Teaching Charlotte's Web

Instructions for You

Objective: Everyone needs a little help from their friends from time to time. (You can even introduce your little munchkins to the Beatles' classic "With a Little Help from My Friends" or Harry Nilson's "Best Friend" if you're ready to have them in your head for the rest of the day.) During the course of Charlotte's Web, Wilbur receives many assists from his coterie of barnyard buddies. In this two-part activity, students will write some thank-you notes to Charlotte, Fern, Templeton, and Mr. Arable, acknowledging their many kindnesses on his behalf.

Not only will this activity allow for careful review of the major plot points of the book, but you'll also be teaching an important social grace: the art of the formal thank-you—in the second part of this activity, your students will consider some of the most famous friendships in children's literature and use one of them as a basis for writing a reflection about a friend they feel grateful to have.

Materials Needed: Access to the article "10 Best Friends in Literature" from the Reading Rainbow blog, and 5 x 7 size index cards (four per student, or pairs of students)

Step 1: Ask students to come up with a list of all the ways that Charlotte has been a good friend to Wilbur throughout the course of the novel. Besides the fact that she saves his life and sacrifices her own limited energy on his behalf, what else does Charlotte do for Wilbur?

During your conversation, make sure to be pinpointing and analyzing with your students the more intangible things that friends do for one another, things like bolstering self-esteem, sharing knowledge and wisdom, and looking out for future well-being. After completing this list of Charlotte's gifts to Wilbur and posting it on big paper, have students work in small groups to come up with similar lists of the acts of friendship demonstrated by Fern, Templeton, and Mr. Arable.

Step 2: Friends deserve to be formally thanked from time to time, and in this step, your students will compose brief but specific thank-you notes from Wilbur to his four most helpful friends. Hallmark (and who knows better than Hallmark about cards?), in this article about how to write a thank-you note, suggests that there are six parts to writing a successful thank-you note, which you can model with your students by writing one of the notes as a group. Hallmark's six step template includes: greeting, expression of thanks, adding specific details, looking ahead, restating thanks, and ending with regards.

Mr. Arable works easily for a modeling opportunity—Wilbur should thank him for sparing him from slaughter, allowing Fern to raise him, selling him to the nearby Zuckermans. Once students understand the principle through the modeling activity, have them work individually or in pairs on the other three notes.

Step 3: Now that your students are focused on the idea of the many and wondrous things friends do for each other and the importance of acknowledging the centrality of friendship, it's time to broaden the activity. (The thank-you note exercise could certainly be done as a stand-alone activity.)

Read and discuss with your students the Reading Rainbow blog's "10 Best Friends in Literature." The best friendships mentioned in the article include: Calvin and Hobbes, Frodo and Sam, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, Dorothy and Toto, Pooh and Piglet, Wilbur and Charlotte, Holmes and Watson, Tom and Huck, Rat and Mole, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Get students talking about what they know about these famous friends—all of them have been the subjects of major films, so you can show quick film clips if your students draw total blanks on them. Review with them the ways in which the author characterizes these ten friendships by creating a running list on big paper of the touchstones of the ten friendships.

Author Jennie Buchanan mentions these qualities of the great literary friendships: strong belief in one another, willingness to sacrifice, loving your friend for the ways he/she drives you crazy, providing comfort when others let you down, being opposites who provide what the other lacks, coming into your life and changing it at the right time, love of mutual adventure, and being a perfect traveling companion. These are all awesome elements of best friends, which kids will want to discuss, so leave plenty of time for that.

PS: Totally have copies of these nine other great friendship books on hand; it's very likely that avid Charlotte fans will want to read them as future independent reading books.

Step 4: Now that your students are all amped up about friendship, it is time to put them to work writing a reflection on an important friendship in their own life. Their prompt is: Which of these literary friendships is most like a friendship you've experienced? Their reflection should:

• Be 200-250 words long
• Describe their friend and the history of their friendship
• Compare this friendship to one of the ten on the list
• Explain why the friendship is or was so important to them

It's important that students realize that there are periods in life when you might not have a single bestest of besties, that they can be writing about the past as well as the present. You might also mention that for some people a parent, or a sibling, or a pet might be a very important friend in addition to their other role. The aforementioned song, "Best Friend," described a fictional TV father who felt that his son was his best friend.

Step 5: Urge students to share what they've written about their friend with that friend, as another form of a thank-you.

Instructions for Your Students

Student Intro: Everyone needs a little help from their friends from time to time, as it says in that old Beatles song that your grandparents could surely sing for you. In Charlotte's Web it seems like Wilbur often relies on the help and support of his crew. One of his better qualities is how grateful and appreciative he acts toward Charlotte, Fern, and the rest of the gang. In these next two activities, you're going to take the idea of thanking friends to a whole new level.

Step 1: With your teacher and classmates, you'll create a list of the many ways that Charlotte was a good friend to Wilbur. Then, working with a partner, you'll come up with a similar list of the good friend things done for Wilbur by Fern, Templeton, and Mr. Arable. You should brainstorm at least three acts of friendship for each list.

Step 2: Now that you have your lists, you're going to write—yes, we mean handwrite, the old-fashioned way—a series of thank-you notes from Wilbur to his helpful friends. You'll start with Mr. Arable, as his help came early in the book and is the most straightforward. He saved Wilbur from the chopping block, allowed Fern to raise him, and sold him nearby to the Zuckermans, where Fern could still be part of his life. For all these things, you (as Wilbur) will thank him.

A proper thank-you note starts with a greeting, offers thanks, mentions specific details, looks ahead, restates appreciation, and ends with regards. Here's what we have in mind to get you started:

Dear Mr. Arable,

Thank you for the many ways you saved and improved my life. Without you, I'd be dead! Not only that, you let your wonderful daughter take care of me. And  when it was time to sell me, you kept me right in the neighborhood. I get to spend my whole life with the people I love, all because of you. I just can't thank you enough.

Best regards,

Wilbur

Now that you have a model, get started on your thank-yous to Charlotte, Fern, and Templeton.

Step 3: There, now, didn't it feel good to thank people who deserved thanks? You really can't go wrong by letting the important people in your life know that you appreciate them. That's what you're going to do next; you're going to write a tribute to a best friend you've had (or have) by comparing your friendship with that person to one of the great friendships in literature. Begin by reading over this list of ten great friendships that was created at the Reading Rainbow blog: "10 Best Friendships in Literature."

As you read the list, notice carefully how the author describes each of these ten famous friendships and decide which of these friendships most reminds you of one of your own friendships. Do you have a friend that you love to death but who also drives you crazy, the way Peter Pan is always making Tinkerbell jealous? Do you have a friend who is pretty much your opposite, like Piglet is to Pooh?  Do you have a pet who's comforted you when people let you down, like Toto for Dorothy? Then that's what you're going to be writing about.

Step 4: Your writing prompt is: Which of these literary friendships on the list is most like a friendship you've experienced? Your reflection should:

• Describe your friend and provide a brief history of the friendship
• Compare this friendship to one of the ten on the list
• Explain why the friendship is or was so important for you
• Be 200-250 words long

We've agreed that feeling appreciated is important in this life, so it'd be super special if you shared this reflection with the person (or pet) you wrote about. Send it to your friend. Read it to your hamster. Leave it next to your brother's Xbox. Somehow, let your friend know how much he/she matters.