Ready-to-teach lesson
- Expected answer:
- Both are diaries with a dated entry on every page, written TUMBLETA · GRADE 3 · VERIFIED STANDARD EDITION
- New York
- Diary of a Spider - Compare and Contrast
3R9
Standard
Recognize genres and make connections to other texts.
Why this lesson is a winner Students compare two diary texts in the same fictional world and make direct text-to-text connections.
Decision: WINNER
Included only because the lesson teaches and assesses the claimed expectation. Partial or merely topical matches are excluded.
The standards page is additive. The approved TumbleTA skill lesson follows unchanged.
- 2.Two Diaries
Full lesson
TIME
35 minutes
OBJECTIVE
Compare this book with Diary of a Worm and say what the two share and where they differ.
STUDENT PRODUCT
A comparison chart, and one dinner described twice
FOCUS
Comparing two texts by the same author about the same place
Essential question
Two books, the same world. What changes when the other one tells it?
Materials
Both books - this one and Diary of a Worm Pages 1, 10 and 22 of this book, found before the lesson The dinner-table page of the other book One comparison chart each Text to mark before teaching Passage 1 — two spiders on a pencil, one in a fedora Passage 10 — a silk overnight bag, and a thought bubble of the worms' dinner table Passage 22 — a leaf for a boat, and a drinks can lettered SPIDER’S
CLUBHOUSE
Lesson sequence
- 1
- Launch · 5 min
- Focus:
- Two books, one shape
- Teacher direction:
- Put the two books side by side, closed, and ask what the class expects from the titles. Then open both first pages and let them find what is the same.
page 1
Teacher note: Diary of a Worm is the other book
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1
- 2
- Teacher model · 7 min
- Teacher model:
- I open the spider's sleepover page and read one sentence.
Then I find the dinner-table picture in the other book, and hold them next to each other. It is the same table, the same mushroom cap, the same worm in the same red cap. So the two books are not just alike, they are happening in the same place - and each one has the other's hero in it as somebody's friend.
Prepared text:
Passage 10
3 What the two books share · 13 min
- Focus:
- Form, cast and last page
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 1, 10 and 22, and the other book, write down what the two diaries have in common.
- Expected answer:
- Both are diaries with a dated entry on every page, written
as I by a small creature about an ordinary school year. Both open with a grandparent laying down three things to remember. Both have the same two friends in them, seen from the other side: the spider sleeps over at Worm's house and dreads the leaves for dinner, and the picture of that dinner is the same table drawn in the worm's book. Both are furnished out of things people have thrown away. And both last entries are dated August 1 and say the same kind of thing the worm that people forget they are there, the spider that people judge all spiders by the few that bite.
- Student product:
- A comparison chart: same, and different
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1, Passage 10, Passage 22
4 The same dinner, twice · 10 min
- Focus:
- One meal, two opinions
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passage 10 and the other book, write what the spider thinks of dinner at Worm's house and what the worm thinks of the same food.
- Expected answer:
- The spider is dreading it: he is on his way to sleep over at Worm's house and hoping they will not have the leaves and rotten tomatoes again, and in the thought bubble he is sitting at the table looking at a leaf without enthusiasm. In the other book that same food is simply dinner - the worm's family eat leaves at that table quite happily, and on one page they eat a macaroni necklace he brought home from school. Neither of them is wrong.
The food has not changed; the diner has.
Prepared text:
Passage 10
page 2
Teacher guidance
Why this text works: This lesson needs both books open at once and is worth the trouble of arranging that, because the pairing is unusually exact - not two books on a theme but two books about the same set of friends. The moment to engineer is the dinner table: read the spider's one sentence about dreading the leaves, then find the same table in the worm's book and put them side by side. A class will see the same red cap. After that they will start hunting for other matches, and there are plenty, including that both last entries are dated August 1. Let them find that one themselves.
- Expected answer:
- The two diaries are built the same way and set in the same place. Each has a dated entry on every page and is written in the first person by a small creature about an ordinary school year of homework, art class, grandparents and friends. Each opens with a grandparent giving three things to remember. Each has the other's hero in it as a friend - the spider sleeps over at Worm's house, and the thought bubble showing that dinner is the same mushroom-cap table, with the same worm in the same red cap, drawn in the worm's own book. Both homes are made of human rubbish. And both books end on August 1 with the same kind of wish: the worm that people forget worms are there, the spider that people should not judge every spider by the few that bite.
Model: I notice that the same meal is a treat in one book and a dread in the other. The worm's family eat leaves at that table happily. The spider is hoping they will not have leaves again. Nothing about the dinner has changed - only who is writing it down.
Support and extension
Above: Both books end on the same date with a wish about being misunderstood. Explain what the author is doing by making them match.
Below: Fill the comparison chart, then write about the dinner from both sides.
Assessment
- Look for:
- Says both books are diaries with dates.
Says both are written as I by a small creature.
Says the spider and the worm are friends in both.
Notices the same dinner table in both books.
Says both last entries are about being misunderstood.
Short version
TIME
20 minutes
OBJECTIVE
Compare this book with Diary of a Worm and say what the two share and where they differ.
STUDENT PRODUCT
A comparison chart, and one dinner described twice
FOCUS
Comparing two texts by the same author about the same place
page 3
Essential question
Two books, the same world. What changes when the other one tells it?
Materials
Both books - this one and Diary of a Worm Pages 1, 10 and 22 of this book, found before the lesson The dinner-table page of the other book One comparison chart each Text to mark before teaching Passage 1 — two spiders on a pencil, one in a fedora Passage 10 — a silk overnight bag, and a thought bubble of the worms' dinner table Passage 22 — a leaf for a boat, and a drinks can lettered
SPIDER’S
CLUBHOUSE
Lesson sequence
- 1
- Launch · 4 min
- Focus:
- Two books, one shape
- Teacher direction:
- Put the two books side by side, closed, and ask what the class expects from the titles. Then open both first pages and let them find what is the same.
Teacher note: Diary of a Worm is the other book
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1
- 2
- Teacher model · 6 min
- Teacher model:
- I open the spider's sleepover page and read one sentence.
Then I find the dinner-table picture in the other book, and hold them next to each other. It is the same table, the same mushroom cap, the same worm in the same red cap. So the two books are not just alike, they are happening in the same place - and each one has the other's hero in it as somebody's friend.
Prepared text:
Passage 10
3 What the two books share · 10 min
- Focus:
- Form, cast and last page
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 1, 10 and 22, and the other book, write down what the two diaries have in common.
- Expected answer:
- Both are diaries with a dated entry on every page, written
as I by a small creature about an ordinary school year. Both open with a grandparent laying down three things to remember. Both have the same two friends in them, seen from the other side: the spider sleeps over at Worm's house and dreads the leaves for dinner, and the picture of that dinner is the same table drawn in the worm's book. Both are furnished out of things people have thrown away.
And both last entries are dated August 1 and say the same kind of thing the worm that people forget they are there, the spider that people judge all spiders by the few that bite.
- Student product:
- A comparison chart: same, and different
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1, Passage 10, Passage 22
page 4
Teacher guidance
Why this text works: This lesson needs both books open at once and is worth the trouble of arranging that, because the pairing is unusually exact - not two books on a theme but two books about the same set of friends. The moment to engineer is the dinner table: read the spider's one sentence about dreading the leaves, then find the same table in the worm's book and put them side by side. A class will see the same red cap. After that they will start hunting for other matches, and there are plenty, including that both last entries are dated August 1. Let them find that one themselves.
- Expected answer:
- The two diaries are built the same way and set in the same place. Each has a dated entry on every page and is written in the first person by a small creature about an ordinary school year of homework, art class, grandparents and friends. Each opens with a grandparent giving three things to remember. Each has the other's hero in it as a friend - the spider sleeps over at Worm's house, and the thought bubble showing that dinner is the same mushroom-cap table, with the same worm in the same red cap, drawn in the worm's own book. Both homes are made of human rubbish. And both books end on August 1 with the same kind of wish: the worm that people forget worms are there, the spider that people should not judge every spider by the few that bite.
Model: I notice that the same meal is a treat in one book and a dread in the Model: I notice that the same meal is a treat in one book and a dread in the other. The worm's family eat leaves at that table happily. The spider is hoping they will not have leaves again. Nothing about the dinner has changed - only who is writing it down.
Support and extension
Above: Both books end on the same date with a wish about being misunderstood. Explain what the author is doing by making them match.
Below: Fill the comparison chart, then write about the dinner from both sides.
Assessment
- Look for:
- Says both books are diaries with dates.
Says both are written as I by a small creature.
Says the spider and the worm are friends in both.
Notices the same dinner table in both books.
Says both last entries are about being misunderstood.
- 3.Told By A Spider
Full lesson
TIME
34 minutes
OBJECTIVE
Work out how the diary is shaped by who is writing it, and how the same
page 5