| Text Connections | |
|---|---|
| Text to Text | Connection that reminds you of something in another book or story |
| Text to Self | Connection that reminds you of something in your life. |
| Text to World | Connection that reminds you of something happening in the world. |
Making connections is a very important skill to acquire and perfect. Amos and Boris is a great story for students to connect to on many different levels. In this activity, students will be making text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. Students should choose which connection they want to make first and work to write a narrative for that. Once all three connections have been made, students can work on their illustrations.
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Student Instructions
Create a storyboard that shows connections you have made with Amos and Boris. Include a connection for text to text, text to world, and text to self.
Engage your students by inviting them to share their text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections aloud. This helps build confidence and deepens understanding as students listen to each other's perspectives.
Demonstrate how to connect Amos and Boris to your own experiences, another book, or something in the world as you read. Think aloud so students can hear your thought process, making the skill more accessible.
Create a visual chart where students add examples of each type of connection as they discover them. This ongoing reference supports all learners and sparks new ideas.
Pair students up to share their storyboards and offer positive feedback or ask questions about the connections made. This builds communication skills and helps students refine their thinking.
Display all completed storyboards and allow students to walk around, read, and comment on each other's work. This activity recognizes effort and gives every student a chance to shine.
Text-to-text connections compare a story to another book or story, text-to-self connections relate the story to your own life, and text-to-world connections link the story to real-world events. Making these connections helps deepen understanding and engagement with the text.
Encourage students to identify parts of Amos and Boris they relate to, then guide them to make text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. Have them illustrate and describe each connection using a T-chart for visual support.
Start by explaining the three types of text connections. Read Amos and Boris together, then ask students to find examples for each connection type. Let them complete a storyboard or T-chart and share their ideas with the class.
Making text connections helps students build comprehension, personalize their reading, and see how literature relates to their lives and the wider world. It encourages critical thinking and deeper understanding.
Students might connect the friendship in Amos and Boris to another story about unlikely friends (text-to-text), remember helping or being helped by a friend (text-to-self), or relate the story to teamwork they see in their community (text-to-world).