on a separate piece of paper. Discuss their responses.
• Discuss with students the information they recorded on their author's purpose worksheet. Write the examples on the board as students share them. (For example: the story entertains readers through the girls' communication and questions about each others' families, and so on; the story informs readers by providing information about the economy and government of Canada.)
• Discuss the specific information from the chapter relating to the economy (fishing, iron ore, nickel, and so on) and government (democracy, confederation, constitutional monarchy, Parliament, prime minister). Have students add missing information under the appropriate subheading on their author's purpose worksheet.
• Check for understanding: Have students read from page 10 to page 15 and write important information from the fourth and fifth chapters on their summarize worksheet. Invite them to share the important information from each chapter.
• Discuss how the events of the chapters support one or more of the three purposes for writing a story. Have students record the information under the appropriate heading on their author's purpose worksheet.
• Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to write important details from each chapter on their summarize worksheet so they can summarize the information 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 the word and figure out its meaning.

After Reading 

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• 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.
• Discussion: Ask students to explain how identifying the author's purpose helped them understand and remember different parts of the story. Review the three different purposes from their worksheet (to inform, to entertain, to persuade).
• Ask students if they were informed by the information that Jacqueline gave Stephanie about Canada. Ask volunteers to provide examples from the book, where the author was informing the readers (Canada encompasses 9,984,670 square miles; its highest point is Mount Logan: 19,551 feet; Canada has 8 land regions; and so on). Ask students to give examples of places where the author was entertaining readers (the girls writing about their friends, sports they like, food they like to eat for dinner, and so on). Ask students if they were persuaded to do something as a result of the story.
• Independent practice: Have students choose which purpose was the main intent for this book. Have them write a paragraph to persuade someone of their opinion, using examples from the book to support their ideas. As time allows, meet with students individually to discuss their answers.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Think-aloud: I know that summarizing keeps me actively involved in what I'm reading and helps me understand and remember what I've read. I know that I will remember more about the events of the story because I summarized the information in my own words as I read the book.
• Ask students to explain or show how the strategy of summarizing helped them understand the book. Discuss the important information in the remaining chapters.
• Independent practice: Have students complete the summarize worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.
• Enduring understanding: In this story, you learned information about Canada through email exchanges between two pen pals. Now that you know this information, why do you think people have pen pals?

Build Skills 

Grammar and Mechanics: Compound sentences

• Write the following sentence on the board: I'm very tired, and I'm going to sleep. Ask students to identify the two separate sentences within this longer sentence. (I'm very tired. I'm going to sleep.)
• Point out that the original sentence is an example of a compound sentence. Review or explain that a compound sentence is a sentence consisting of two or more simple sentences separated by a comma and a conjunction.
• Review with students examples of conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor, so, and yet). Write these examples on the board.
• Ask students to identify the word that joined the two parts of the sentence together (and). Point out that a conjunction and a comma connect the two sentences.
• Discuss how the author chose to link these two sentences instead of writing two short, repetitive sentences, one after another. Invite students to explain a purpose for using compound sentences in writing (compound sentences with conjunctions help make writing more fluent).
• Have students turn to page 7. Write the following sentence on the board: It also rarely freezes, so my dad works year-round. Ask a student to come to the board to identify and circle the conjunction (so) and the comma.
• Have students identify the two sentences the conjunction connects. (It also rarely freezes. My dad works year-round.) Discuss how the conjunction and comma connect the two sentences, taking the place of the period and capital letter M in the second sentence.

    Check for understanding: Have students locate compound sentences in the book. Ask them to underline these sentences in their book and circle each conjunction and comma. Invite students to share their answers.

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

Word Work: Compound words

• Write the word grandparents on the board. Ask students which two words they see in grandparents (grand and parents). Explain that this word is called a compound word. A compound word contains two words that make up one word meaning.
• Write the following sentence on the board: My friends and I see deer in our backyard. Have students read the sentence and identify the compound word in the sentence (backyard). Ask them which two words are joined together in the word backyard (back and yard). Explain that the definitions of the two separate words can help students figure out the meaning of the bigger word (a yard that is in the back).

    Check for understanding: Have students read page 8 in their book. Have them identify and circle the compound words on the page (online and classmates). Ask students to circle the two words contained in each compound word.

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

Build Fluency 

Independent Reading

• Allow students to read their book independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section of the book.

Home Connection

• Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have them share with someone at home the author's purpose(s) for writing the story and explain their thinking.

Extend the Reading 

Writing Connection
Locate another classroom teacher interested in sharing pen pal responsibilities. It could be another class at your school or a class from another part of the country or world. Assign each student a pen pal. Have them brainstorm types of information to include in their first letter (name, school, hobbies, and so on). Model how to write a friendly letter. Have students write a letter to their pen pal.

Social Studies Connection
Have students think about the differences and similarities between their own family and Jacqueline's family and background (such as ancestors, activities, government, religion, and so on). Have them organize the information on a Venn diagram. Then have students use the information to write a brief report.

Assessment 

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• analyze the author's purpose during discussion and on a worksheet
• consistently use the strategy of summarizing to better comprehend the text
• correctly recognize and form compound sentences during discussion and on a worksheet
• correctly identify and form compound words during discussion and on a worksheet

Comprehension Checks

• Book Quiz
• Retelling Rubric

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