Smoky Night is about a young boy named Daniel. The book Smoky Night is about this young boy's perspective of the Los Angeles street riots. He watches the riot from his window as people steal TVs, shoes, clothes, and food. Although they're neighbors, Daniel's cat and Mrs. Kim's cat don't get along. Nor do Daniel and his mother shop at Mrs. Kim's market. ``It's better if we buy from our own people,'' Daniel's mother says. But when Daniel's apartment building goes up in flames, all of the neighbors (including the cats) learn the value of bridging differences.The writer Eve Bunting doesn't explicitly connect her message about racism in the story, but it can be inferred through the text.The book Smoky Night is a great book to teach inferences because the author's message about racism is not explicitly connected in the story, but it can be inferred through the text. An example of an inference that can be made through the text is when Daniel says, "Ms. Kim yells at Jasmine( Daniel's cat) in words that I don't understand." The inference that can be made from this part of the story is that Ms. Kim speaks another language and that she may be a different race. To teach making inferences using Smoky Night we would read the book aloud and while we are reading we would model inferring by doing a think aloud.While doing the read aloud we would make sure we use phrases like, I know______ information from the book, and I know______from my brain, so_____ must be true. While reading we would have the students to raise their hands to share inferences they made about the story.
We believe this is a great book to use in the classroom to teach inferences, because the theme of the book has to be inferred. We also think that this book would also teach students important life lessons.
Check out this read aloud of Smoky Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThsWi-yHf9g
We found our activity at http://www.tips-for-teachers.com/inferencing_mini_lessons.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_8231535_teach-inference-fourth-grade.html
When my son was younger, we read this book together. It is a very good book and does teach important life lessons. I like your activity to teach the students how to make inferences with this particular book. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your blog post. I liked the way you explained how to make inferences through out the book. When you said, "I know ____ information from the book, I know ___ from my brain, so ___ must be true."This is a great way for students to learn how to make inferences. I agree with you when you said the students can also learn life lessons from the book.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really great book to use to teach making inferences. Not only are the visible life lessons, but also hidden a that the students can determine theirselves. I also like the idea in the activity to let them think of their inference ideas and sharing them with everyone. -- sarah
ReplyDeleteThis book would be great for teaching the strategy of making inferences! The students will be able to think critically and learn valuable lessons. The activity wonderful! The students can complete their own sentences. I love it!! Great blog!!!
ReplyDelete--Melody Johnson
This is such a great blog post! I really enjoyed your activity! You did a really great job making inferences :)
ReplyDelete