Educators' Guides for Maya Makes a Mess
HARDCOVER ISBN 13: 978-1-935179-17-7
LEXILE LEVEL: GN 240
GUIDED READING LEVEL: J
LEXILE LEVEL: GN 240
GUIDED READING LEVEL: J
Lesson Plan:
Before Reading | 1. Ask students about their dinner routines. What do they eat? Do they eat in front of the TV
or at the table? Who eats with them? Ask students if they have ever had to eat somewhere very
fancy. Assuming no one in the class is royalty, are there still big differences in how everyone
eats? 2. Preview Maya by showing the format. Some pages are like a more traditional picture book, with one image on the page. Others, like page 6 or page 7, are in panels, which can be read left to right and top to bottom like a paragraph. |
During Reading | 1. Talk about the direction of reading a multi-panel page. For instance, what happens on page
12 and in what order? What clues does the artist give us? (For example, Maya drinks the
juice after the flight attendant brings it.) A comic page is very similar to a page in a book with
paragraphs, and it is almost always read left to right and top to bottom. 2. Different sized panels do different things in the story. When you look at pages 18 and 19, what kinds of information do you get from the big panels with the waiters and the food? What kinds of information do you get from the small panel showing Maya looking at her fancy napkin? The big panels in this spread are very cluttered, but the small panel focuses on Maya’s face. How do you feel when you look at the waiters and food? Is your reaction the same as Maya’s? Small panels often allow us to see something up close, like a character’s expression or emotions. Another example is the spread on page 12-13. Or page 24. |
After Reading | 1. Talk about what makes this story funny. Sometimes things are out of place, like an airplane
in the backyard or Maya wearing a hoodie and socks to the Queen’s palace. Are there other
funny examples of things that are out of place? What about page 21? Do you think all the
things on the table belong together? 2. Compare Maya’s kitchen/dining room (page 5) with the Queen’s dining room (the spread on pages 16 and 17). What are similarities and differences? Does the Queen have pets or parents? Does Maya have servants or fancy dishes? Use comparison circles to make lists of what is in the dining rooms. If Maya’s dining room and the Queen’s have something in common, list it in the area of overlap. 3. Draw a short comic (one page) that uses a large panel to show a situation and small panel(s) to show your character’s facial expressions or funny details that we might miss while looking at the big picture. |
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