Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for Smile

Use Smile by Raina Telgemeier to turn your read aloud or small group work into a time to improve comprehension and talk about the text in purposeful ways.

Raina Telgemeier's graphic novel is a memoir based on her own childhood. Through the use of a comic book format, the author tells the story of her journey through middle school; one that was made much more difficult by a freak injury. Raina learns a lot about herself and the important difference between friends that have your back, and ones that stab you in the back. This Book Club focuses on evaluating the impact of visual elements by learning to read" illustrations for details about the story, tone and mood, and perspective."

Explore lesson plans and activities to help you teach with Smile in the drop down below.

Instructional Overview

The first page of Book Club for Smile Instructional Overview

Instructional Overview

The instructional overview includes instructional background for evaluating the impact of visual elements, instructional objectives for each of the Book Club meetings, and a list of the materials and preparation necessary to the Smile Book Club.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Management Resources

The first page of Book Club for Smile Management Resources

Management Resources

The management resources include a Book Club Calendar, conversation prompts, Student Self-Evaluation forms, Reading Response Board (with optional Common Core alignment), and an Expectations for Book Club anchor chart.

Meeting 1

Smile by Raina Telgemeier is an entertaining example of a graphic novel; making it perfect choice for a Book Club focusing on evaluating the impact of visual elements. Some readers may not have experience with graphic novels, so this first meeting compares and contrasts graphic and traditional novels.

Meeting 2

Smile by Raina Telgemeier relies heavily on visual elements, rather than words, to "tell" the story. Readers must practice looking for details in each frame in order to understand what the author is trying to communicate. This Book Club meeting explores what can be learned by attending to the font style, facial expressions, and background details when reading a graphic novel.

Meeting 3

What a reader feels when reading a story (mood) and how the author expresses his/her feelings (tone) both impact a reader's ability to deeply comprehend the text. In a graphic novel, such as Raina Telgemeier's Smile, the illustrations do the work of creating the mood and setting the tone. Dive deeper into how the author accomplishes this in this third Book Club meeting.

Meeting 4

In Smile, author Raina Telgemeier tells the story from the main character's perspective. When students compare what they know about a scene in the story when only listening to the words, to what they learn when they view the illustrations and the words, they see the important impact the visual elements have on influencing the perspective of the story.

Meeting 5

During this final Smile Book Club meeting, students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the impact of visual elements in graphic novels by creating their own, four-frame panel of a scene from an important event in their lives. This culminating activity encourages students to apply everything that they learned throughout their participation in this Book Club.

Vocabulary Connections with Smile

The first page of Vocabulary Connections with Smile

Vocabulary Connections with Smile

This set of vocabulary development resources for Smile highlights the words that are most important for students to know and understand while reading the book.  Through engaging in fun word games, matching words to definitions, and practicing how to categorize words, students will develop the vocabulary necessary to comprehend this story and many others.

Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Focus Assessment and Rubric

The first page of Book Club for Smile Focus Assessment and Rubric

Focus Assessment and Rubric

Use this six-question assessment to determine whether or not students understand the key concepts associated with evaluating the impact of visual elements.

Running Record with Smile

Thumbnail for Running Record with Smile

Running Record with Smile

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with Smile. Track meaning, structure, and visual accuracy using the first 100 words of the text to determine whether or not this book is a good fit for the readers in your classroom.

Management Resources - Spanish

The first page of Book Club for Smile Management Resources

Management Resources - Spanish

The management resources include a Book Club Calendar, conversation prompts, Student Self-Evaluation forms, Reading Response Board (with optional Common Core alignment), and an Expectations for Book Club anchor chart.

Get Full Access to the Entire Library of Resources when You Join Today!

Unlock the potential of the books in your school and classroom libraries with lesson plans, activities, and resources expertly designed to help you meet your instructional goals
  • Teach with the best children's books
  • Always have access to new resources
  • Get access to Digial Classroom - perfect for centers
  • Finally have time to "fit it all in" with super efficient lesson plans
  • Enjoy fast planning tools and stay super organized with a personal file cabinet and dashboard
30 Day Risk-Free Guarantee, Cancel Anytime

About the Book

The cover for the book Smile
Title: Smile
Author: Raina Telgemeier
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Themes: Perseverance, Friendship
ISBN: 9780545780018
Publisher's Summary:
Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader. But one night after Girl Scouts she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth. What follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear, and even a retainer with fake teeth attached. And on top of all that, there's still more to deal with: a major earthquake, boy confusion, and friends who turn out to be not so friendly.
Content and Downloadable content Copyright ©2010-2024 Thinking Tree Enterprises, LLC. All other trademarks, service marks and trade names referenced on this site are the property of their respective owners. Please see our Terms of Use.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
©BookPagez.com 2010 - 2023

Save BIG on Your Shortcut to Teaching through the Holidays - and Beyond

You’ve got all the books you and your students love. Now it’s time to grab the resources that make teaching with them eaiser than ever.
This weekend only, you can get a full year of BookPagez for just $29.
That means instant access to thousands of ready-to-go lesson plans and activities for your favorite children’s books at the lowest price we'll ever offer.
Hurry! Sale ends soon.

Resource Downloading disabled

Your ability to download resources is currently disabled. Please contact us at support@bookpagez.com

Oops!  It looks Like You're Getting Carried Away. 

When you joined BookPagez, you agreed to follow our Terms of Use. Based on your download activty, it looks like you've gotten carried away.

You are allowed to download resources to use in your classroom for the duration of your subscription. You are not allowed to bulk download resources. In other words, it's against the rules to download all (or most) of the resources. That's stealing, and it's not nice.

Please check your email for a message from us. Reply to the email and let us know what's going on so we can reactivate your account.
In order to continue, please indicate that you agree with the terms above

Get instant access to this resource plus thousands more when you join today.

  • Teach with the best books
  • Always have access to new resources (published every month!)
  • Get full access to Digital Classroom
  • Finally have time to "fit it all in" with super efficient lesson plans
  • Enjoy fast planning tools and stay organized with your personal file cabinet and dashboard