By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
🕸️ A friendship built on being different. Wilbur and Charlotte are both outsiders among the barn's other animals when they meet. Their bond forms precisely because they are willing to see past each other's differences, giving students a clear, concrete example of empathy and acceptance in action.
🐷 A story about loyalty and standing by someone. Once Charlotte learns of Wilbur's fate, she dedicates herself to saving him, even though nothing obligates her to help. Her determination gives students a model of loyalty and selflessness that plays out across the whole movie rather than in a single scene.
📖 A faithful adaptation of a classic novel. The movie stays close to E.B. White's original story, making it a strong companion to a novel study. Students who have read the book can compare how the movie handles key scenes and characters.
😢 An honest handling of loss. The story does not shy away from Charlotte's death, but it treats the moment with care, followed by mourning and eventual acceptance from her friends. It gives students a gentle but genuine entry point into talking about loss.
🎭 A cast of distinct barnyard characters. From the anxious sheep to the self-interested rat Templeton, the movie fills its barn with animals who each have their own personality and role in the story, giving students plenty to observe and discuss about character and motivation.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated G.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- A main character dies partway through the story, shown gently and followed by mourning from her friends.
- Brief scenes of animals being chased or startled, including crows pursuing a rat.
- No sexual content, strong language, or substance use.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. Charlotte's Web is a strong fit for ELA classes studying character, friendship, and book to movie comparisons, especially for students who have read E.B. White's novel. The guide covers a range of writing tasks, from letter-based sentence writing to a creative newspaper article assignment, alongside three sets of differentiated comprehension questions with answer keys included.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The 30 question multiple choice set works well with ESL and ELL students, giving them a structured way to follow the story in chronological order without the demands of open-ended writing.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. With comprehension questions, writing tasks, and a word search all included, this guide works well as a ready to go sub plan when a substitute teacher needs a self-contained lesson.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. The mix of comprehension questions, creative writing, and word search activities makes this guide easy to adapt for a homeschool setting, whether used alongside the novel or on its own.
💙 SEL Teachers. Charlotte's Web offers a natural entry point into conversations about friendship, loyalty, and coping with loss. The guide does not include dedicated SEL activities, but the comprehension questions keep students engaged with these moments as the story unfolds.
🌟 Supporting All Learners Movie guides can be a wonderfully calm fit for students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities. The structured format gives every student a clear purpose during viewing, easing uncertainty and allowing them to engage at their own pace. If you teach in a special education or learning support setting, you may find this guide a gentle and practical resource. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 14-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension Questions
Three differentiated sets of questions in chronological order: a 40 question set, a 30 question set with 10 questions removed from the full set, and a 30 question multiple choice set. Answer keys are included.
Part 2: Writing
Students write sentences using each letter from the word Charlotte, then reflect on moments in the movie where they felt sad, happy, or excited. A second task asks students to imagine themselves as reporters and write a newspaper article about Wilbur being entered into the county fair.
Part 3: Word Search Fun
A 20 word search puzzle, with 5 of the words requiring students to answer a clue before they can find them.
“This is a wonderful resource to use when watching the movie after reading the book. It keeps the students engaged and looking for similarities and differences!”
— Lynn P.
“The differentiated assessments were awesome!!”
— LaRonda S.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
A movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work that can actually be assessed: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
