Emily’s Fortune

Emily’s Fortune

Written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor with illustrations by Ross Collins.

Grades 2-6

Grades 2-6

• Emily’s Fortune as a Mentor Text: Character Development. Emily’s Fortune is filled with vivid characters. Revisit the text as an opportunity to study how authors bring a character to life in the minds of their readers. Select passages that serve to further the reader’s understanding of a character, such as the discussion of Emily at the beginning of page 5, or the description of Uncle Victor at the bottom of page 7, and display these passages with a document camera or an overhead projector. Ask student to look closely at how the author uses description, dialogue, or action to let us know more about a character’s personality, motivation, and beliefs. Students can then try to apply these techniques in character sketches of their own composition.

• Tall Tale Genre Study. Read-aloud Emily’s Fortune to launch a class genre study of the Tall Tale. You will want to read many different examples of Tall Tales together in order to generate a list of characteristic of the genre. Be sure to include Tall Tales from various cultures in order to explore similarities and differences within the genre. As students develop their understandings of this form of writing, they can begin to draft their own original tall tales, ultimately publishing these tales individually or as a class compilation.

• Ready, Aim, Fire: Three of the many humorous characters in this novel are the neighbors, Mrs. Ready, Mrs. Aim and Mrs. Fire. These characters speak in a pattern. “Mrs. Ready always repeated the problem. Mrs. Aim always asked the question. And Mrs. Fire always had an answer” (p. 6). Throughout her journey to find Aunt Hilda, Emily imagines how these ladies would respond to the situations in which she finds herself. Invite your students to practice writing dialogue following this conversational pattern. Students will have fun coming up with funny problems and solutions, and this is also a sneaky opportunity to practice correct punctuation for dialogue!

• Life in the “Wild West”: Emily’s Fortune is a work of historical fiction and as such, invites further study of the time period. Ask your students to identify the rough time period of the novel using the setting clues. Use the links below to assemble and display a collection of visual images from the time period and invite students to indentify and research a personal topic of interest related to the “Wild West.” Students can present their findings through digital media, writing, artwork, or performance art.

Critical Literacy

• Language / Strong Expressions: Each chapter in Emily’s Fortune ends with a dramatic question highlighted in large bold font. These questions contain creative and expressive language use, for example: “Where in tumblin’ tarnation was Emily supposed to sleep?” (p. 37). Students will naturally want to repeat these phrases and may come up with some humdingers of their own creation. Use this opportunity to discuss language variations (dialects and expressions) that are cultural, regional, and dependent on social contexts, as well as how those dialects and expressions are perceived by different social groups.

• Gender Roles: “Good Girl” / “Bad Boy”: When Emily disguises herself as a boy, she must adjust to different social expectations for her behavior. Discuss gender roles as they are depicted in this work of historical fiction. You may want to share excerpts of literature from this time period, such as Louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl written in 1869 (available online at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/alcott/girl/girl.html#I ) and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer written in 1876 to further explore gender roles of the time period. Ask students to compare these presentations of proper ‘girl’ and ‘boy ’ behavior to the gender role stereotypes they may encounter in their daily lives.

Further Explorations

Online Resources

Read Write Think: Thundering Tall Tales
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/thundering-tall-tales-using-327.html

Aaron Shepherd’s Home Page: Storytelling
http://www.aaronshep.com/index.html

Smithsonian National Postal Museum
http://arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=2&cmd=1&id=1034&pg=1&mode=1&tid=2031339&

CA State Parks Stagecoach Lines Page

https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/history/stagecoach/

http://americanhistory.si.edu/coins/flash/exhibition_theme.cfm?theme=4

http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/stereo.1s01576/

Carlson, L. M. (1996). Westward ho: An activity guide to the wild west. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

• A collection of songs, games, and activities related to the settlement of the West.

Cushman, K. (1998). The ballad of Lucy Whipple. New York: HarperTrophy.

• Twelve year old Lucy is distressed when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to California in the height of the gold rush. Her adventure is recounted in this coming of age novel.

Freedman, R. (1983). Children of the wild west. Boston, MA: Clarion.

• This photo essay from pioneering nonfiction writer Russell Freedman describes life in the western frontier from 1840 to the early 1900’s.

Gershator, P. (1999). Tiny and Bigman. Illus. by L. Cravath. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.

• A modern, boisterous tall tale about how opposites attract, set in the West Indies.

Hopkinson, D. (2004). Apples to Oregon: Being the (slightly true) narrative of how a brave pioneer father brought apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes, and cherries (and children) across the plains. Illus. by N. Carpenter. New York: Atheneum.

• This original Tall Tale, based on the real-life figure Henderson Luelling, depicts a fruit-tree-obsessed father who travels from Iowa to Oregon transporting his precious nursery stock, ably assisted by his children.

Hurston, Z. N. (2005). Lies and other tall tales. Illus. by C. Myers. New York: Harper Collins.

• A collection of exaggerated tales in the African American storytelling tradition.

Isaacs, A. (1994). Swamp angel. Illus. by P. O. Zelinsky. New York: Dutton.

• This Caldecott Honor winning picture book features larger than life Angelica Longrider, a.k.a. Swamp Angel, a Tall Tale heroine from Tennessee.

Isaacs, A. (2010). Dust devil. Illus. by P. O. Zelinsky. New York: Schwartz & Wade.

• The continued adventures of Swamp Angel as she moves from Tennessee to Montana.

Mora, P. (2005). Doña Flor: A tall tale about a giant woman with a great big heart. Illus. by R. Colón. New York: Knopf.

• With Spanish phrases throughout, the original Tall Tale from the American Southwest features a giant heroine who lovingly cares for the people in the village near her home.

Sheinkin, S. (2009). Which way to the wild west? Everything your schoolbooks didn’t tell you about westward expansion. Illus. by T. Robinson. New York: Roaring Brook Press.

• With a conversational tone, the author provides an overview of American’s expansion Westward that covers the major historical events, includes maps, and features biographies of major historical figures.

Shepard, A. (2001). Master man: A tall tale from Nigeria. Illus. by D. Wisniewski. New York: Harper Collins.

• A boastful strong man receives his comeuppance in this Tall Tale from Nigeria.

Smith, C. L. (2010). Holler loudly. Illus. by B. Gott. New York: Dutton.

• Holler Loudly is gifted with powerful vocal cords, but his family and community don’t fully appreciate his talents until he scares away a tornado that is about to descend on the town.

Stamm, C. (1990). Three strong women. Illus. by J. and M. Tseng. New York: Viking.

• In this Japanese folktale, a wrestler learns a lesson in humility from three generations of strong women.

Timberlake, A. (2003). The dirty cowboy. Illus. by A. Rex. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.

• In this tale, marked by the classic exaggeration of the Tall Tale form, a cowboy sets his dog to guard his clothes while he takes his annual bath. Trouble ensues when the dog doesn’t recognize his newly washed master’s scent.

Walker, P. R. (2002). True tales of the wild west. Washington, DC: National Geographic.

• Drawing on primary sources, the author presents a collection of ten carefully researched true stories about famous characters of the Wild West.

Willey, M. (2001). Clever Beatrice: An Upper Peninsula conte. Illus. by H. Solomon. New York: Athenum.

• This Tall Tale set in Michigan follows a traditional French Canadian storytelling form and features a smart young heroine who outwits a giant.

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