Illustration of two students drawing and a teacher asking them to pick a color to write their name
Art By Elio
Mini Graphic,

Do I Need Help?

By Katie Mach
From the September 2023 Issue

Learning Objective: Students will learn characteristics of a comic and discuss a story’s problem and solution.

Lexiles: 280L
Guided Reading Level: G
Featured Skill: Main Idea,
Topic: SEL,
Common Core Standards
  • Health (9) Personal/interpersonal skills. The student knows healthy and appropriate ways to communicate consideration and respect for self, family, friends, and others. The student is expected to: (A) demonstrate respectful communication; (C) express needs, wants, and emotions in appropriate ways.
TEKS Standards
  • Health (9) Personal/interpersonal skills. The student knows healthy and appropriate ways to communicate consideration and respect for self, family, friends, and others. The student is expected to: (A) demonstrate respectful communication; (C) express needs, wants, and emotions in appropriate ways.

Magazine View
See Student View

Do I Need Help?

By Katie Mach

video (1)
Activities (2)
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)
video (1)
Activities (2) Download All Quizzes and Activities
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)

About the Story

English Language Arts Focus

Print features

Problem and solution

Social and Life Skills Focus

Asking for help

Solving problems

Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson Plan

Implementation

Whole Group: morning meeting, community-building time; Small Reading Group

Pairings and Text Connections

  • From the Storyworks archive: “Sticky Situation: Who Will I Play With?”, September 2022
  • Suggested books: Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus, It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr

Before-Reading Resources

Video: What's In a Comic? (5 minutes)

  • How comics use pictures, thoughts, and dialogue to show what’s happening in the story.

Suggested Reading Focus

SEL: Asking for help (15-20 minutes)
  • Have students look at the Mini Graphic in their magazines and ask what they notice about how the story is organized. Help students differentiate between a speech bubble and a thought bubble by finding these in their magazines.
  • Read the Mini Graphic out loud to students while they follow along.
  • Check for comprehension. What is Jack’s problem? What does he need?
  • Use the Talk It Out prompts to facilitate discussion. Have students ever experienced something like this themselves? What helped them? Who helped them? What advice do they have for Jack?

After-Reading Skills Practice

  • Skills: Features of print/School helpers (15 minutes)

Extension Social and Life Skills Activity

Skills: Asking for help/Solving problems (15 minutes)

  • Have students take turns acting out Jack’s problem from the Mini Graphic. They can practice showing how they would advise Jack to ask for help or to solve his own problem. They can also act as possible helpers.
  • Create a “Solution Center” for your classroom, where students can map how big their problem is and what resources are available to help them solve it. Chart student responses to the following questions and leave them displayed in your classroom: 
  1. What are some problems in the classroom that students can solve independently?
  2. What are some problems that might require a teacher’s help?
  3. What are words I can use to help me get what I need in the classroom?

 

Text-to-Speech