William Steig Author Study Overview

We worked on a  William Steig author study unit, reading a number of his books and did various activities with them.
Some of the activities were:

• Venn diagrams comparing two books
• reading information about William Steig and writing biographies
• character descriptions (both physical and character traits)
• class discussions of story elements with story charts
• a writing prompt about finding a magic object, like the pebble from Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
•  discussion of magic in books
• writing about his New Yorker covers

We collected work in folders, on which the children did water color illustrations of one of the characters from his books, which they first outlined with ink.

Books: (there are others in addition, these were readily available)
Shrek, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Amos and Boris, Doctor DeSoto, Doctor DeSoto Goes to Africa, Brave Irene, The Amazing Bone, Spinky Sulks