Build Background

• Ask students to think of ways they have used their imagination to create an adventure. Invite them to share the details of their adventures.
• Write the names Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on the board. Have students discuss what they know about these two characters. Explain that these are characters in a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Provide background about the story (the story takes place along the Mississippi River right before the Civil War; it chronicles the adventures Tom and his friends Huck Finn, Joe Harper, and Becky Thatcher).

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students their book. Guide them to the front and back covers of the book and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers. Encourage them to offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about.
• Ask students if they think this book is fiction or nonfiction and to explain their reasoning.
• 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 Reading Strategy: Visualize

• Explain to students that good readers often visualize, or create pictures in their mind, while reading. Visualizing helps readers understand and remember what they are reading.
• Model how to visualize.
  Think-aloud: Whenever I read a book, I always pause after several pages to create a picture in my mind of the information I've read. This helps me keep track of the important information and understand the ideas in the book. For example, if I read the word pirate, I picture a tall man with a patch over one eye and a wooden peg in place of one of his legs.
• Ask students to share what they visualize when they hear the word pirate. Write their descriptions on the board. Point out that even though their descriptions of a pirate may not be the same, they were each able to create a picture in their mind.
• 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: Analyze characters

• Explain that there are many ways to learn about a character in a story. One way is to look at a character's words or thoughts. Another way is to look for things the character does. Explain to students that an author uses a character's words, thoughts, and actions to let readers get to know the character's personality, motivations, relationships, and conflicts he or she may face.
• Ask students to turn to page 4. Read the first page of the story aloud while they follow along silently.
• Model how to analyze a character based on the character's words.
  Think-aloud: As I read page 4, Miguel said the words It's not fair. Saturdays are supposed to be fun. Miguel sounds disappointed that he has to work. He doesn't seem interested in the family shop. This information provides insight into Miguel's personality.
• Discuss with students the following sentences: The pit of Miguel's stomach ached--and not from hunger. Adventure and freedom seemed a million miles away. Ask students to describe how this information reflects Miguel's personality (he feels sorry for himself, he wants to experience adventure, he is bored working at the shop, and so on).
• Have students reread the last sentence on page 4. Invite them to share how Miguel's personality might influence his actions. (Miguel does not want to work, so he may try to do something else. He is being rebellious).

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Cut out the illustrations on pages 7, 10, and 13. Explain that the illustrations depict vocabulary words in the story. These vocabulary words help to explain the setting of the story.
• Show students the raft illustration from page 7. Have students explain what they already know about a raft. Point to the front and back of the raft. Ask students whether they know the names sailors use to describe these parts of the boat (bow, stern).
• Ask students what they think sandbar means. Show students the illustration from page 13. Point out the sandbar and explain how it forms.
• Ask students how a raft and sandbar help to establish the setting (the story must take place along water).
• Show students the illustration from page 10. Facilitate a discussion about the coins with questions: What is the date on the coins? What does this tell you about the setting of the story? How might the coins be important to the story?
• Explain that the coins in the story are booty, or money taken illegally from an enemy. Ask students to predict who the enemy might be in the story.
• Have students use the words bow, stern, sandbar, and booty to create circle stories related to what the story might be about. Allow students to use the illustrations cut out from the book to tell the story.
• For tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read the book to find out what In Huck's Shoes means. Remind them to stop after every few pages to visualize the story in their mind to better understand the personality, motivations, and conflicts of the characters.

During Reading 

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 9. Encourage students who finish early to go back and reread.
• Model visualizing parts of the book.
  Think-aloud: When I read about Miguel sailing down the river, I pictured the boys standing on a wooden raft. The raft doesn't look like a boat. I pictured how it might rock back and forth as the boys row, splashing water up over their feet.
• Check for understanding: Have students share pictures they visualized in their mind while reading. Ask students to read to page 13. Then ask them explain how Miguel's point of view about his adventure is changing (he is misses his family, he begins to worry that something is wrong with the story line). Have them contrast Miguel's character with Tom Sawyer (Tom is mischievous and does not seem to think through all of his actions).

    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 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.
• Think-aloud: When I read about how ugly the three pirates were, I paused to picture in my mind how they would look. I envisioned all three of the scary men covered in red, pus-oozing mosquito bites. I pictured how the pirates looked when they couldn't stop scratching, just like when I get mosquito bites on my arms and legs. This helped me to understand what I had read and to remember the description of those characters.
• Ask students to share what they visualized and how this helped them to better understand the characters in the book.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the visualize worksheet. Have volunteers share their answers aloud when finished.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Review how story events can influence motivations, relationships, and conflicts experienced by characters. Ask students to explain how Miguel's adventures with Tom and Joe were influential (he began to understand why it was important for him to help his parents, he wanted to return home, and so on).
• Ask how Miguel's personality might change (he might be more helpful around the family shop, he might be more understanding of his parents' point of view, he might be more appreciative of what he has). Have students use the text to cite passages that support their thinking. ("Your Aunt Polly loves you," Miguel said. "Sure, you've got to get up and do chores and go to school, but she relies on you, Tom," Miguel said. "She wants you to be a better person." Being a pirate was exciting, but Miguel was happy to be home.) Contrast these traits with Miguel's traits at the beginning of the story (he is helpful instead of feeling sorry for himself, he is happy to be home instead of always wishing he could be somewhere else, and so on).
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the analyze characters worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

    Extend the discussion: Discuss how analyzing characters helps readers understand and remember what they have read. Ask students if they would like to be friends with Miguel or Tom, and why. Have them use examples of character traits from the text to support their opinions.

Build Skills 

Grammar and Mechanics: Subject and object pronouns

• Explain or review that a pronoun is a word used in place of a noun. Ask students to provide examples of pronouns (I, she, he, it, her, his, they, and we). Write these examples on the board.
• Write the following sentence on the board: Miguel, Tom, and Joe tricked the pirates. Ask a volunteer to replace the proper nouns Miguel, Tom, and Joe with a pronoun. (They tricked the pirates.) Write that sentence under the first sentence, underlining the pronoun. Then ask students to provide the pronoun if Miguel tricked the pirates. (He tricked the pirates.) Encourage a volunteer to explain the difference between the two sentences.
• Explain or review the skill of locating the subject and predicate of a sentence. Have students turn to page 6 and read the first sentence: The old skeleton key stuck out of the lock in the magical, black chest. Ask students who or what is performing the action (the old skeleton key). Remind them that the person, place, or thing that tell what a sentence is about is called the subject.
• Ask students which words explain the action performed (stuck out of the lock in the magical, black chest). Ask students what this part of the sentence is called (predicate).
• Have students turn to page 8 in their books. Write the following sentence from this page on the board: Tom and Joe created a roaring fire. Ask students to identify the subject (Tom and Joe).
• Ask a volunteer to replace Tom and Joe with a pronoun (They). Explain that the word they is called a subject pronoun. List the following subject pronouns on the board: I, you, he, she, it, we, they.
• Explain that the predicate includes the person, place, or thing that receives the action of the verb. Ask students to identify the predicate (created a roaring fire). Have a volunteer identify the action (created). Ask students what was created (a roaring fire). Explain that a roaring fire is what receives the action.
• Explain that the person, place, or thing that receives the action also can be replaced with a pronoun. These pronouns are called object pronouns. List the following object pronouns on the board: me, you, him, her, it, us, them. Ask a volunteer to replace a roaring fire with an object pronoun from the board (it).
• Have students locate and read the following sentence on page 19: Joe looked at Miguel. Have students identify the subject (Joe), the predicate (looked at Miguel), the action (looked), and the object receiving the action (Miguel). Ask volunteers to replace the subject and object with the appropriate pronouns from the list on the board (He, him). Write the new sentence on the board.
• Write the sentence again, switching the placement of the subject and object pronouns (Him looked at he).
• Ask students to explain why it is important to understand how a pronoun is used in a sentence (this helps to identify the form of the pronoun to use).
• Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 22 in the book. Write the following sentence on the board: Tom looked up at the stars. Ask students to identify the subject (Tom), the predicate (looked up at the stars), the action (looked), and the object receiving the action (the stars). Ask students to replace the subject and object with the appropriate pronouns from the list on the board (He, them). Have them write the new sentence on a separate piece of paper.
• Ask students to create their own sentence and write it on the piece of paper. Have them underline the subject, circle the object receiving the action, and then rewrite the sentence using subject and object pronouns.
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the subject and object pronouns worksheet. When students have finished, review answers aloud.

Word Work: Dialect

• Discuss the irregular vocabulary used in dialogue in the text, such as ye, aye, and yerself. Ask students to identify when the author used these words in the book (when the pirates were speaking or when the boys were pretending to be pirates). Explain that this "pirate talk" is a dialect containing words that are different from the standard pronunciations given to everyday English words.
• Write the words ye and yerself on the board. Ask students which familiar words these words resemble (you, yourself). Have students say each word aloud using both pronunciations.
• Discuss how words in a dialect are often spelled as they sound, such as yer instead of your.

    Check for understanding: Have students underline all of the uses of "pirate talk" in the book (page 7: ye, 'round, aye; page 8: ye, yerself, yer; page 12: 'til, gonna; page 14: what'r, laddies, yer; page 15: them skeeters, 'em; page 16: yep; page 17: 'tis, yerselves; page 18: me mates, arrgh; page 19: ma, stoppin'; page 20: ya). Have students use context clues to identify the standard pronunciation of each word. Have them write the standard spelling next to each word.

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the dialect worksheet. If time allows, invite students to share their responses.

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 students practice visualizing the story with someone at home and then compare the pictures that they created in their mind.

Extend the Reading 

Writing and Art Connection
Have students write a continuation of In Huck's Shoes, picking up where the story leaves off. Ask students to choose Tom, Joe, and Miguel's next adventure. Discuss possible scenarios, such as the pirates returning for the coins. Point out that the book is written in third-person past-tense and that their writing should follow suit.

Social Studies Connection
Review the setting of the story In Huck's Shoes (pre-Civil War). Provide background on the time period prior to the Civil War, including the economies of the North and South redundant and the addition of new states. Have groups of students research one of the following events that led to Southern states seceding from the Union, a cause of the Civil War: Compromise of 1850, Dred Scott Decision, Fugitive Slave Act, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Missouri Compromise, or Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Ask students to prepare oral presentations that answer the following questions: What date did the act take place? What are the significant events and people involved? How might this act have caused some Southern states to secede?

Assessment 

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• consistently use the strategy of visualizing to comprehend text
• analyze the words, thoughts, and actions of the characters in the book during discussion and on a worksheet
• understand and correctly use subject and object pronouns within sentences on a worksheet
• identify and fluently read irregular content vocabulary (dialect)

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