Silly Chicken by Rukhsana Khan

Silly Chicken by Rukhsana Khan is a humorous story about a young girl who is jealous of the attention her older sister pays to a pet chicken.  I read this one to my daughter, and she laughed out loud at some of the chicken's antics, as well as some of the main character, Rani's, responses to her sister's love of the chicken.  At the end of the story, the tables are turned when Ami, the older sister, becomes jealous of the new pet chick adopted by Rani.  The illustrations in the story are brightly colored paintings that depict rural Pakistan.

Ideas for the ESL classroom:

• Cultural/ background knowledge: Pakistan, villages, chickens
• Dialogue: How do authors show conversations between characters?
• Cause/ effect
• Making connections: sibling rivalry or wanting more attention
• Inferencing: Why does Rani think Ami loves the chicken more then her?  List specific examples.
• Possessive pronouns
• Vocabulary that might be tricky for ELL's:
• adjectives: silly, gangly, tiny, humid, fluffy
• verbs: wormed, nursed, fetch, pile, landed, cocked, fanned, fussed
• nouns: yard, cold, cupboard, nest, miracle, grave, gate, chick
• cultural words: tonga, lussi

A story map would be an easy Writing Activity to go along with this story.  Depending on students' writing ability, they could make a simple map with one word and pictures or a manila paper folded book with several sentences and a picture on each page.  A chart or book of story elements would also work.  Of course, another cute idea would be for students to write their own story about loving a pet and publish the stories for your classroom library.  This could also be differentiated for different levels, beginning with each student labeling a picture of a favorite pet or animal.  The pages could be bound for a classroom book. 

Happy reading!
Jacquie