>> Hi, boys and girls.

My name is Melissa Antinoff.

I am a third-grade teacher at Lumberton Schools.

That's in South Jersey.

We're about 20 to 30 minutes away from Philadelphia.

This is my dog Cooper.

He had to sit on my lap and -- Yeah.

You heard your name, right, Coop?

I'm the 2019 Burlington County Teacher of the Year.

And today I'm gonna be doing an interactive read-aloud.

I'm going to ask you to do all kinds of really fun things while I'm reading.

You're not going to have to sit still.

We're going to move around, and I'm going to read you one of my very favorite books.

And there's gonna be a surprise later, too.

This is called "Enemy Pie."

So if you've read this book and you're with someone else at home, don't tell them what happens.

We're not going to spoil it.

Right?

So the first thing we do when we look at a book before we read it is we orient ourselves to the text.

And that means we're gonna look at the cover and we're going to see what we can figure out about the book first.

So I'm looking at the title "Enemy Pie."

Well, we know an enemy is someone who doesn't like me and I don't like them.

And I really like pie.

But I'm thinking enemy pie would mean something I don't want to eat, right?

And if you look down here, it's got all kinds of really gross, yucky stuff in there.

And it says "For my best enemy" and there are leaves and worms, ugh!

Rocks.

And then I always look if there's an expression on the character's face, because that tells me a lot of what might be happening in this book.

And this kid has a kind of happy.

He's doing a side smile.

So what does that make you think of?

And he looks like he's blushing a little.

Hmm.

What does that mean when someone does a side smile?

Hmm.

Go ahead.

Just say it out loud.

I'm thinking he's not really happy.

He's not really sad.

I'm not sure he wants to eat that pie.

And then I know that you read a blurb on the back to always see what a book is about.

So now I have to put on my old-lady reading glasses.

And it says nothing.

It only has a picture of a pot with more worms, but it's got a spoon in it and dirt and rocks and leaves.

So I think we have figured out everything we can about this book.

So let's start.

"It should have been the perfect summer.

My dad helped me build a treehouse in our backyard."

That's a good thing.

"My sister was at camp for three whole weeks."

Now, let me tell you, if my brother had gone to camp for three whole weeks, I would have been ecstatic.

"And I was on the best baseball team in town.

It should have been the perfect summer.

But it wasn't."

Hmmm.

So, I know when I'm figuring out a story, I use a story mountain, and a story always starts -- a story mountain always starts by looking at the setting, the beginning, and the setting is going to tell us where it starts and who's in it and we always know that we're going to look for a problem in the story.

"It was all good until Jeremy Ross moved into the neighborhood right next door to my best friend, Stanley.

I did not like Jeremy Ross.

He laughed at me when he struck me out in a baseball game.

He had a party on his trampoline and I wasn't even invited.

But my best friend Stanley was."

Ooh, I'm seeing a problem.

"Jeremy Ross was the one and only person on my enemy list.

I never even had an enemy list until he moved into the neighborhood.

But as soon as he came along, I needed one.

I hung it up in my tree house where Jeremy Ross was not allowed to go."

So looking back at my story mountain, there's the problem, Jeremy Ross.

What kind of awful things is his enemy, Jeremy, gonna do?"

"Dad understood stuff like enemies.

He told me that when he was my age, he had enemies too.

But he knew of a way to get rid of them."

Ooh!

"I asked him to tell me how.

'Tell you how?

I'll show you how,' he said.

He pulled out a really old recipe book off the kitchen shelf.

Inside there was a worn-out scrap of paper with faded writing.

Dad held it up and he squinted at it."

I think he needs my reading glasses.

Look.

They're on his head.

"'Enemy pie,' he said, satisfied."

There's that smile out of the side of my mouth.

"'You may be wondering what is exactly in enemy pie.'

I was wondering, too.

But Dad said the recipe was so secret he couldn't even tell me.

I decided it must be magic.

I begged him to tell me something."

What do you think is in enemy pie?

Think about it right now.

What do you think is in it?

Hmm.

As soon as you know something you think is in enemy pie, say it out loud.

Go ahead and tell me.

Hmm.

What do I think is really gross?

What would be in enemy pie?

Sand from a sandbox?

Oh, I don't like shrimp.

Maybe he puts shrimp in enemy pie.

Mr.

Antinoff, who's filming me, what do you think is in enemy pie?

Call it out.

>> Mud.

>> Oh, mud.

Maybe mud is in enemy pie.

>> Ants.

>> Ants!

Ooh, ooh, hat about really big, chewy, crunchy bugs?

"I begged him to tell me something, anything.

'I will tell you this,' he said.

'Enemy pie is the fastest known way to get rid of your enemies.'

Now, of course, this got my mind working.

What kinds of things, disgusting things, would be -- would I put into a pie for an enemy?

I brought Dad some weeds from the garden, but he just shook his head.

I brought him some earthworms and rocks, but he didn't think he would need those.

I gave him the gum I'd been chewing all morning."

Oh, that might be the grossest thing yet.

"He gave it right back to me.

I went out to play alone.

I shot baskets until the ball got stuck on the roof.

I threw a boomerang that never came back to me."

Isn't that just a stick?

"And all the while I listened to the sounds of my dad chopping and stirring and blending the ingredients of enemy pie."

Now, remember, as readers, we envision -- I'm picturing his dad inside, stirring and chopping and blending.

"This could be a great summer after all.

Enemy pie was gonna be awful.

I tried to imagine how horrible it must smell.

Or worse yet, what it would look like.

But when I was in the backyard looking for ladybugs, I smelled something really, really, really good.

As far as I could tell, it was coming from our kitchen.

I was a bit confused."

Boys and girls, I am too.

"Isn't it supposed to smell horrible?

I went in to ask Dad what was wrong.

Enemy pie shouldn't smell this good.

But Dad was smart.

'If enemy pie smelled bad, your enemy would never eat it,' he said.

I could tell he'd made enemy pie before.

The buzzer rang, and Dad put on oven mitts and pulled the pie out of the oven.

It looked like plain old pie.

it looked good enough to eat.

I was catching on.

But still I wasn't really sure how this enemy pie worked.

What exactly did it do to enemies?"

Oh, I didn't think about that, readers.

What do you think it does to enemies?

Does it make their face go on the back of their head?

Does it make them smell awful?

What do you think it does?

Go ahead, tell me.

What does enemy pie do to your enemies?

You have a good idea, Mr.

Antinoff?

>> I think it makes their hair fall out.

>> [ Gasps ] Can you imagine if your enemy's hair fell out?

Do you have another idea?

Alright.

Let's see if we find out.

"I was wondering, maybe it made their hair fall out.

Or their breath stinky.

Maybe it made bullies cry.

I asked Dad, but he was no help.

He wouldn't tell me a thing.

But while the pie cooled, he filled me in on my job."

Job?

"He talked quietly.

'There's one part of enemy pie that I can't do.

In order for it to work, you have to spend a day with your enemy.'"

What?!

What?!

Remember, the problem gets worse.

Well, that problem just got big-time worse.

"'You need to spend a day with your enemy.

Even worse, you have to be nice to him.

It's not easy, but that's the only way enemy pie can work.

Are you sure you want to go through with this?'

Of course I was.

It sounded horrible.

It was scary, but it was worth a try.

All I had to do was spend one day with Jeremy Ross and then he'd be out of my hair for the rest of my life.

I rode my bike to his house and I knocked on the door.

When Jeremy opened the door, he seemed surprised.

He stood on the other side of the screen door and he looked at me waiting for me to say something.

I was nervous.

'Can you play?'

I asked.

He looked confused.

'I'll go ask my mom,' he said.

He came back with the shoes in his hand.

His mom walked around the corner to say hello.

'You boys stay out of trouble,' she said, smiling."

So now, readers, I want you to do some acting.

If you have someone else in the room with you, I want one of you to be the narrator because we never find out what his name is.

And I want one of you to be Jeremy.

What are they thinking?

Those of you that are Jeremy get to go first.

What's going through Jeremy's head right now?

And then those of you that are the narrator take turns.

Reader, if you're by yourself, I will be your partner.

You be Jeremy and I will be the narrator.

So, reader, I want you to think about what is Jeremy thinking right now?

Go ahead and think about it.

And when you're ready, tell me, what is Jeremy thinking about right now?

And now I'm going to do the narrator.

I think the narrator's thinking, "I cannot believe I have to do this, but if it gets rid of Jeremy, it's worth it.

I just don't know how I'm gonna spend a whole day with him."

Okay, back to the glasses.

"We rode bikes for a while and we played on the trampoline.

And then we made some water balloons and we threw them at the neighborhood girls.

But we missed.

Jeremy's mom made us lunch, and after lunch, we went over to my house.

It was strange, but I was kind of having fun with my enemy.

He almost seemed nice.

But of course, I couldn't tell Dad that since he'd worked so hard to make this enemy pie.

Jeremy Ross liked my basketball hoop.

He said he wished he had a basketball hoop, but they didn't have room for one.

I let him win a game just to be nice."

I keep waiting for it to get worse and worse and worse, readers.

But right now, it's not getting much worse, is it?

But we know it's going to.

"Jeremy Ross knew how to throw a boomerang.

He threw it and it came right back to him.

I threw it and it went over my house and into the backyard.

When we climbed over the fence to find it, the first thing Jeremy noticed was my treehouse.

My treehouse was my treehouse.

I was the boss.

If my sister wanted in, I didn't have to let her.

If my dad wanted in, I didn't have to let him.

And if Jeremy wanted in..." Oh, readers, think back.

If Jeremy goes into the treehouse, what is he going to see?

Think back.

When you remember what it is, say it.

Do you remember that number-one enemy list?

What's he gonna do?

Oh, no.

"'Can we go in?'

he asked.

I knew he was gonna ask me that, but he was the top person, the only person on my enemy list.

And enemies aren't allowed in my treehouse.

But he did teach me to throw a boomerang.

And he did have me over for lunch.

And he did let me play on his trampoline.

He wasn't being a very good enemy.

'Okay,' I said, 'but hold on.'

I climbed up ahead of him and I tore that enemy list off the wall.

I had a checkerboard and some cards in the treehouse, and we played games until my dad called us down for dinner.

We pretended we didn't hear him, and when he came out to get us, we tried to hide from him, but somehow he found us.

Dad made us macaroni and cheese for dinner.

My favorite.

It was Jeremy's favorite, too.

Maybe Jeremy Ross wasn't so bad after all.

I was beginning to think that maybe we should just forget about enemy pie.

So as I'm looking at my story mountain, the problem got worse.

And now we should be getting to some kind of turning point, the climax of the story where something's going to change, something's going to turn around.

So, reader, you should be looking for that in the next couple of pages.

Sure enough, after dinner, Dad brought out the pie.

I watched as he cut the pie into eight thick slices.

'Dad, I said, 'it sure is nice having a new friend in the neighborhood.'

I was trying to get his attention and try to tell him that Jeremy Ross was no longer my enemy, but Dad only smiled and nodded.

I think he thought I was only pretending.

Dad dished up three plates side by side with big pieces of pie and giant scoops of ice cream.

He passed one to me and one to Jeremy.

'Wow!'

Jeremy said, looking at the pie.

'My dad never makes pies like this.'

It was at this point that I panicked.

I didn't want Jeremy to eat enemy pie.

He was my friend!

I couldn't let him eat it."

Reader, look.

Something's turning around.

Something's changing.

"'Jeremy, don't eat it.

It's bad pie!

I think it's poisonous or something.'

Jeremy's fork stopped before it reached his mouth.

He crumpled his eyebrows and looked at me funny.

I felt relieved.

I had saved his life.

I was a hero.

'If it's so bad,' Jeremy asked, 'then why is your dad already eaten half of it?'

I turned and looked at my dad.

Sure enough, he was eating enemy pie.

'Good stuff,' he mumbled through a mouthful.

And that was all he said.

I sat there watching them eat enemy pie for a few seconds.

Dad was laughing.

Jeremy was happily eating, and neither of them was losing any hair.

It seemed safe enough, so I took a tiny taste.

Energy pie was delicious."

Now, readers, we saw the turning point.

We saw the climax.

Now we're going to see the lesson learned or the problem solved.

"After dessert, Jeremy rode his bike home, but not before inviting me to play on his trampoline in the morning.

He said he'd teach me how to flip."

I have always wanted to learn how to do that.

I wish we had a trampoline in our backyard.

"As for enemy pie, I still don't know how to make it.

I still wonder if enemies really do hate it or if their hair falls out or if their breath turns bad.

But I don't know if I'll ever get an answer because I just lost my best enemy."

So now, readers, I'm going to teach you some really cool things that you can do after you read a book.

So I'm sure your teacher or your parents have asked you to retell a story.

They might have told you to do the five-finger retell.

But I'm going to show you something super cool.

Alright.

So I'm sure your teacher or your parents have asked you to retell a story and you might have done the five-finger retell -- first, next, then, after that, and last, right?

Well, now I'm gonna show you something that's super fun and works for any book.

And this is called using a vignette.

A vignette is like a picture.

So, you know, a video is always moving, right?

But a picture is just a snapshot.

And everyone is still.

And in a vignette, you're acting out a part, but you're completely still.

And while you're doing it, you could tell about that part.

So we're going to do it together.

So I want everyone standing up.

Come up, get up.

Get ready to do it.

Okay, so I wrote down the six vignettes we're going to do today.

But you would do this on your own.

So the first vignette is that story starts with the narrator having an amazing summer.

So think about what he was doing at the beginning of the book.

I'm choosing to play baseball.

And you see how still I am.

The only thing that's moving is my mouth because I'm the narrator and I'm talking about how great my summer is.

Or I might do, "Yes!

Sister is away for three weeks and I don't have her."

You pick your vignette.

Okay, the second one is Jeremy hurts his feelings and now he is his enemy.

You choose what you're going to do.

I'm picturing putting the enemy list up on my treehouse.

And he's my number-one enemy and I've never had an enemy before, but he is it.

Right?

And then the next one, is Dad makes enemy pie.

So you can be Evil Daddy.

I think I'm going to choose having Dad stir the pie.

And this is where you would retell how the boy wonders what's in the pie.

And he brings Dad stuff for the pie and Dad says "No.

None of that'll work."

You decide what you're going to do.

Awesome job.

Alright.

The next part is the narrator and Jeremy play, so you could choose a few things.

So think about the different things that they did together.

I'm going to wind up my water balloon to throw at the neighborhood girls.

I got that one in mind and I'm having a great time with Jeremy.

And I didn't realize that I could have a good time with my enemy.

In fact, I think he might not be my enemy much longer.

What did you choose?

And then the narrator tries to save Jeremy from the pie.

Stop!

What did you choose?

Did you try and knock the fork out of his hand?

You have to be very dramatic or it's not fun.

Remember, you're not moving.

Just your mouse so you can retell that part of the story.

And then the end is now the narrator and Jeremy are friends, and I think I'm going to do the part where Jeremy is teaching him to flip on the trampoline.

This is really hard for me to do.

What part are you doing?

Well, how did they spend the rest of the summer?

And he realized that Jeremy is his really good friend and he's not an enemy any longer.

Now, you can do this for any story.

Take your five-finger retell and do those five important parts and do a vignette and then tell what's happening in that vignette.

Only the important parts because you can only move your mouth just so much.

So you could only say just so much.

And that will help you if you tell too many details that aren't important.

So vignettes is is a great way to retell.

Readers, another thing that third grade readers do is they make a theory about a character, and that's a really big word for we come up with ideas about characters.

And the way we do that is that we know a character's traits, not their feelings.

So we don't say how they feel, but we say something like they persevere or they're evil or they're thoughtful.

And the other thing we do is we look at the decisions the character makes and we use what happened earlier to make a theory.

So I'm going to show you a theory that I came up with.

So... When you look at the father the first time, he tells our narrator about enemy pie.

He looks so evil, doesn't he?

I almost picture him going... [ Laughs maniacally ] ...about enemy pie.

He looks evil, right?

Look at that smile.

And then later on when he's making dinner, wait, he's got that same smile.

Does that mean that Dad is evil all the way through?

And then at the end, when he's full of -- wait.

He's got the same smile again.

So I photocopied the pictures so you could see first smile, second smile.

Third smile.

And fourth smile.

And I need a theory about a character based on his traits.

Right.

But then I started looking earlier in the book.

And as I went through the book, I realized Dad wasn't evil.

Dad knew the whole time that he was going to help his son get rid of that enemy because he was going to be friends with him.

So you can make some really interesting theories about characters at the beginning of a story based on their traits, but sometimes that theory changes by the end.

Now, the last thing I wanted to show you was you can make puppets of the characters and give a puppet show telling the story.

Here's Dad.

Here's our narrator.

Here's the pie and here's Jeremy.

And you can do a puppet show behind a couch, behind a table, and you can retell the story that way too.

I just made the puppet out of regular paper and a popsicle stick that I taped on there.

And what's really cool is you don't have to make the characters look like what the illustrator did.

The illustrator decided that on his own, you can make the characters anywhere you like, any skin color.

And it's a great way to retell a story.

Now, another thing third graders do is they compare characters between books.

So I'm now going to read you another book.

And then we're going to talk about that one.

Now, readers, we're going to read another book that I love, and this is called "We Don't Eat Our Classmates."

And again, we're going to orient ourselves to the book.

So we're going to look at the cover.

And right away I say, you know, classmates, I hope you like you and your classmates.

And I see that this has a T-rex in it and she's got a whole lot of drool coming out.

Blah!

And I'm looking around.

It looks like she's in a classroom, but stuff is all over the place, and I'm looking at her expression.

Look how sad she looks.

Can you see that?

Well, yes, perhaps she looks maybe because of that drool.

Maybe she has a drooling problem.

Huh.

And then, of course, we look for a blurb on the back, and again, this one doesn't have a blurb, but it does have a picture of a huge pile of sandwiches and a juice box and a lunchbox.

So now let me get my reading glasses on.

"We Don't Eat Our Classmates" by Ryan T. Higgins.

He did the pictures, too.

And this T-rex is saying, "Hey, kids, you will never be eaten by a T-rex.

They're extinct.

I promise."

You know, guys, in case you were wondering.

Now, remember, remember our a story mountain.

We're going to look at the setting.

We're gonna see where it takes place, who is in it, and then we're going to look for the problem.

"Penelope Rex was nervous.

It's not every day a little T-rex starts school."

I would be nervous, too.

Wouldn't you?

"What are my classmates going to be like?

Will they be nice?

How many teeth will they have?

This was very important."

How many teeth they're going to have?

I wonder why that's so important.

And I think that's a parent back there and she seems happy.

Look at poor Penelope.

As a reader, I'm making a connection to times where I had to do something new, and I was so nervous and I asked all these questions, too.

I never asked, though, how many teeth someone was gonna have.

"Penelope's mom bought her a new backpack with ponies on it.

Ponies were Penelope's favorite."

Maybe you have a superhero backpack.

My daughter has space on her backpack.

My son used to have superheroes on his backpack because they were his favorites, right?

"Ponies were Penelope's favorite because ponies are delicious."

You didn't expect that, did you?

Penelope's dad packed her a lunch of 300 tuna sandwiches."

That's a lot of sandwiches.

I've always wondered how they fit in that lunchbox.

"And one apple juice.

Finally, the big day came.

And Penelope Rex was very surprised to find out that all of her classmates were children."

Well, what did you think they were going to be?

Put your thumb up if you thought she was going to go to school with other T-rexes.

Put your thumb down if you thought of something else.

She's looking very surprised.

Right?

And I'm looking at this classroom, it looks very much like it might look like your classroom.

It might not.

It looks like my classroom, except they have tables instead of desks.

The teacher's reading there.

The kids are reading.

They're playing games.

They all look happy.

Right?

Alright, let's see why this was such a big surprise.

"So, Penelope ate them because children are delicious.

'Penelope Rex," said Mrs.

Noodleman, "we don't eat our classmates.

Please spit them out at once.'

So she did.

I know -- you might be gagging a little, I know.

"It was not the best way to start school, but still Penelope was determined to have a very good first day."

So now I understand the spit and the sadness.

So looking at our story mountain, we know it takes place at school and Penelope's the main character and her problem is children are delicious and she's not supposed to eat them.

So how might that problem get worse?

Make a prediction right now and I'll wait for you and then tell me as soon as you have it.

How might that problem get worse?

Okay, readers, let's continue.

"She tried to make friends at recess."

Is that making friends?

"She finger-painted some of her best work.

She even saved Griffin Emery a seat at lunch.

'You can sit here.'"

Now, is that really the way you make friends?

"Penelope started to notice everyone was making friends but her."

Look, look, she's by herself on the rug.

Look.

"It was lonely."

Oh, doesn't your heart ache for Penelope?

So now we know how it got worse because she tried to eat the children.

Now she's lonely.

We can probably expect this to get worse, right, before it changes.

Oh, poor Penelope.

"When she got home, her dad asked her about her first day at school."

See now this dad is smiling like the other dad.

But I never thought he was evil.

"'I didn't make any friends,' Penelope cried.

'None of the children wanted to play with me.'

'Penelope Rex,' her father asked, 'did you eat your classmates?'

'Well, maybe, sorta, just a little bit.'

'Sometimes it's hard to make friends,' said her dad.

'Especially if you eat them.

You see, Penelope, children are just the same as us on the inside.

They're just tastier.'

That gave Penelope a lot to think about."

So I look at her in this picture and I'm making a connection that sometimes when I lay in bed at night, I go over my day and I do a lot of thinking about it.

Do you do that, too?

I know a lot of people that don't.

But I'm one of those people.

And it looks like Penelope is, too.

I wonder how she's going to change.

Because we know that that turning point has to come now because Penelope's lonely.

She's not going to keep doing this behavior, right?

"The next day, Penelope tried really hard."

Look, she's sweating.

She's trying so hard not to eat them.

And she's clutching her hands.

"But poor Penelope.

She could not stop herself from eating her classmates.

'Mrs.

Noodleman!

Penelope ate William Amodo again!'

And they were all afraid of her."

And look, she spit him out.

He's full of spit and they're all crying, running away, screaming.

"Except Walter.

Walter was a goldfish.

So Penelope tried to make friends with him.

'Will you be my friend?'

Chomp!"

I didn't know goldfish ate T-rex fingers.

"'Eeeeeeee!'

cried Penelope.

'He's eating my finger!

Aaaaaah!'

Once Penelope found out what it was like to be someone's snack, she lost her appetite for children."

So there she is sitting very nicely, upset with her finger all wrapped up, not using it, but look, everyone's sitting with her.

She's not alone.

Let's see how things change.

"She stopped eating her classmates."

That's the first smile we've seen from Penelope yet.

"She stopped eating her classmates even when Cici Woodman spilled barbecue sauce all over herself."

I love that part.

"And soon Penelope made friends.

'Found you!

'You want a brownie?

I helped make them.'

Now, even when children look especially delicious, she peeks at Walter and remembers what it's like when someone tries to eat you.

And Walter, the goldfish, stares right back at her and he licks his lips."

You do it too.

Stare at me and lick your lips.

Because dinosaurs are delicious.

So now I want to show you two things.

One is what is the most important part?

I'm sure your teacher has asked you to do that.

And one of the ways you can figure out the most important part is by thinking of four things.

You can picture the character's traits.

You can picture their wants and needs.

You could do the story mountain to help you.

But the best way to figure out the most important part.

Is by thinking about the life lesson.

And then you're going to use all of these to figure out what the life lesson is.

So what lesson did Penelope learn?

Well, let's think about it.

She learned that if you eat your classmates, it's really mean and they will not play with you.

She learned that she really was friends because she was so lonely.

And if I look on the story mountain, the life lesson is right at the end.

So what do you think the life lesson is?

Go ahead and tell me what did Penelope learn.

I'll keep this up to help you.

So if you were in my classroom, I would ask you to tell me so I hope that you have told me now, but I'm going to give you the answer.

Penelope learned that you have to be really kind and not scary.

If you want people to be your friend and you have to treat them the way you want to be treated, right?

But she had to learn what it was like to be eaten so she would stop eating the children.

And the last thing you can do, boys and girls, is compare characters in two books.

So I picked the narrator from "Enemy Pie" and Penelope.

And if you were here in my classroom right now, I would ask you for some character traits for the narrator.

So start calling them out and I'm gonna start writing some.

I thought he was worried, he was jealous that his friend Stanley was asked to go on Jeremy's trampoline.

He was really angry.

He was willing to make something awful to get rid of his enemy.

But he realized that if you spend time with someone, they can be your friend.

So he learned a lesson.

In case you guys are wondering, And then Penelope, she was worried also.

So since they were both worried, I'm going to put it in there.

Penelope was not jealous, but Penelope liked to eat children.

Right?

The narrator, he didn't like to eat children.

Penelope was not angry.

She felt sorrow.

She was so, so sad, wasn't she?

She cried.

I don't remember the narrator crying.

And she didn't make anything awful, but she certainly learned a lesson.

Her lesson was different, though.

She learned that she had to treat people the way she wanted to be treated to make friends, whereas our narrator learned that if you spend time with someone, maybe they're not all that bad.

Actually, now that I'm saying this to you, it seems almost like they learned the same lesson.

If you treat people the way you want to be treated, they'll treat you the same way back.

When she stopped eating them, they played with her.

When the narrator was nice to Jeremy, Jeremy was nice to him.

So they learned the same lesson.

So you can make a Venn diagram or you could make a chart.

You could write one character here.

You can also -- My daughter is going to take the dog out of the room so he doesn't make noise.

You can also make puppets.

So my daughter made this Penelope puppet.

And you could retell the story by making a Penelope puppet.

You could also do a vignette.

Think about how you would retell this story with vignettes.

What would be the very first thing you would do?

Perhaps it would be Penelope afraid to be at home.

And then she would go to school and she saw children.

What would be the next thing?

You do it.

And now she eats all the children.

Make your mouth big.

And her teacher says, "Spit them out," so she does.

But now they won't play with her, so she's sad.

But she keeps eating them.

So now she goes home.

And her father tells her "Even if children are delicious, they're the same as us."

So we're going to pretend to put an arm around Penelope and talk to her.

And then maybe the next vignette might be she's trying really hard not to eat.

And then you can do some vignette with them playing.

So right now, I want you to stand up and I want you to make a vignette of Penelope playing but not eating the children.

Go ahead.

Awesome job, reader.

And then at the end -- I forgot Walter eating Penelope.

You got to show Walter eating Penelope.

Aah!

See, even teachers make mistakes.

And then you can show them playing together.

But Penelope is always keeping her eye on Walter.

The last thing I want to teach you, third graders, is that third graders talk about how a character changes in a book from the beginning through to the end.

And the way to do that is to ask yourself, what is that key moment in the book that caused change?

I want to actually picture a key.

What is that key moment?

That one thing that turned and made that character change, and that is going to be at the turning point.

So let's think about how Penelope was at the beginning.

Call out some words right now.

Call out some words right now that explain how Penelope was at the beginning.

So I would say that Penelope was a little bit selfish because even though she knew it bothered her classmates, she tried to eat them anyway.

Right?

Penelope was very sad.

Oh, she was really nervous at the very beginning.

Right?

Okay.

But then throughout the book, what was that key moment that made Penelope say, "I'm not going to be selfish and eat my classmates anymore.

They're so delicious.

But I'm not going to do it.

Think about it.

Think about it.

When you have that key moment, say it.

You guys are such good readers.

That key moment was when Walter ate Penelope.

Well, he bit her.

Bit Penelope, and she didn't like it.

And then she wasn't so selfish anymore.

She was kind.

She baked brownies.

She was thoughtful.

And she realized you have to be these things if you want to make friends, and she wasn't that way at the beginning, but because of that key moment when Walter bit her, Penelope realized she had to change and you could do the same thing for any book.

And that will also help you make a theory about the character because you need to think about character traits.

So now, readers, I want to talk about all the things that we learned today.

We learned how to retell a story with vignettes or with puppets or, of course, that all-important story mountain.

And you could draw that anywhere.

We learned how to make theories about characters by using their traits and decisions.

We talked about the most important part of the story.

We talked about life lessons and we made sure we use text evidence.

I'm sure you've heard that word before.

We used a lot of that today.

We compared and contrasted two characters in two different books.

We did a Venn diagram, but you could also make a chart and I'm sure you guys could come up with other ways to find what is alike and what is different about characters.

And the last thing we did readers was we thought about how a character changes from the beginning to the end by looking at the key moments.

And now, boys and girls, it's time for you to go try all of this.

Go get a book you love and choose one of these things.

Are you going to do a vignette?

Are you going to make a puppet?

Are you going to find that key moment?

Are you going to talk about the life lesson?

Are you going to make a Venn diagram?

I know you can do it, readers.

Bye-bye.

Have fun reading.