Extra Credit 1- The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers, persuasive/opinion

The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers is a story about a little

boy named Duncan’s crayons. One morning he wakes up and has received a stack of letters. Each

letter comes from a different color crayon, and they all have complaints. Pink complains about

not being used enough, blue about being used too much, orange and yellow are arguing over who

is the true color of the sun, black is tired of being the outline, gray is overworked because

everything he colors is big, red is upset that he doesn’t get holidays off, beige is sad that he is

second to brown, green is tired of his friends arguing, white feels empty because he is never

used, and purple is sick of being used to color outside the lines. Each crayon writes the

complaints in their letters along with reasons why they have the right to complain, and what

Duncan should do. So, Duncan draws a large picture and fulfills every crayon’s wish.

I love this story so much! I think it is adorable, funny, childlike, and a great mentor text.

Students can definitely relate to this. Not only is this a great mentor text for writing, it also

teaches empathy and conflict resolution skills. Duncan decides what he should do with the

information he has, and resolves the conflict. He also feels bad for the crayons’ pleas, building

empathy. This overall is a super fun story that is well written. It could be made so exciting

through read alouds and animation. I love this story!

There are literally hundreds of lessons I could teach about this book. The first one I

would start with is how to write a letter. This would be an especially great lesson for younger

students. Each crayon writes a proper letter with a greeting, body, and signature. I think it would

be a great way to introduce letters to students and we could write letters based on this format. If

you wanted to take it a step further, you could actually mail out their letters to whoever they want

to send it to. To keep with the theme of advocating for something you believe in, if you had older
students you could have them write about social justice or political issues they agree or disagree

with and mail it to the state government or senate. You could also use this to teach persuasive

text. It would work as a great introduction to that. The crayons say why they are upset, why they

are allowed to feel this way (why they are valid), and what can be done about it. Each crayon

tries to convince Duncan they are right. Students could model this format and choose an issue

they want to defend and write their own persuasive texts. Going hand in hand with persuasive

text, you could also write opinion pieces. Instead of trying to argue a point like in persuasive

text, you could have students practice writing about an opinion they have. This could be an

introductory lesson before introducing persuasive text. Students can practice writing an opinion

before learning how to defend it. This text is a great example of several opinions in written form.

Overall, I think this story serves as a wonderful mentor text for young writers. It is not

only funny, witty, and charming, it is also packed full of teachable moments and examples. This

is definitely one I would want in my classroom library, and my personal library.