Fiction Readers: Sarah's Journal

Sarah’s Journal is a realistic and historical fiction story about a young girl Sarah and her family sailing to the New World in the 1600s. She documents how unwell she feels from the motion, noises, and cramped cabin while sailing over. She describes how different her new life is and how thankful she was when her father bought some land! The story is narrated with illustrations, journal entries, illustrative text, and dates.

Sarah’s Journal is a simple narrative story designed as a series of journal entries. Illustrations match the text. Draw students’ attention to the visual features including the illustrative text as well as the layout and design of a journal. Opportunities arise to discuss the purpose and structure of a journal and the information included in a journal. 

Readers develop vocabulary such as adjectives (wooden) and measurement terms (six miles). Focus on suffixes and base words (shocked). Opportunities arise to discuss apostrophes within contractions (I’m), capital letters at the beginning of sentences and names (Salem), exclamation marks, and commas. 

This title is from the Fiction Readers series from Teacher Created Materials. Stimulate the imagination and promote creative thinking through real-world themes captured in entertaining stories.