Roald Dahl Author Study

Roald Dahl is a great author for an author study for the 4th through 6th grades. I have done an author study of Roald Dahl the last two years with my fifth graders and they love reading his books!

The first thing in setting up for an author study is making sure that you have enough books to divide the students into groups of three to four. I used my scholastic bonus points and looked at thrift stores to collect enough Roald Dahl books for my author study. On the first day of the author study introduce Roald Dahl and then give short book talks on each of the books that the students may choose to read. The books that I like to use are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Danny The Champion of the World, The BFG, and The Witches. This year I was able to get a classroom set of The Witches, so I am using that for my read aloud and modeling how I want the small groups to talk about the Roald Dahl books. You may also choose to include some of the other Roald Dahl books that are at an easier reading level. For example, one of my lower reading groups is reading George's Marvelous Medicine which is more at an early third grade reading level.

After giving the book talks, have students write down their top three preferences of which Dahl books to read. If they have read all the books already, ask them to put the list in order from the one that they read the longest ago up to the most recently read book. Ideally keep groups to 3-4 students, but you may have to go up to 5 students in some groups depending on the amount of each book that you have and the preferences of the children. Decide if you will allow students to read the books together or if you would prefer them to read the books separately and then come to discuss the books. I left this up to my students. Almost all groups chose to read the books together. I make the rule that students are allowed to pass if they do not want to read. I think this helps my lower readers feel more comfortable in their groups. With my inclusion classroom, my special education teacher takes one of the lower groups of students and reads the book to them since they are reading at the first grade level. My student teacher or I take the other lower group to monitor how they are doing more frequently. I also like to move between groups to make sure that the students are stopping to discuss the book as well.

With my students, I create a large chart on butcher paper to record the similarities and difference between the Roald Dahl books. Each group is looking for the main character, helpful or kind characters, mean or evil characters, setting, author's message, interesting words, new words, similes, and metaphors. This is only a sample list of some of the items you may have your students look for and discuss as they read. Each group has a recorder that writes down their part of the chart to share at closing time so that the class can compare the books.

Students greatly enjoy reading the Roald Dahl stories. I have other Roald Dahl stories out for students to borrow to read as well. Once they see how enjoyable one Roald Dahl book is, then they are hooked into wanting to read more of the stories.

One website that I suggest checking out if you would like to do a Roald Dahl author study is The Roald Dahl official site found at: http://www.roalddahl.com/. At this site, there are pictures of Roald Dahl that the students may enjoy seeing. There are also more ideas, and templates for recording items from Roald Dahl stories. You may find these useful.

Another site to check out is the Activity Village page dedicated to Roald Dahl at: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/roald_dahl.htm. This website has additional crafts and activities to go along with the Roald Dahl stories. It also has links to additional Roald Dahl sites.