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Elementary
Lesson
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| Awareness | |||||||||||
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Making a new friend can be difficult and a little scary, but it is something we all experience. Appeal to students’ firsthand experience in making and being a friend. Ask students to remember a time when they were in a new situation surrounded by people they did not know. Ask students to reflect on the situation aloud as a group or individually in writing. To guide them, ask:
Read students the following passage about first impressions from page 41. |
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"Charlotte
stood quietly over the fly, preparing to eat it. Wilbur lay down and closed
his eyes. He was tired from his wakeful night and from the excitement
of meeting someone for the first time. A breeze brought him the smell
of clover—the sweet-smelling world beyond his fence. "Well,"
he thought, "I’ve got a new friend, all right! But what a gamble
friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty—everything
I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty
and, of course, clever? |
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Discuss the passage with students, asking:
Keeping a friend is as important as making one. Read the students the following quote from page 115: "Friendship is one of the most satisfying things in the world." Ask students to respond with their thoughts.
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| Understanding | |||||||||||
| Build understanding of the plot, characters, and themes of Charlotte’s Web by discussing them as you read. Use these questions as a guide. | |||||||||||
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Chapters 1 and 2 |
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Discuss
the way Fern and Wilbur’s friendship began.
Mr. Arable wants to kill Wilbur because he is a runt, but Fern insists this is unfair. "This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of," she announces on page 3. Ask the students the following questions:
Fern and Wilbur’s friendship is strengthened once they finally meet.
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Chapters 3 and 4 |
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Discuss the episode in which Wilbur escapes from the barn.
At Zuckerman’s barn, Wilbur has trouble making friends. Discuss Wilbur’s troubles. Wilbur feels bored and lonely at Zuckerman’s barn, even though there are many more animals there to keep him company. Why? What is the difference between being lonely and being alone?
Close to bedtime, Wilbur’s horrible day gets a little better when a voice calls down to him that it will be his friend.
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| Chapters 5, 6, and 7 | |||||||||||
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When Wilbur finally meets his new friend, he finds out that they are very different.
All the animals react differently to the bad news that the old sheep gives Wilbur.
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| Chapters 8 and 9 | |||||||||||
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Mr. and Mrs. Arable are very surprised when they hear Fern talk about the animals in Zuckerman’s barn as if they could speak.
Wilbur tries to be like his best friend by spinning a web.
Wilbur is still worried about being killed at Christmastime.
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| Chapters 10 and 11 | |||||||||||
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Charlotte
has some interesting ideas. She thinks that "people are not as smart
as bugs" (p. 67), and that they are very gullible.
When Avery tries to capture Charlotte things start to go badly but turn out well in the end.
Charlotte finally reveals her plan to save Wilbur.
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| Chapters 12 and 13 | |||||||||||
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At the barn meeting, all the animals pitch in to help save Wilbur.
Other characters are changing, too.
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| Chapters 14, 15, and 16 | |||||||||||
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Dr. Dorian tells Mrs. Arable that "if Fern says the animals in Zuckerman’s barn talk, I am quite ready to believe her" (p. 110).
"It’s hard to believe that [Wilbur] was the runt of the litter," says Mr. Arable (p. 126).
"You’ll get some extra good ham and bacon, Homer, when it comes time to kill that pig," Mr. Arable announces next(p. 126).
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| Chapters 17 and 18 | |||||||||||
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Charlotte sees another pig in the stall next to Wilbur, and drops in on him to investigate.
The last word Charlotte will spin into her web will be "humble."
Something is happening to Charlotte.
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| Chapters 19 and 20 | |||||||||||
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Everyone was about to give up when they saw the blue ribbon on Uncle’s stall door, but soon they learned that Wilbur won a special prize.
When Charlotte heard the announcer’s words, she thought "this was her hour of triumph" (p. 157).
Templeton does something unusual in chapter 20.
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| Chapters 21 and 22 | |||||||||||
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Templeton climbs up the stall to get Charlotte’s egg sac for Wilbur, but only after Wilber promises to let him eat first for the rest of their lives.
After Charlotte’s death, things continue to change, but some stay the same.
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| Action | |||||||||||
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Give students the chance to put their new ideas about making and being a friend into action. |
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| Dear Abby | |||||||||||
| Present students with letters, either from characters in Charlotte’s Web or from children in situations similar to theirs, which detail problems the writers are having with making or being a friend. Ask students to write responses to these letters, acting as Dear Abby and giving practical advice that will help the letter writer to solve his or her problem. | |||||||||||
| A Teamwork Challenge | |||||||||||
| Split students into groups of three or four. Present each student with a collection of tangram shapes different from any other student in their group. Then present each child with a tangram puzzle which requires some of the materials from each child’s pile to complete. Do not directly inform students that they are expected to share their materials or work together. Let them discover that it is only possible to complete the task by sharing as they work. After the students have had a chance to try to complete the project, discuss the results with the class. | |||||||||||
| A Friendship Pact | |||||||||||
| Reread the pact the Wilbur makes with Joy, Aranea, and Nellie on page 182. | |||||||||||
| "’Joy! Aranea! Nellie!’ he began, ‘Welcome to the barn cellar. You have chosen a hallowed doorway from which to string your webs. I think it only fair to tell you I was devoted to your mother. I owe my very life to her. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. I shall always treasure her memory. To you, her daughters, I pledge my friendship, forever and ever.’" | |||||||||||
| Create a classroom pact in which students pledge to show friendship toward each other, or have each individual student write their own friendship pledge detailing what they look for in a friend and what they promise to do in return. Model the pact on the pledge that Wilbur makes to Charlotte’s daughters. | |||||||||||
| A Letter to a Friend | |||||||||||
| Have students write a letter to a friend that has moved away, or one that they see less often than they would like. Give students the opportunity to show friendship even when they are not physically close to the other person. | |||||||||||
| Buddy System | |||||||||||
| Give children in the class a buddy, either younger children or children who are new to the school. Have them give tours around the school, eat lunch with them once a week, or study together. The goal is to make that person feel welcome in the school and to practice being kind to others. | |||||||||||
| Reflection | |||||||||||
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The following prompts can be used for further class discussion or as writing assignments. |
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| Tracing a Friendship | |||||||||||
| Charlotte’s Web follows a friendship from its beginning to its end, including all the steps in between. Instruct students to choose either Wilbur and Fern’s friendship or Wilbur and Charlotte’s friendship, and trace the way it grows and changes over the course of the story. How did the friendship begin? Do the two characters grow closer or drift apart? Why? What major events prompt these changes? How does the friendship end? Do the characters forget each other afterwards, or do they keep some kind of connection? This activity could be completed in essay form or as a timeline illustrating key points in the friendship. | |||||||||||
| The Power of Helping Others | |||||||||||
| Before
Charlotte dies, she and Wilbur have one last important conversation. They
discuss their friendship and why Charlotte spent so much time and effort
helping Wilbur. At one point, Charlotte tells her friend. "By helping
you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a little. Heaven knows anyone’s
life can stand a little of that" (p. 164). What does Charlotte mean
by this statement? How can helping a friend "lift up" the helper’s
life? OR Templeton is a character who would not understand Charlotte’s statement at all. "The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything" (p. 46). What would the barn be like if all the animals were like Templeton? |
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| First Impressions | |||||||||||
| When Charlotte meets Uncle at the fair, she immediately dislikes him. Ask students to remember your earlier conversation on this topic. Charlotte says that she dislikes Uncle’s personality, and that she finds him to be "too familiar, too noisy, and he cracks weak jokes" (p. 135). Charlotte dislikes him for another reason, as well: because he is Wilbur’s competition. Should Charlotte immediately dislike him because he is the competition? Invite students to apply this situation to their own lives. Have they ever been in a similar situation? Ask them to describe a time when they had originally disliked someone without getting to know them and later found out that the person would make a good friend. | |||||||||||
| Growing Apart | |||||||||||
| After Charlotte died, Wilbur loved her children and grandchildren, but "none of the new spiders ever took [Charlotte’s] place in his heart" (p. 184). Fern grew up, discovered other human friends, and did not spend time in the barn any longer, but Wilbur remembered her fondly, too. Does remembering old friends get in the way of making new friends? Should we forget old friends who we grow apart from or who move away? Why or why not? | |||||||||||
| Reflections on Friendship | |||||||||||
| Charlotte taught Wilbur a great deal about how to make and be a friend. What has Wilbur learned from his friendship with Charlotte? How does this change the way he acts as a friend to the other animals on the farm after Charlotte is gone? How does it affect his ability and desire to make friends in the future? What will Wilbur look for in a friend, and how will he try to act towards one? What have you learned about friendship from Charlotte and Wilbur? | |||||||||||
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