{"id":109,"date":"2012-11-12T13:49:30","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T18:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/?p=109"},"modified":"2012-11-27T09:38:08","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T14:38:08","slug":"edinger-house-e-b-white-boxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/2012\/11\/12\/edinger-house-e-b-white-boxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinger House E. B. White Boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first 4th grade literature unit of the year is an author study of E. B. White. After a close scholarly study of Charlotte’s Web<\/em>\u00a0(celebrating its 60th birthday this year), each student reads one or both of White’s two other children’s books, Stuart Little<\/em> and Trumpet of the Swan.<\/em>\u00a0The culminating project is an E. B. White box. Here is the assignment the students received followed by the boxes themselves.<\/p>\n

After doing a great job examining the similarities between E.B. White’s children’s books, you are now going to consider a theme for an E. B. White box. \u00a0What is an E. B. White box, you might ask? \u00a0It is a box inspired by the\u00a0works of artist\u00a0Joseph Cornell<\/a>, an artist who created remarkable boxes and collages using all sorts of stuff.\u00a0To learn more\u00a0 I will read aloud\u00a0\u00a0Joseph Cornell: Secrets in a Box<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and then show you a very special object —\u00a0The Joseph Cornell Box: Found Objects, Magical Worlds<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0After that you will begin to create your own E. B. White Box!\u00a0 First of all, you will have to decide on a theme and create a quick plan for your box. And then you will begin to actually create it!\u00a0When \u00a0you are done you will have to write a brief essay describing your theme and how you represented it in your box. \u00a0We will then put your box and your paragraph in two places — on the bulletin board outside our classroom and on this blog for everyone to see.\u00a0Have fun!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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I read two books by E.B. White, \u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>. Both of these books have a lot of change in them and that inspired me to do my box on change. In my box I have Wilbur in his box by the stove when he is a few days old then I have him in a larger pen in the yard when he is 2 weeks old. On the other side of my box I have Stuart when he is 5 years old next to a ruler and Stuart when he is 6 on the other side of the ruler. In the book\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>, Wilbur moves from the box next to the stove to the larger box under the apple tree because he is too big for the box by the stove. In Stuart Little<\/em>, the book talks about Stuart getting older in almost every chapter. My favorite part of making my E.B. White box was thinking about how I was going to make my box and how it would represent my theme change.<\/p>\n

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I read\u00a0<\/span>Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Stuart Little\u00a0<\/em>by E.B. White. Some of the characters I focused on were Wilbur, Charlotte, Stuart, and Margalo. I chose loyalty because Charlotte is very loyal to Wilbur because she is trying to save his life, and Wilbur also takes Charlotte\u2019s egg sac and takes care of her babies. In <\/span>Stuart Little,<\/em> Stuart and Margalo are loyal to each other because Stuart saved Margalo\u2019s life when Snowbell the cat tried to eat Margalo. \u00a0Also went to find her, while Margalo rescued Stuart from the trash dump. \u00a0I think that they\u00a0are all in a way, loyal to each other. \u00a0E.B. White has focused on many great qualities in his characters, that\u2019s why he is an amazing author.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I read all three E. B. White books and realized that one of the main themes running through the books was that death is a part of life, and that life is good. In\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>, E. B. White shows how valuable life is. For example, when Wilbur is born Mr. Arable and then Mr. Zuckerman want to kill him, since he is the runt of the litter, but Fern stops them both times. She changed the way the men thought about killing the runt of any litter, not just Wilbur. In my box, I showed Wilbur\u2019s non-runt brothers and sisters getting sold away, not killed.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0The Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>, E. B. White shows the life cycle, including birth and death. First, Louis and his four brothers and sisters are born. They grow up, and Louis finds Serena. When their cygnets hatch, two generations of this book have been shown. At the end of the book, Louis\u2019s father is referred to as \u201cthe old cob,\u201d whereas at the beginning, he is known as just \u201cthe cob.\u201d Also, Sam Beaver and his father are getting older throughout the book. In my box, I showed Louis, his brothers and his sisters hatching and learning how to fly at the beginning of their lives.<\/p>\n

Last we come to\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>. In Stuart\u2019s tale, E. B. White shows how a little mouse can endure many treacherous situations that are deadly for a mouse Stuart\u2019s size. When Stuart is chased by Snowbell, the cat, up into the window-shade, he veers near death hanging alone for so long. Margalo also flees from Snowbell because the cat is trying to hunt her too. In my box, I showed Stuart\u2019s hat and cane in front of the old mouse hole, showing the deadly trick that Snowbell played on his family causing Stuart to be up on the window-shade for so long.<\/p>\n

All three of these E. B. White masterpieces of children\u2019s literature are phenomenal. They all show the theme of life and death running through them at some point. They are by one of my favorite authors, and they took a lot of effort, I am sure, to perfect the way they are perfected now.<\/p>\n

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In my E. B. White box the themes are seasons and changes. In my box I split it into four sections. In the Spring section I focus on Wilbur from\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0because Wilbur is a spring pig. In the Summer section I focused on Louis playing his trumpet from\u00a0Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0because\u00a0Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0takes place in the summer. \u00a0In the Fall section I focused on Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0next to his automobile from\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0and in the Winter section I focused on Wilbur and the other farm animals in the snow at the farm from\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>. In\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0changes happen in two different ways. One way is the seasons change throughout the book. \u00a0The second way is how the characters change throughout the book. \u00a0Fern in the beginning was \u201conly eight\u201d and acted so little but by the end of the book she was more grown up and didn\u2019t care as much for Wilbur as she used to and didn\u2019t have as much time to take care of Wilbur as she used to. \u00a0In Stuart Little the seasons change to but also Stuart \u00a0gets braver. In the beginning of the book he was just a little old mouse minding his own business, but at the end of the book he is a braver mouse who is going on an adventure by himself to go look for Margalo his very good friend. In all of E. B. White\u2019s books a big theme is changes. \u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>,\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0are very alike. All these books are based on animals and their friendship with humans. Fern from\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>, George from\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0and Sam from\u00a0Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0are very alike. They all care for the animals, but throughout the book they grow up and change. E. B. White\u2019s books are based on animals because E.B. White is an animal lover. E.B. White truly is a fantastic writer!<\/p>\n


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The theme of my box is love and it is found in E.B. White\u2019s books Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> and Stuart Little<\/em>. If you look carefully you can see a little girl and on the other side you can see a pig. They\u2019re looking at each other with love. Just like George loves Stuart, Fern loves Wilber and Louis loves Serena. There is also a path with cobblestones that says E.B White. My box has a barn because Wilbur lives in a barn. If you look carefully you can see a spider web above Wilbur\u2019s head that Charlotte lives in. There is also a fence around Wilbur\u2019s yard so he can\u2019t get out during the night. This shows love because if Wilbur escapes then everybody will be sad. There\u2019s a mud pile for Wilbur so he can roll around. There\u2019s some leaves on the ground too. There is also Charlotte\u2019s spider web around the whole box because Charlotte saved Wilber\u2019s life. E.B White is famous for writing so many great books!<\/p>\n

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In my E.B White box I created a theme of vocabulary because the characters in\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0(mostly Charlotte and the cob), use complicated words. The writing on Charlotte\u2019s web (some pig, terrific, radiant, and humble) and the cob in\u00a0The Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0all say words that the other characters don\u2019t know . They also create speeches that are long and perfect. Sometimes they seem unnecessary, like this quote from\u00a0The Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>, \u201cA cygnet! A cygnet at last! I am a father with all the pleasant duties and awesome responsibilities of fatherhood. O blessed little son of mine, how good it is to see your face peering through the protecting feathers of your mothers breast, under these fair skies, with the pond so quiet and peaceful in the long light of the afternoon!\u201d This quote was much longer than it could have been but, I think it\u2019s good to be happy when you\u2019re becoming a father. This is the way I created my E.B White box: When I made my box I started by finding a topic which was vocabulary for me. I made a swan, a spider, and a web, glued them in and I had a box. When I made my box I chose vocabulary as a theme because my favorite characters are the ones that talk a lot with words that are very different from what most people are normally hearing<\/p>\n

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This box is about modern things in 2012. I thought of this because it is now 2012 so I thought I should use Fern and Henry Fussy now because that would be nice to do. I decided to show Fern and Henry Fussy because they went on the Ferris wheel together and Fern ignored Wilbur at the time because they would only want to be together. I decided to make that but in the future when they will have jobs. \u00a0And so on the floppy side, Henry Fussy is a security guard and Fern is just being herself holding an anticancer card. \u00a0Henry\u2019s assistant is looking very scared and putting her hand out as if she is saying halt! And on the rest of the box it is showing what they like. They like phones, rings, lions, Ben&Jerry\u2019s ice cream, and they like the Sunday Business article. They also have a cat and a dog. I put a heart between Fern and Henry Fussy because they are in love. I mostly used newspaper clippings and I used a pipe cleaner and some tissue paper. I really liked making the box because I was just finding random pieces of newspaper images and if I really wanted it if it was going to make sense with the box.<\/p>\n

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My theme is changes. The two books that I read were\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>. The characters that I focused on are Charlotte and Stuart and how they change a lot in the book. The characters change a lot in\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0because they are getting older and become different. \u201cWhen are you going to spin a web? This afternoon, late, if I\u2019m not too tired, The least thing tires me these days. I don\u2019t seem to have enough I once had. My age, I guess.\u201d This is a quote from Charlotte\u2019s Web that shows changes in Charlotte. Stuart changes when he meets Margolo. A similarity between\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0are that both of the main characters are animals. Another similarity between\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0is that both of the characters change as the story goes on. You should definitely \u00a0read\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0and Charlotte\u2019s Web because they are different from other books. E.B. White uses details that you wouldn\u2019t expect in his writing.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>Part of my theme is a journal. It also has a \u201cnewspaper clipping\u201d and little strips of paper which represent what E.B wrote.On one piece it says, \u201c1952, Tomorrow Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> will be published.\u201dAnother says, \u201c1945 Today Stuart Little<\/em> my first children\u2019s book was published.\u201dThe sides of the box have both quotes and ideas. My two favorites are, \u201c1952 Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself.\u201d and \u201c1952 It is not often someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” I chose these quotes to express what E.B White might have been feeling when he wrote his books.<\/p>\n

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My E.B White box is about life and death. The scene on the\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0side of my box shows Mr. Zuckerman with an axe, going to kill Wilbur like he does to every pig on his farm. This represents what could have happened, but it didn\u2019t because Charlotte saved Wilbur\u2019s life. On the Stuart Little side of my box there are two ways life and death are represented. Snowbell tries to eat Margalo, but Stuart being Margalo\u2019s friend gets his bow and arrow out and shoots Snowbell in the ear so he can\u2019t eat her. It was very fun making my E.B White box especially creating the bow and arrow. I recommend reading the books\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0both by E.B White.<\/p>\n

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My box is about writing. I did this theme because both books make references to writing, like the words on Charlotte\u2019s web or Louis learning to write on a slate so he can talk to humans. My two scenes are Charlotte\u2019s web with \u201csome pig\u201d written on it from\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>, and Louis next to a chalkboard writing an A from\u00a0The Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>. Writing is one of the themes of Charlotte\u2019s Web. The last sentences of Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0talk about writing, \u201cIt is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.\u201d All in all, I think EB White was an excellent writer.<\/p>\n

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My E.B. White box is about fame. It shows different scenes from the two books I read,\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>. From\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0I made the scene where Wilbur becomes famous because Charlotte writes on her web that Wilbur is some pig. I made Wilbur in his pen, and above him is Charlotte in her web and the words some pig. Next to them are Fern, Avery, a dog, and a few other people from their town. In the background there are cars, a bike, a bus, a tractor, and a barn, representing the people who came to see Charlotte\u2019s web. For\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>, I made the scene where he becomes kind of famous by sailing a ship called The Wasp. I made Stuart in a sailor suit holding a telescope. In the background you can see two other sailboats competing in the race. E.B. White is a very good author.<\/p>\n

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Friendship is a very big and important theme in both books. I focused on\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>. In my box I have Wilbur looking up at Charlotte in her web and and on the other side Margalo and Stuart are in the bookshelf of the Little\u2019s house. Stuart and Margalo are very good friends and so are Charlotte and Wilbur. In\u00a0Stuart Little<\/em>, Margalo sleeps in a bookshelf, and in\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>, Charlotte lives in the doorway of Wilbur\u2019s pen. The box was so fun to make and my favorite part was making the bookshelf. One of the many great quotes in\u00a0Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>\u00a0is, \u201cIt is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>I read Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>, & Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> both by E.B.White. I chose to make the theme of my box changes and similarities between the two books. I think that in the two books they both have a charecter that really wants to accomplish something and then they do but then as they start to accomplish it, they change along the way. In Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> Charlotte wants to save Wilbur from turning into pork or sausage but in the end she gets nimble and older then gradually starts to pass away. In Trumpet of the Swan,<\/em> Louis can\u2019t talk so his dad goes to get him a trumpet but then he gets hurt. I think that often in the E.B. White books the hero gets hurt. In Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>, Fern wants to hang out on the ferris wheel with Henry, \u00a0however if she was younger, she would have wanted to hang out with the animals. In Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>, all Louis wants to accomplish is to be able to talk, but as he gets older, he still wants to learn to talk but he will use it to talk to Serena, the swan of his dreams. That\u2019s what I think are some changes and similarities.<\/p>\n

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Travel is a big part of\u00a0The Trumpet of The Swan<\/em>. The book\u00a0The Trumpet of the Swan<\/em>\u00a0was written by E.B. White. When Louis the swan leaves his hatching place with his family to their new home, he can\u2019t speak. The young Louis leaves his new home in search of work when meets his friend Sam Beaver who takes him to Ontario to be the camp bugler. He leaves with one hundred dollars in his money bag. Then Louis travels to Boston to be a swan boat trumpeter for one hundred dollars a week. Then he travels to Philadelphia for a job that will pay five-thousand dollars for ten weeks. Ten weeks later, our friend Louis, with his wife to be Serena, came to Philadelphia halfway between his ten weeks of work. Then a few months later, Louis and Serena head up north where Louis was hatched. I chose travel because it was a big part of\u00a0The Trumpet of The Swan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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E.B. White\u2019s stories Trumpet of the Swan<\/em> and Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> include many similarities to each other, but the one theme in particular that really caught my eye was that both main characters started small, but ended up on top anyway.<\/p>\n

In Louis\u2019s case, he starts out a voiceless trumpeter swan, chasing after the beautiful swan Serena, who pays him no mind, not because she doesn\u2019t care, but because he has no way to grab her attention due to the fact that he\u2019s voiceless (lower middle to left). However, by the end of the book, Serena has fallen under the spell of Louis\u2019s kind nature and countless unusual talents, and people had come from all around the world to hear his trumpet horn (lower far left).<\/p>\n

In Wilbur\u2019s case, he begins as the runt of the litter, just minutes from a horrible death by ax (miraculously, he survives). Later on in the book, he faces death yet again, this time by the people who had taken care of him for most of his life (lower far right)! Amazingly, by the end of Charlotte\u2019s Web, Wilbur is Radiant, Humble, and most of all, Some Pig! Winning a special medal at the country fair, attracting countless visitors to Mr. Zuckerman\u2019s small farm, and probably being the worlds first pig to become friends with a grey spider are only some of Wilbur\u2019s many achievements (lower middle to left). It\u2019s amazing that, although both of them were famous enough to wear red diamonds on their tails, neither of them ever get over their heads and continues to be their original, compassionate selves, meaning that they didn\u2019t ask for red diamonds. \u00a0Louis proved himself truly worthy and honest when he almost worked his tail feathers off to pay back the money that his trumpet (his most prized possession) had cost. Wilbur proved himself a true friend because when he found out that Charlotte was dying, he gave up most of all his meals to Templeton the rat, and in exchange, Templeton got Charlotte\u2019s egg sac so Wilbur could keep Charlotte\u2019s children safe. Food means a lot to a pig! Some say that when you do good things, good things happen to you, and these books prove it\u2019s true!<\/p>\n

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I chose friendship for a theme because I think E.B. White made the characters in his books relate to each other really well. I chose these two scenes about friendship from the book because I think they were parts of the main idea of the books. The scene on the left is from Stuart Little<\/em> and shows Stuart and his \u2018\u2019girlfriend\u2019\u2019 Harriot riding in a canoe near the water before it starts to rain. The scene on the right is from Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em> and it shows Fern watching and loving the barn animals talk to each other in the barn cellar. E.B. White really loved animals so I think that\u2019s why he included a lot about animals in his books.<\/p>\n

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The first 4th grade literature unit of the year is an author study of E. B. White. After a close scholarly study of Charlotte’s Web\u00a0(celebrating its 60th birthday this year), each student reads one or both of White’s two other children’s books, Stuart Little and Trumpet of the Swan.\u00a0The culminating project is an E. B. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[675,431],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edinger-house","category-language-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/grade4projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}