Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources for The Stranger

Use The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg to strengthen your students' comprehension skills, build their vocabulary, and help them understand how words work.

After accidentally hitting a man with his truck, Farmer Bailey brings the man back to his home to recuperate. The man has temporarily lost his memory and can't remember who he is. When mysterious activity around the farm seems to originate with the stranger, everybody becomes curious about who he might be. Using The Stranger as an anchor, you can introduce students to the mystery genre while supporting practice in retelling and summarizing, visualizing, asking questions, making inferences, and determining importance and purpose.

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

Asking Questions with The Stranger

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Asking Questions with The Stranger

The stranger in this story is suffering from a case of amnesia and is unable to remember who he is. This naturally encourages the reader to ask questions to discover the man's identity, and in the case of this mystery, whether he can be to blame for the odd activity going on around the farm.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Determining Importance with The Stranger

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Determining Importance with The Stranger

If you're looking for a good resource for supporting readers who need additional practice determining importance, The Stranger is an excellent choice. Students will have to sort through the details of this text to remain focused on the biggest issue--who is the stranger?
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Identifying the Author’s Purpose with The Stranger

The first page of Identifying the Author's Purpose with The Stranger

Identifying the Author’s Purpose with The Stranger

Using this book and lesson plan, developing readers will practice identifying evidence from the text to support the ultimate purpose the author has for writing this story. This will help them see how their understanding of the author's message can affect their full understanding of a text.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Making Inferences with The Stranger

The first page of Making Inferences with The Stranger

Making Inferences with The Stranger

The mystery format of The Stranger lends itself well to a lesson on making inferences. Readers will need to tune in to the clues in the text to infer the identity of the man and to draw out the full meaning of this story.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Retelling & Summarizing with The Stranger

The first page of Retelling & Summarizing with The Stranger

Retelling & Summarizing with The Stranger

Readers will enjoy engaging with the mysterious story of The Stranger. With a clear beginning, middle and end, students will practice accurately summarizing the main events in sequential order.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Visualizing with The Stranger

The first page of Visualizing with The Stranger

Visualizing with The Stranger

This book and lesson plan are helpful resources for readers who need additional practice visualizing to fully comprehend text. In this lesson, students will practice identifying the descriptive words used by the author that aid their mental imagery.
Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Diphthongs with The Stranger

The first page of Diphthongs with The Stranger

Diphthongs with The Stranger

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg as a springboard for instruction focused on diphthongs.

By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how diphthongs ow and ou are used inside of the text before engaging in both guided and independent practice with words.

Common Core State Standards Alignment
TEKS Alignment

Vocabulary Connections with The Stranger

The first page of Vocabulary Connections with The Stranger

Vocabulary Connections with The Stranger

This set of vocabulary development resources for The Stranger 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 pictures, 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

Running Record with The Stranger

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Running Record with The Stranger

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with The Stranger. 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.

Cause and Effect Matching with The Stranger

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Cause and Effect Matching with The Stranger

Read The Stranger then have some fun matching cause and effect sentences from the book. By using these cause and effect cards, students will demonstrate both their comprehension of the text and their understanding of cause and effect relationships in hands-on and interactive way.

This resource includes matching/sorting cards and a sorting mat for four cause and effect sentences in The Stranger. Each cause card is marked with a square and each effect card is marked with a circle, making it easy to support students who struggle with matching cause and effect relationships.

Cause and Effect Sentence Stems with The Stranger

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Cause and Effect Sentence Stems with The Stranger

Understanding cause and effect is a key comprehension and language skill. The text structure of The Stranger includes several examples of cause and effect relationships, making it easy to use as a springboard for modeling or independent practice.

This simple resource includes four sentence stems. Each sentence stem presents an effect. Students will use what they know about the book to fill in the cause of the effect.

Retelling and Summarizing with The Stranger

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Retelling and Summarizing with The Stranger

The BookPagez extension activities are a great way to push student engagement beyond the pages of the text. Try using this activity with early finishers, with students who show a deeper connection with the text, or as a center activity.

Jack Frost In Fall Poem

Thumbnail for Jack Frost In Fall Poem

Jack Frost In Fall Poem

Pair this fun ""Jack Frost in Fall"" with Chris Van Allsburg's The Stranger to help your students make the necessary connections to infer the Stranger's ture identify.

Asking Questions with The Stranger (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer

Determining Importance with The Stranger (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer

Identifying the Author’s Purpose with The Stranger (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer

Making Inferences with The Stranger (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer

Retelling & Summarizing with The Stranger (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer

Visualizing with The Stranger (Spanish)

  • Student Practice Page and Answer Key
  • Reader's Notebook Prompt
  • Graphic Organizer

Retelling and Summarizing with The Stranger (Spanish)

Worksheet

Jack Frost In Fall Poem (Spanish)

Worksheet

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About the Book

The cover for the book The Stranger
Title: The Stranger
Author: Chris Van Allsburg
Genre: Mystery
Themes: Fall
ISBN: 9780395423318
Publisher's Summary:
The Stranger is a children's book written in 1986 by the American author Chris Van Allsburg. It tells a story of a stranger with no memory of who he is or where he is from. He recuperates in the home of a farmer and his family during the fall season.
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