Chrysanthemum is a story about a character's name. Students quickly identify with the main character's problem at school. After watching the video clip, use the organizer to brainstorm character traits. Finish by modeling how to compose a paragraph. The chart includes activote questions for assessing student's comprehension after the read a loud.

Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day gets the students excited about paragraph writing. After reading the book the students use activotes to assess the listening skills during read a loud. Next the students learn to fill in an organizer and use notes to write a paragraph. Following that the students identify the parts of a paragraph by using different colored highliters.