The Haunted Library: Book 1
by Dori Hillestad Butler
Projects by Elizabeth Neiderheide, Samantha Kubesh, Carly Hubbard
Written Response
Choose your favorite part of the story and explain why it was the best. Having the students choose what their favorite part is will allow them to really analyze the book and sort through the information they read.
- After reading The Haunted Library, the students will choose their favorite scene, explain why it’s their favorite, and how it supports the theme of the book. The students will have to state why it’s their favorite scene and provide details from the text to support their claim as to how it adds to the theme.
- The students will have the choice to write in their notebooks or in the shared classroom online notebook. If they write their piece online, it will be easier to share them with the class.
- The students may choose different parts of the book for different reasons. Maybe they thought it was funny, maybe they could relate to it personally, or maybe it made them wonder what would happen next?
- Characterization- The students could relate to how a character has developed over the story or a certain feeling they had.
- Dialogue- Something that one of the characters said may have stuck out to the reader/student.
- Point-of-view- Each student will be reading and comprehending the book differently.
- W.1.1- Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.
- W.1.6. - With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.
Podcast
After reading The Haunted Library, students, in groups of 2-3, will create a podcast where they interview one of the secondary characters in the book. In this interview, students will ask at least 10 questions to the character (they will be coming up with the questions), asking about their experience during different scenes in the story. The students will need to relate some of their questions to specific scenes that took place in the book, while others can be about the character specifically. They will use the GarageBand platform to record their podcast. Keep in mind the different types of voices, sound effects, and settings you can have with this project.
Author’s Craft Involved:
Standards:
Author’s Craft Involved:
- Characters: the students will explore the plot more deeply by putting themselves in the shoes of a character in the book.
- Point-of-view: students are crafting answers based on the point of view of the characters.
- Plot: Students must understand the series of events in order to complete this project.
Standards:
- RL.1.3. - Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
- RL.2.3. - Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
- RL.2.6. - Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue
Click here to listen!
Digital Story
After reading The Haunted Library, students will create a digital version of a scene that happened, but wasn’t written with adequate detail in the book. Students will choose one scene (about 1-3 pages) to recreate on the computer. Students should create illustrations, and may add sounds or music to make their scene come to life, but they must stay true to the characters in the story. Students may create this text in various ways:
Elements of Author’s Craft:
Standards:
W.1-3.6. - With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.
- Physical drawings/pictures uploaded online
- Physically acting it out on video
- Digital stop-motion
- Animation programs
Elements of Author’s Craft:
- Tone & Mood: adding sound and other details helps students express a more clear tone and mood to their audience
- Onomatopoeia: Students will add sound to enhance the story
- Imagery: students will add illustrations to help the audience create stronger mental images
Standards:
W.1-3.6. - With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.
Click to view the story!
Infographic
After reading The Haunted Library, students will create a map of the library, similar to maps we’ve made of our neighborhoods, and label the important parts of the book in the rooms they took place in. This map will help us visualize the setting, and organize key events from the plot. Students need to identify at least five scenes from the text to use in their maps, and label them 1-5 (or however many there are) in the order they take place. At the bottom of the page, write the scenes again, and why they’re important to the story. When creating the maps, students will be using the online program Canva.
Author’s Craft involved:
Standards:
Author’s Craft involved:
- Plot - Students need to identify beginning, middle, and end, and list scenes from the book in the proper order they took place. Students also need to find parts that are important to the story.
- Theme - Similar to the second part of the plot portion, students need to identify important parts in the story, which puts them on the track of understanding theme.
- Setting - The main part of this activity is having students draw the overall setting of the book. They need to find key details (and images) that describe what rooms there are, and what they look like.
Standards:
- RL.1.3. - Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
- RL.2.7. - Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
- W.1.3. - Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.
Digital Response Project Infographic by Samantha Kubesh