Pamela Wrede

Seventh Grade Language Arts

Dunn Middle School

Because of Winn-Dixie Unit Plan

Annotated Bibliography

American Library Association, The. “2001 Newberry Medal and Honor Books.”

<http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/newberymedal/newberyhonors/2001newberymedal.htm>

The poignancy and relevance of Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie earned it 2001 Newberry Honor recognition, a feat that most students find very fascinating. By allowing students to visit this website, their appreciation for the novel expands and their dedication to reading it through increases as well. When we stumbled across this website in preparing our unit, we made sure that our students were aware of it and visited it during computer class. Students tend to feel privileged reading a book with such an honor, and we believe it helped in the successful flow of our unit.

Because of Winn-Dixie official film page. 20^th Century Fox, 2004 11-30-04

<http://www.becauseofwinndixiemovie.com/>

This is the official website of the up and coming film adaptation of Because of Winn-Dixie. The site is perfect for student enhancement and includes a synopsis of the film along with educator’s materials. Students can use the website to further their appreciation of the text and to increase visual stimulation from the characters and setting through mini clips and photographs from the movie. The “Educator’s Material” sections includes pre-made handouts and projects, one of which (Littmus Lozenge Web) we used as an enhancement extra credit activity at the end of our Reading Activity Packets.

11-30-04 <http://www.mce.k12tn.net/dogs/dixie/because_of_winn_dixie.htm>

Of all the websites and books we found on Because of Winn-Dixie, this site was the most straightforward and easily navigable. The creator of the website (unknown) gathered resources that deal with the many themes of the novel, from friendship and alcoholism to death and pathological fears, creating a web ring of clickable links for easy access. Included on the website are quizzes that can be either printed or taken online. We used these quizzes to guide our own quiz giving every Wednesday as requested by our cooperating teacher.

Blau, Lisa. “Easy Writing Lessons for the Overhead.” Scholastic Professional Books.

2002: New York

In preparing our students for their final writing activity to wrap-up Because of Winn-Dixie, our cooperating teacher recommended we use this overhead teaching kit as a jump off point. In the manual, we found twelve transparencies, reproducibles, and other interactive lessons perfect for teaching essential writing skills. We used the Main Idea Organizer and Story Planning page to start our students with brainstorming and organization that would facilitate their creative writing. We found this to be a great tool in terms of teaching writing for us and practicing writing for our students as well.

Boswell, N. (2003, February). A WebQuest for Because of Winn-Dixie. Reading Online,

6(6). Available: 11-30-04

<http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=boswell/index.html>

Norma Boswell’s WebQuest was perhaps our most trusted and utilized resource in planning our unit. Due to lack of technological resources for all students, we could not have students complete the WebQuest online; therefore, we had to adapt it for classroom use. We took parts of the WebQuest (Knowledge Rating Vocabulary, Alphaboxes, and Story Frame) and added them to our Reading Activity Packet for students to complete in writing in stead of online. The students responded positively to each activity, so we are glad to have come across this website.

Burdick, Katherine et al. “Teacher Resource Book:LIFT Because of Winn-Dixie.”

Sundance Publishing Co. 2004: Northborough, MA.

Sundance Publishing puts out countless teacher’s manuals that center around the most popular literature taught in schools, and this one is based off the teaching of Because of Winn-Dixie. The manual contains pages of graphic organizers, including character maps and Venn diagrams, teachers can photocopy for classroom use. We used this book as a guide, a reference point from which we gathered some ideas for our Reading Activity Packet. Though we never used any of the materials first hand, our cooperating teacher used a “Getting To Know You” chart when she started the book with the class.

<http://www.phobialist.com>

This is such a fascinating website! There are phobias and pathological fears of just about anything, and our students loved learning about that. In the novel, Winn-Dixie has a pathological fear of thunderstorms, also known as ceraunophobia. We used this website to generate a list of the strangest and most interesting phobias we could find and created an extra credit ditto for the class to enjoy. We also gave our students the web address so that they could visit for further enjoyment.

Daniels, Harvey. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs & Reading

Groups. Stenhouse Publishing. 2002: Chicago

Though we learned about literature circles in our Methods of Teaching Secondary English class through both lecture and practice, the idea is truly the brainchild of the author of this book, Harvey Daniels. This book is essential for all teachers, and not just because of the attention it pays to literature circles (which we used during our unit). The book discusses the importance of accompanying reading with discussion in order to appreciate fully the text. He explains how literature circles, other group activities, and even adult book groups facilitate understanding and enjoyment of all literature.

<http://www.katedicamillo.com/>

This is the official website for Because of Winn-Dixie’s author, Kate DiCamillo. The site contains information about the writer and her other literature, including 2004 Newberry Medal winner The Tale of Despereaux. Students who enjoyed Winn-Dixie can visit this site for enhanced knowledge on the author and data on other books they can read. The biographical information included on the site is great and could be used to enhance student awareness while reading any of DiCamillo’s novels.

Maughan, Shannon. “An Interview with Kate DiCamillo.” Kidsreads.com Copyright

1998-2004. 11-30-04. <ttp://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-dicamillo-kate.asp>

In order to accommodate for students that might read faster than others, we decided to add enhancement activities to the end of our Reading Activity Packets. These activities will count as extra credit on the final packet grade if completed. For one of the enhancements, we used the interview on this website. We asked our students to read the interview and then come up with two questions they would have asked author Kate DiCamillo if they had interviewed her.