Because Of Winn Dixie

"Winn-Dixie is a winner!"

With the absence of her mother in her life Opal finds herself particularly lost when she and her father move to Naomi, Florida. Although Opal should be thankful her father has a job preaching for the Open Arms Baptist Church she cannot help but miss her friends back home. But her life changes when she walks into the Winn-Dixie grocery store one day only to find her new best friend.

Websites

• If your students are particularly interested in this novel you can help them to find other stories written by Kate Dicamillo by going to her personal webpage.
• This unit plan from Scholastic can help a beginning teacher to enhance learning throughout the time it takes for their class to read this novel. There are different activities included that will assist in appealing to all different modes of learning.

Vocbulary

When reading this story it is important that students have a knowledge of certain vocabulary so that they are not prevented from gathering a concrete understanding of the text. Here is a list of words that a teacher may wish to review.

• Abide
• Complicated
• Enlisted
• Furious
• Idle
• Ignorant
• Lozenge
• Melancholy
• Muttering
• Pathological
• Terrorized
• Typhoid fever

Reading Activities

Before Reading

Before reading this novel you may decide to have a whole group think aloud. Begin by reading the summary on the cover of the book and then have the students make predictions about the story and its characters according to their prior knowledge and similar texts that they have read previously.

During Reading

Each time that students read a section of their book have them complete a book log. You can create a generalized worksheet that gives them room to new characters they were introduced to, a summary of what happened in the section of text that they read and something that they found they struggled with while reading.

After Reading

As a sort of reward for your students, you may decide to watch the film Because of Winn-Dixie. You can encorporate an assignment into this by having them notice the differences between the two. Which one is better and why? Why do your students think changes were made?