This reading and writing lesson also helps students develop empathy. After paying attention to the main character's responses in Victoria and Elizabeth Kann's Purplelicious, students will relate her experiences to their own.

Help your students absorb the details of a text and make inferences about what they read with the strategy of close reading. By reading closely, students will become better able to understand complex themes and nuances in a text.

The first step to helping students develop empathy is teaching them about feelings. In this lesson, students learn what feelings look like by crafting their own emotional faces.

Every name has a story behind it. This lesson allows students to share the story of their name with their classmates. Not only is it fun, it's ideal for establishing a respectful classroom community.