Children's Book Press - Antonio's Card / La tarjeta de Antonio

What Makes a Family

Photos of students' families; old magazines with photographs of people, scissors, tape, butcher paper, markers, yarn; fiction and nonfiction books about diverse families; Internet resources about diverse families (see Resources)

	A week or two before beginning to teach this book, bring in photos of your own family to share with the class. Ask students to bring in photos of their families (including photos of their extended families). Carefully affix the photos to a large sheet of butcher paper to create an "Our Families" display. Use colored markers or yarn to connect visually the various photos of each student's family.
	Cut out photos of families and of individual people from old magazines. Arrange these pictures to create a collage of families with diverse structures: single-parent households, two-parent households, interracial households, families with two male or two female heads of household, families with different numbers of adult caregivers, families with adopted children of different ethnicities, and so on. Display the collage near the students' family photos.
	Create a library display in your classroom organized around the topic of diversity in families. Gather together fiction and nonfiction books either about diverse families or featuring characters from a variety of family structures. Include your own favorite titles as well as those that children have been reading. Also include printouts of family-related information and activities from the Internet. See the Resources section of this guide for some book titles and websites.

The Power of Words
In preparation for reading Antonio's Card / La tarjeta de Antonio, students discuss how the words of others can affect the way we feel.

30 min.

individual; whole class

CA Language Arts (Listening and Speaking) Standard 1.2: Students connect and relate prior experiences, insights, and ideas to those of a speaker.

Strips of paper, pencils, paper bag, flipchart, and markers

Share a personal experience in which someone said something to you that made you feel good. Discuss why the words made you feel as you did. Then share and discuss an experience in which the words of another person were hurtful to you.

Have students recall a moment in their own lives when someone said something that made them feel good. Have them write the person's words on strips of paper. Ask students to fold the strips in half and place them in a paper bag. Then repeat this process for experiences in which someone used words in a way that was hurtful.

Shake the bag to mix up the strips of paper. Then have each student take one sentence out of the bag and read it aloud. Record on a flipchart the key phrases under the headings Words that Make Us Feel Good and Words that Make Us Feel Bad. Continue until all of the strips have been read aloud. Then lead students in a discussion about how the words of others have the power to both express feelings and to change the way we feel. After all students have had a chance to share, discuss with them different ways to make sure language is not hurtful.

Tell students that the book they are about to read tells the story of a child who loves words, but who also comes to know the hurt they can cause. Ask students to pay attention to the power of words as they read and think about the events of the story.

Diving In

40 min.

whole class

Introduce the book to students in a large group. Focus this first reading of the book on reading for pleasure. Encourage students to enjoy the beauty of the book and the story it tells. In order to foster this enjoyment, try some of the following activities:

	Read the title aloud in both English and Spanish. Explain that this book has a bilingual format, with the text on each spread of pages appearing in English first and then Spanish. (You may want to point out that some Spanish words appear in the English text and some English words appear in the Spanish text.) Ask students to look at the cover illustration, identify Antonio, and then discuss what they think his card might be and who it might be for.
	Read the book aloud to the class, or have students read it individually or in pairs. Encourage them to pay particular attention to Antonio's feelings and how they change during the course of the story. Pause after different moments in the story to check students' comprehension and to have them make predictions about what will happen next. You might use the following questions: p. 4 Who does Antonio live with? p. 6 Why does Antonio blush when Leslie comes to pick him up? p. 10 What do Leslie and Antonio do after school? p. 15 Why do you think Antonio's hand freezes on his card? p. 18 What do you think Antonio will decide to do about the Mother's Day display? p. 22 What does Antonio want to do with Leslie after school on this day? p. 30 What surprise does Antonio have for Leslie?
	When you have completed this first reading of the book, ask students to share favorite passages and illustrations. Encourage them to explain how they think Antonio is feeling at each moment they have chosen.

Suggestion for Bilingual Classes

Partner heritage speakers of Spanish and English whenever possible, and encourage them to explore differences in reading and writing the two languages.

It's All About Family
Students develop their understanding of vocabulary related to the concepts of what makes a family and who is a partner.

45 min.

whole class; small group

CA Reading Standard 1.5: Students demonstrate knowledge of levels of specificity among grade-appropriate words and explain the importance of these relations.

Chart paper and markers; pencils or pens and paper

Have students point out any words in the story that are unfamiliar to them. Write these on the board. Then work with students to decode and figure out the meanings of the words, using context or a dictionary. Some key words students might mention include:

beams (verb) (p. 3)
blushing (p. 6)
absolutely (p. 8)
taunting (p. 15)
echoes (p. 15)

individual (p. 18)
studio (p. 22)
canvas (p. 24)
solitary/lonely (p. 29)
ashamed (p. 30)

Read aloud the first paragraph on page 4 of the story. Ask students to identify the character Leslie in the illustration on page 5. Then write the word partner at the top of a sheet of chart paper. Engage students in a discussion about what it means to be a partner. Record students' ideas on the chart paper. If necessary, point out that the word partner has different meanings in different contexts, such as at work, at school, in sports, in families, with friends, and in relationships. Add the different contexts to the chart paper and discuss them with students. Explain that in this story, the word partner describes an adult who is in a loving and long-term relationship with another adult, and that Leslie and Antonio's mother are partners who have such a relationship.

Ask students to suggest how they think the story is related to the topic of family. Then have them work in small groups to brainstorm words that name the people in a family. Encourage students to think broadly about the different members of their own families as well as other families they know. Ask one member of each group to record the group's ideas. Then bring the class back together.

Have the scribes write their lists of family members on the board. Then write the word FAMILY in the middle of a sheet of chart paper. Work with students to group the words into the categories of Parents/Caregivers, Children, and Extended Family. Mention that close friends who may (or may not) live with a family are sometimes considered “family.” Record the words in a web with FAMILY at the center. If your classroom includes students who speak Spanish, you might generate a second web with the equivalent Spanish names for family members.

Review the webs with students. Clarify the meanings of any terms with which they are unfamiliar. Then engage students in a discussion about how each family is unique and how most families include some combination of these people.

What and Why
Students use a graphic organizer to record important story events and examine how they are related as causes and effects.

40 min.

pairs or small groups

CA Reading Standard 2.6: Students extract appropriate and significant information from text, including problems and solutions.

Copies of Cause-and-Effect Chart (click to download); overhead transparency of chart; pencils or pens

Display an overhead transparency of the Cause-and-Effect Chart. Ask students to share what they know about causes and their effects. If necessary, explain that an effect is something that happens and a cause is the reason why it happens. Point out that both causes and effects may be related to characters' actions (what they do), words (what they say), thoughts, or feelings. Explain also that readers may find causes stated in a story, or may have to infer them from what happens. You may also want to explain the following:

One cause can have several effects.
Several causes can all contribute to one effect.
Several events may be linked together in a cause-and-effect chain, such as when one event causes another event to happen, which then causes a third event to happen, and so on.

Model filling in the chart with a simple cause-and-effect relationship, such as the one shown below. Demonstrate the relationship between events by pointing out how the arrow in the chart shows which event is the cause, or reason, that the other event occurred.
You might also model using the information in the chart to create a statement using the word because to show the causal relationship: Antonio's mother gives him a kiss because he spells out MAMI with his cereal.

Divide the class into small groups or pairs, and provide each group with a copy of the Cause-and-Effect Chart. Ask students to read the story again. As they read this time, they should pause to record cause-and-effect relationships between events. Encourage students to write down those events that seem most important and then think about what was the reason behind each one. Remind them that some of the events will have been caused by other events described in the story, while other events may be related to things not stated in the story. The chart below gives several examples of cause-and-effect relationships between events that are described in the story.

Cause	Effect
Leslie waves and says good-bye to Antonio. (p. 4)	Antonio runs to the bedroom window and presses his hand on the glass. (p. 4)
Leslie looks different from other parents. (p. 6)	Some kids make fun of her. (p. 6)
Some kids make fun of Leslie. (p. 6)	Antonio blushes and rushes down the sidewalk to meet her. (p. 6)
Antonio says that he is making a card for his mother and Leslie, and then worries that others will ask who Leslie is. (p. 12)	Antonio hunches over his card so that no one can see it. (p. 15)
Ms. Mendoza announces that the kids' cards will be shown in a Mother's Day display. (p. 15)	Antonio's hand freezes over his card and the taunting of the other kids echoes in his head. (p. 15)
Antonio doesn't want to hear kids laughing at his card or pointing at Leslie. (p. 20)	Antonio walks to school with his head down. (p. 20)
Antonio looks at the painting that Leslie has made for his mother. (p. 24)	Antonio feels a lump in his throat. (p. 29)
Antonio thinks about what life would be like without Leslie. (p. 29)	Antonio feels lucky that she is a part of his family. (p. 30)

Bring the class back together. Have students discuss the cause-and-effect relationships they identified in the story. Encourage them to use the word because to distinguish between causes and effects.

The Untold Story: Reading Beyond the Words
Students practice making inferences about characters' feelings at key moments in the story.

40 min.

whole class; partners

CA Reading Standard 2.2: Students ask questions and support answers by connecting prior knowledge with literal information found in, and inferred from, the text.

Copies of Untold Story Chart (click here to download); overhead transparency of chart; pencils or pens.

Prior to beginning this activity, you may want to complete the cause-and-effect activity from the Second Time Around: Reading Comprehension section of this Teacher's Guide. Remind students that oftentimes the events in a story are related to each other as causes and their effects. Then point out that in many stories, authors do not explain all that is happening to their characters or everything that their characters are feeling. Readers need to use what they already know along with information they find in the story to figure out or “infer” things on their own. You should write the word “infer” on the board and include a kid-friendly definition of this word so that your students can refer to it.

Read aloud page 3 of the story. Then go line by line through the text and guide students to identify inferences that can be made based on what the story says and what they know from experience. Record the inferences you make together on an overhead transparency of the Untold Story Chart. Sample answers are provided below. Repeat the process for page 4 of the story.

Page	What Happens (What the Story Says)	What It Means
3	Antonio writes MAMI with his cereal.	Antonio loves his mother; Antonio loves to write and spell words.
	Antonio writes TE QUIERO—I love you—on a napkin and puts it in his mother's purse.	Antonio wants to surprise his mother and make her happy by letting her know how he feels.
	Antonio's mother asks him how to spell keys in both English and Spanish.	Antonio comes from a bilingual household.
	Antonio beams before he spells keys in Spanish.	Antonio is proud of his knowledge of Spanish.
4	Leslie waves to Antonio through the bedroom window every morning.	Leslie cares deeply about Antonio.
	Antonio and Leslie press their hands against the window.	Antonio also cares deeply for Leslie.
	All the way to school, Antonio can feel the press of the window against his hand.	Antonio feels strongly about Leslie.

Once you are satisfied that students understand how to make inferences, divide the class into pairs. Provide partners with a copy of the chart. Ask them to page through the rest of the story and identify other examples of moments in the story in which a character's feelings are revealed yet not directly stated in the text. Have them record these examples in the chart.

Gather students together to share their inferences and interpretations. You may want to suggest that one partner in each pair read aloud the text from the story, while the other explains what he/she thinks it means. Afterwards, have students engage in a discussion in which they share the personal experiences and knowledge that helped them make their inferences.