Dear Mrs. LaRue

This is another book I absolutely adore...Mark Teague, author and illustrator of the endearing little story of Ike the dog, wrote the story about Ike and his owner Mrs. LaRue, who has shipped him off to obedience school to improve upon his somewhat naughty dog behavior. Dear Mrs. LaRue is composed of mostly letters written from Ike to his beloved owner whom he misses dearly. I love this book for the multitude of literary elements, including persuasive writing, mood and tone, character development, plot and sequencing. The illustrations are really neat, and on each page you see the darker side, of what Ike is portraying in his persuasive letters and how he tries to go home with exaggerations of how bad it is at the obedience school. Those pictures are in gray scale, while the reality of the situation at the obedience school is in color, and not nearly as bad as Ike makes it out to be. Awesome book, really.

I used this story to teach persuasive writing, and there are elements and language readily available within the story for students to pull out while learning about the unit of persuasion. The kids loved this book! As a pre-activity we read this story, and then afterwards we worked together to find persuasive and figurative language that Ike used to get himself home and back into the arms of his owner. Then we had a discussion on why we persuade, especially when writing letters and trying to get our view points across. Finally we had a post-activity of discovering other methods of persuasion through lyrical music, commercials and advertisements, pod casts, etc. to explore the many reasons why we persuade, and how to be effective persuasive writers. This story is one I found most fit for 4th graders, but in range probably as early as 2nd grade for a read aloud, and up to 5th grade for the underlying elements.