Stone Soup is a classic folk tale about cooperation and community building. Retold by Jon J. Muth, the story is also challenges third graders to use inferential thinking to understand these lessons in the story. "Reading in between the lines", or understanding unstated meaning, is a hallmark comprehension skill for third grade. Using clues in the text to uncover the untold message is the skill focus for this story. We also will read a fractured version called "Stone Slop", a comically adapted variation with monsters as characters. A Venn diagram comparison draws out the differences in story structure between these two tales.
