In this story, Francisco comes from Mexico to a new school, and he has difficulty understanding the English language and communicating to his other classmates and teacher. He feels isolated and alone except for the relationship with the class caterpillar, and through his unspoken connection with the caterpillar, he learns to come out of his own cocoon and show his drawing talent, which had previously gone unnoticed by his classmates. (Pearson Reading Street, 2010)

This lesson was created as part of the Basal Alignment Project, during which teachers created CCSS-aligned lessons for existing literary and information texts in basal readers. All page numbers and unit/week designations found in this lesson relate to the edition of the basal reader named above. If you are using a trade book or different edition of this title, the page/unit/week references in this lesson will not match. Consult the content referenced in the body of the lesson to determine appropriate page numbers for your text.