Compare two stories and name what authors and illustrators do

Learning goal: Recognize a story and a poem, distinguish the author’s and illustrator’s roles, and compare characters’ experiences in two familiar read-alouds. Use The Seed Tray from the companion lesson, rereading it as needed, and the short original story below. An adult can read both completely before children compare them.

Original read-aloud: The Rolling Crayons

Leo set a handful of crayons on a sloping board. The crayons rolled off the edge. “I wanted them ready for our mural,” he said. Mina brought a shallow box. “Will this help?” Leo put the crayons inside. The sides kept them from rolling away. Together they carried the box to the mural table. Leo drew a little box beside the word crayons on their supply list. “Next time, we can look at this picture and remember,” he said.

Original short poem: Ready to Draw

Crayons wait inside a tray.
We choose a shade and start to play.
A little line, a looping sun—
We share our pictures when we’re done.

A story presents characters and events. The Rolling Crayons tells about a problem and a response. A poem may organize words into lines and use sound patterns, rhythm or imagery. This poem has line breaks and rhyming pairs: tray/play and sun/done. Do not teach that every poem must rhyme or that every short piece of writing is a poem. Compare the actual features of these two examples.

An author composes the words; an illustrator creates the pictures. They can be the same person or different people. For classroom practice, have an adult write a two-sentence mini-book while a child supplies a drawing, and put their actual names in the corresponding bylines. The website’s supplied examples are original OhioCoreAcademy materials with no named author; do not invent a human author name or pretend a child wrote them.

Compare the two stories using supported details. Both involve Mina and Leo working with classroom materials. In The Seed Tray, wind scatters labels and a notebook drawing helps restore them. In The Rolling Crayons, crayons roll from a sloping board and a box holds them. The children cooperate in both, but the problems and physical solutions differ.

A comparison includes similarities and differences, not a judgment that one story is correct and the other wrong. Ask the learner to identify the event in each story that supports the comparison. A picture can help recall an event, but words establish details that are not visible. If an illustration contains a decorative color never named in the story, avoid using that color as evidence for a textual claim.

Worked example 1: Compare experiences. Say, “Mina and Leo help each other in both stories. They use a notebook drawing in one and a shallow box in the other.” Point to the relevant event in each read-aloud. This comparison is more specific than “both are nice.”

Worked example 2: Identify the text type. Read the poem aloud in lines and notice tray/play. Compare it with the paragraph story. Explain the features observed here without extending them into a universal rule that poems always rhyme.

Worked example 3: Credit the makers. In a class mini-book, Sam dictates the words and an adult transcribes them; Jo draws a picture. Credit Sam’s words, the adult’s transcription support and Jo’s illustration accurately. Ask which role supplied the words and which supplied the image.

Guided practice: Reread both stories, then place paired event cards under same and different headings. Read the poem and ask children to describe a feature they hear or see. Make an actual mini-book with clear, truthful creator credits.

Independent tasks: State one supported similarity and one difference between the characters’ experiences, identify the supplied story and poem, and explain the author/illustrator roles using the class book’s real bylines. A learner can dictate the comparison. Do not test memory for an invented author name.

Feedback: If a child compares only the colors in two decorative pictures, return to the characters’ actions and events. If every short text is called a poem, compare features rather than length alone. Extend by illustrating the same story moment in two ways and discussing how both can fit the author’s words without changing the event.