A Dog's Life Teaching Guide

Ann M. Martin takes readers on a journey with Squirrel through the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of the stray dog's life. Creatively told from Squirrel's perspective, A Dog's Life gives readers an inside view of the kind of life a homeless dog might experience and helps raise awareness of the responsibilities of pet ownership. The interactive elements of this Flashlight Readers session and the lessons in this teacher's guide challenge students to create stories from a first- or third-person point of view, make decisions to drive the plot of a story, and examine the author's writing process in order to apply some of her techniques to their own writing.

OBJECTIVE
Students will:

Use text, images, and dialogue to construct a sequence of scenes and then write a story about the scenes using a first- or third-person point of view
Reason through and make choices to steer a story's plot
Use a map of sequenced events to tell a story
View slideshows about Ann M. Martin's life as a writer and the process of creating A Dog's Life to learn about the author and her process
Use the author's writing process as a model to create their own stories

LESSONS FOR THIS UNIT
Lesson 1: A Tale to Tell!
Lesson 2: Bone's Adventures
Lesson 3: Martin's Writing Model

REPRODUCIBLES
Sequence of Events (PDF)
Venn Diagram (PDF)
KWL Chart (PDF)
Organizational Outline (PDF)

SUPPORTING BOOKS

Books and Resources for Teaching A Dog's Life

Teacher Store

The Teacher Store

Sprint Plus Student Workshop Consumable Workbook

The Sprint Plus consumable workbook includes 40 blackline masters to assess and build skills in vocabulary, phonics, word attack, and comprehension. See below for additional recommendations.

$3.50
Reproducible | Grades 4-6

Sprint Plus Student Workshop Consumable Workbook

Grades 4-6 $3.50

Teacher Store

The Teacher Store

Sprint Plus Student Workshop Consumable Workbook

The Sprint Plus consumable workbook includes 40 blackline masters to assess and build skills in vocabulary, phonics, word attack, and comprehension. See below for additional recommendations.

$3.50
Reproducible | Grade 3

Sprint Plus Student Workshop Consumable Workbook

Grade 3 $3.50

ARTICLE	Autumn Leaves Curriculum Connections Explore leaves through exercising estimation skills, expanding leaf-themed vocabulary, and moving like a falling leaf.

LESSON PLAN	Martin's Writing Model Features a lesson plan in which students learn about author Ann M. Martin's writing process for the book, A Dog's Life. Students then use...