Monday, January 19, 2009

Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo

Louise is a chicken on a farm who longs for adventure. Louise leaves the farm and encounters various obstacles as she heads out on her adventures. Written as a series of short stories, we find out if Louise will return to the henhouse or live a life of adventure. Organization Kate DiCamillo takes a series of adventures and weaves them together to tell this story. Each adventure is its own chapter, but each work together to tell a complete story. Lesson Idea: Students love writing and reading adventure stories, especially boys. Read aloud this book to your students and then ask them to create a series of adventures a main character can go through. Put the series of adventures together into one story. This is a great way to teach students how to write beginnings and endings too, as each chapter ends, but still leads the reader into a new chapter.