Last Day Pool Party

by Emma Steinkellner

On the last day of summer, a group of friends gathers for one final pool party — a day of secrets, heart-to-hearts, and big feelings about growing up.

Big Idea

Endings can be bittersweet, but the friendships we build carry forward into whatever comes next.

Discussion Questions

1.Why is the last day of summer so important to the characters?
2.What secrets or feelings come out during the pool party?
3.How do the friends handle the changes they're facing?
4.What's a moment you didn't want to end? What did you do?

Classroom Activity

Last Day Memory

Write about a day you didn't want to end. Draw a picture of that moment and share why it was special.

Lesson Plan

⏱ 55–60 minutes, following an initial reading of the book📦 Last Day Pool Party, paper, pencils, crayons or colored pencils, optional graphic-novel panel templates

Learning Goals

Explain how the friends’ final summer pool party connects to feelings about endings, growing up, and friendship.
Use details from illustrations and dialogue to describe a character’s emotions.
Write a personal narrative about a special day, including a clear sequence, descriptive details, and a reflection on why the memory matters.
Create an illustration that communicates the mood of a remembered moment.
Listen respectfully as classmates share memories and recognize that endings can bring mixed feelings.

Activity Steps

1.Introduce “Last Day Memory.” Read or revisit selected scenes from Last Day Pool Party, focusing on the friends’ conversations and feelings about summer ending. Ask: “How can a day be both happy and sad?”
2.Examine a selected panel or page together. Have students identify how dialogue, facial expressions, and visual details communicate emotion. Discuss how the friends’ connections might continue after the party.
3.Invite students to brainstorm a day they did not want to end, such as a celebration, visit, or afternoon with friends. Have them jot down who was there, what happened, one memorable detail, and how they felt. Students may choose an everyday happy memory rather than a private experience.
4.Have students write a short personal narrative with a beginning, middle, and ending. Encourage sensory details and finish with a reflection: “This day was special because…” or “Even though the day ended, I still carry…”
5.Ask students to draw the moment as one large graphic-novel panel or a three-panel sequence. Include facial expressions, setting details, and an optional speech or thought bubble that shows their feelings.
6.Invite students to share their writing and artwork with a partner or small group, with the option to pass. Close by discussing how memories and friendships can stay with us when a special day or season ends.

Standards Connections

ELA: CCSS.RL.3.3 / RL.6.3 — Describe characters and explain how their responses or changes contribute to the story.
ELA: CCSS.RL.3.7 / RL.5.7 — Examine how visual elements contribute to meaning, mood, and understanding of a story.
ELA: CCSS.W.3.3–W.7.3 — Write narratives using descriptive details, clear event sequences, and an appropriate conclusion.
ELA: CCSS.SL.3.1–SL.7.1 — Participate in collaborative discussions, listening and responding respectfully.
SEL: Self-awareness and relationship skills — Recognize mixed emotions about change and practice empathetic listening.

Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!

Focus question: How does an author-illustrator slow down and speed up a story to show big feelings during one important day? In Last Day Pool Party by Emma Steinkellner, a group of friends comes together for one final summer pool party filled with jokes, secrets, and emotional moments about changing friendships and growing up. The graphic novel uses pacing through panels, page turns, dialogue, pauses, and visual storytelling to stretch important heart-to-heart moments and move quickly through playful group scenes.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
Pace	Read: Notice how Emma Steinkellner moves quickly through fun pool-party action and then slows down for quieter moments when the friends share worries, secrets, and feelings about growing up. Classroom Activity: Write a short scene from the party that starts with fast action and then slows for one important feeling.
Plot	Read: Track how the story follows one last summer gathering, but builds emotional change through conversations, friendships, and discoveries during the day. Classroom Activity: Make a beginning-middle-end plot ladder for a friendship story set during one special event.
Prosody	Read: Listen to how the dialogue sounds playful, nervous, excited, or serious depending on what each friend is feeling at the pool party. Classroom Activity: Write four lines of dialogue for two friends, changing the sound from joking to honest.
Word pause	Read: Notice places where a short line, an ellipsis, or a single reaction word makes a moment feel hesitant or emotional, especially in scenes about friendship changes. Classroom Activity: Write a mini-conversation using at least two word pauses to show a character thinking before speaking.
Concept	Read: Think about the big idea that one ordinary day at a pool party can hold many feelings at once—fun, worry, kindness, and the sadness of summer ending. Classroom Activity: Write a one-sentence theme statement about friendship and growing up, then write a scene that shows it.
Voice & World View	Read: Notice the warm, funny, tween-centered voice that sees the last day of summer as a huge emotional event, not just a simple party. Classroom Activity: Write in the voice of a kid narrator who thinks one small day feels very important.
Setting & Place	Read: Study how the pool, deck, snacks, towels, sunshine, and end-of-summer atmosphere make the setting feel bright, social, and a little bittersweet. Classroom Activity: Describe a gathering place in five specific details that show both fun and change.
Point of View	Read: Notice how the graphic novel lets readers stay close to the friends’ emotions, helping us understand misunderstandings, kindness, and private worries. Classroom Activity: Rewrite one pool-party moment from the point of view of a different friend at the party.
Original Characters	Read: Pay attention to how each friend feels distinct through expressions, reactions, style, and the different ways they handle friendship and growing up. Classroom Activity: Invent a new party guest with one worry, one strength, and one habit that affects the group.
Dialogue	Read: Watch how the friends’ talking carries the story—jokes, confessions, awkward pauses, and heart-to-hearts all help move the plot. Classroom Activity: Write a dialogue-only scene where two friends work through a misunderstanding at a pool.
Details	Read: Notice the small details of the last-day celebration—pool gear, food, body language, side comments, and glances—that make the relationships feel real. Classroom Activity: List eight tiny details from a party scene, then turn them into a paragraph.
Descriptions	Read: Study how words and pictures work together to describe mood, from splashy excitement to quieter, more thoughtful moments. Classroom Activity: Write three sentences describing the same setting in a happy mood, then in a worried mood.
Strong First Lines	Read: Notice how the opening quickly places readers in the excitement and emotional importance of the last day of summer. Classroom Activity: Write three different opening lines for a story about a final summer event, each with a different mood.
Immediacy & Engagement	Read: See how the story pulls readers into the day right away by making us feel like we are at the pool party with the friends as events unfold. Classroom Activity: Write an opening that starts in the middle of action at a party or gathering.
Story Scenes & Summaries & Unique Structures	Read: Notice when the book zooms in on a single important scene and when it moves more quickly through time or group action, a useful structure in graphic novels. Classroom Activity: Write one detailed scene and one quick summary about the same friendship event.
Flashback & Flash Forward & Cliffhangers	Read: Look for places where memories, hints of change, or suspense at the end of a page make readers want to keep going and understand the friends better. Classroom Activity: Add a brief memory or a cliffhanger ending to a scene about friends at a summer party.
Tension & Suspense & Surprise	Read: Notice how tension comes not from danger, but from secrets, changing friendships, and uncertainty about what others are feeling. Classroom Activity: Write a scene where a character hears part of a conversation and jumps to the wrong conclusion.
Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	Read: Watch how page turns in this graphic novel help reveal reactions, new information, or emotional shifts during the pool party. Classroom Activity: Plan a two-page comic scene and mark what surprise or feeling should happen on the page turn.
Performance	Read: Notice how the friends perform versions of themselves—funny, chill, brave, or unbothered—even when they have deeper feelings inside. Classroom Activity: Write a character who acts one way in front of friends but thinks something different inside.
Personality	Read: Pay attention to how each friend’s personality shapes the pace of scenes: some create energy, some pause to reflect, and some stir conflict or kindness. Classroom Activity: Create a chart for three characters showing how their personalities speed up or slow down a scene.
Humor	Read: Notice how humor keeps the story light and believable even when the characters face awkwardness and big emotions about growing up. Classroom Activity: Write a funny moment that happens right before a serious conversation between friends.
Pause	Read: Look for emotional pauses—quiet panels, looks, silence, or a break in conversation—that make readers sit with the friends’ feelings. Classroom Activity: Write a scene with one full sentence of silence described between two lines of dialogue.
Poetry and Poetic Devices	Read: Notice how some lines and images may feel lyrical through repetition, imagery, or emotional comparison, especially when summer ending feels symbolic. Classroom Activity: Write three poetic lines comparing the end of summer to something else.
Repetition	Read: Watch for repeated ideas, images, or feelings—like the last day, changing friendships, or wanting things to stay the same—that strengthen the theme. Classroom Activity: Write a paragraph that repeats one key phrase three times to build emotion.
Rhythm	Read: Study the rhythm created by splashy group scenes, quick dialogue, and slower reflective beats across the day. Classroom Activity: Write six sentences that alternate between short-fast and long-slow to match changing emotions.
Punctuation	Read: Notice how question marks, exclamation points, ellipses, and dashes help show excitement, awkwardness, interruption, and uncertainty in the friends’ conversations. Classroom Activity: Rewrite a plain dialogue exchange using punctuation to show stronger emotion.
Questions	Read: Pay attention to the questions characters ask each other and themselves about friendship, honesty, and what happens as kids grow up. Classroom Activity: Write five questions a character might be afraid to ask a friend on the last day of summer.
Compare-Contrast	Read: Notice the contrast between playful pool fun on the outside and deeper emotional changes underneath, as well as between different friends’ reactions to growing up. Classroom Activity: Write a compare-contrast paragraph about two friends handling the same change differently.
Objects	Read: Look at how objects from the party—pool floats, towels, snacks, notes, bags, or summer items—can hold emotional meaning in a friendship story. Classroom Activity: Choose one party object and write how it becomes a symbol of a friendship memory.
Threes	Read: Notice how groups of three details, reactions, or moments can make scenes feel complete and memorable in a graphic novel. Classroom Activity: Write a scene that uses three sounds, three sights, and three feelings from one setting.
Whitespace & Negative Space	Read: Study how open space in panels or around characters can make a quiet, awkward, or heartfelt moment feel bigger in Last Day Pool Party. Classroom Activity: Sketch or describe a comic panel that uses empty space to show loneliness or uncertainty.
Art & Graphics	Read: Notice how facial expressions, panel size, movement lines, and visual humor help tell the friends’ story and control pacing as much as the words do. Classroom Activity: Create a four-panel comic about a friendship moment, using one large panel for the biggest feeling.
Interactives & Gamification	Read: Think about how readers can track clues in expressions, objects, and page turns almost like solving the emotional puzzle of what each friend is really feeling. Classroom Activity: Make a ‘feeling detective’ chart where students collect three visual clues and three dialogue clues from a friendship scene they write.

Pace-Write It!

20-Minute Classroom Flow\nRead (5 min): Read a short section of Last Day Pool Party by Emma Steinkellner that includes both playful pool-party action and a quieter friendship conversation. Ask students to notice where the story speeds up and where it slows down.\nNotice (5 min): Discuss: What made the fast parts feel fast? What made the emotional parts feel slower? Chart student ideas such as short dialogue, panel changes, page turns, facial expressions, pauses, and important objects.\nWrite (7 min): Students write their own short ‘one day, big feelings’ scene about friends at a party, playground, sleepover, or end-of-summer event. Writing frame: ‘At first, everything felt ____. We were ____. Then I noticed ____. My friend said, “____.” I wanted to say ____, but instead I ____. For one second, everything went quiet. Then ____.’ Encourage students to include one fast moment, one pause, and one honest line of dialogue.\nShare (3 min): Partners read their scenes aloud and point out one place where the pacing speeds up and one place where it slows down.\nExit ticket: Write one sentence answering: How can a writer use a pause to show friendship feelings?