Text to Text Lesson Plan 1 - The Reading Lady

Lesson: Connecting Text to Text by Doing an Author Study

Part 1
Choose a set of books by one author. A set that is suggested in Strategies That Work that I think would be good for 2nd grade is by Kevin Henkes: Chrysanthemum, Julius, the Baby of the World, Owen, and Sheila Ray the Brave. Use this or use a set that you have and love.

Part 2
Day 1: Introduce the lesson by telling students that good readers, not only think about how books connect to their own lives, but how books connect to each other. We call these text to text connections. (Draw a book with an arrow connecting it to another book as a graphic representation for students). Continue by telling them that over the next week you will be reading books by one author. Read one of the books aloud.

Day 2: Read another book by the same author. As you read stop to model any text to text connections you can make between the two books you have read. You may want to compare characters, the things that the characters do, the story or plot, the beginning, or the ending of the story.

Day 3 and beyond: Continue to read aloud books by the same author and model the text to text connections you are making. As students are ready let them share their connections also. Remind students each day that good readers make text to text connections to help them understand what they read.

Note: When I am modeling I find it helpful to put a post it on the page of the book with notes about what I want to say. Then I know where in the text I want to stop and model and what I want to say. When I get to that page for read aloud I take the post it off the page I am about to read and stick it on the back of the book. So then I can read my notes while I show the picture.

Lesson: Charting Text to Self and Text to Text Connections

After you have worked on Text to Self Connections label a piece of chart paper "Text to Self Connections" include the drawing of the book with the arrow pointing to the stick person if you think it will be helpful. Tell the students that as you are reading books at read aloud time if they make a text to self connection they can share it with the group and you will record the name of the book and the student's name next to it on the chart.

Later, after you have worked with Text to Text Connections you can add a second chart and work on them both.

Submitted by Cheri Summ.

Wyann created the lesson resources below on teaching text to text connections.

Making Connections Text to Text | Word | PDF |
Text to Text T-Chart | Word | PDF |