Eve Bunting Author Study- Fly Away Home!

Now that the snow has settled, we're finally back at school! And oh goodness.  I feel like it's been years since we started our author study!  Luckily, we are starting to get back into the swing of things.  Today, we read Fly Away Home. We began by looking at the cover and taking a picture walk to ask questions before reading.  We talked briefly and shared out a few questions before reading.  Of course, they continued to record their thinking during the story, and then they turned and talked to a neighbor about their questions.  Afterward, we had a discussion about what the book was really about and started peeling it back in layers. The kids are DEEP...ocean trench deep! So, I sent them off to generate more questions after reading about some of the larger points about homelessness, the importance of education, etc.  Wowzers.

Can I just brag shamelessly for a moment?  My kiddos are amazingly smart! Really.  Today, they took their smartness to a whole new height, and I am super excited to say the least! After reading the story and going through a really amazing questioning lesson, I went back to the text.  We talked about a portion of the text where Eve Bunting writes about a small brown bird that the little boy finds in the airport.  I said, "We all know, as authors, that everything we put in our stories is there for a reason.  We add details, because we feel that it's important.  Why do you think Eve Bunting devoted an entire page to this little brown bird?  What significance does this little bird lend to the story?  Why is the bird so important?"   Here is what they came up with in their own words:

Just in case you can't read their responses they said, "Andrew kept telling the bird, 'Fly away home!'.  That's the title."  "The bird is representing Andrew and his dad, because it was stuck in the airport, but it got out.  Maybe someday, they could get out too."  "Andrew keeps seeing the bird hit the window and get knocked down.  His family's situation is similar, because his dad keeps trying to find a better job, but in a way, keeps getting knocked down."  "Someday, they want to 'fly away home' to a new apartment."  "The bird's wing is broken/injured, so it limits the bird's ability to go home.  Andrew's family has a 'broken wing' because they don't have enough money for rent to be able to go home."  After they gave me fabulous responses, we looked back over them and determined that the bird is a symbol for hope in the story.  That's why Eve Bunting decided to write about the little brown bird.  It gave the main character hope in a tough situation.  They also recognized how the bird's situation paralleled Andrew and his father's situation.  Yay!  This is one of those moments as a teacher where you just want to jump up and down and yell while waving streamers and doing back-handsprings.  But maybe that's just me.  :)

We discussed how the bird impacted Andrew before zeroing in on our main character.  Each kid created a character poster highlighting his appearance, character traits, friends, home, problems and feelings.  I love kid art!

Lastly, here's the front of one of my student's questioning sheets.  They had so many questions that they created B, D, and A columns on the back to scrawl down their questions! :)