Forget Me Nat

by Maria Scrivan

In Maria Scrivan’s graphic novel Forget Me Nat, a companion to Nat Enough, Natalie feels newly confident in her talents, friendships, and growing closeness with her crush, Derek. When Derek says he wants to be friends, Natalie’s disappointment turns into self-doubt, leading her to pull away from the people and interests that help her feel like herself. Through expressive cartoon art and relatable school experiences, the story explores rejection, friendship, and self-worth.

Big Idea

Someone else’s romantic feelings do not determine our worth, and disappointment does not erase our strengths. Words, pictures, and carefully paced moments can help readers understand feelings that are difficult to explain.

Discussion Questions

1.What changes in Natalie’s view of herself after Derek says he wants to be friends? What has actually changed about her talents and strengths?
2.How can we respect Derek’s feelings while also understanding Natalie’s disappointment?
3.Why might someone pull away from friends or favorite activities when feeling hurt? What could a caring friend do without being pushy?
4.Where do the pictures help you understand Natalie’s feelings beyond what the words tell you? What visual clues support your interpretation?
5.What might Natalie say to a friend who believed that one person’s opinion determined their worth? How could she apply that advice to herself?

Lesson Plan

⏱ 45 minutes📦 A copy of Forget Me Nat, selected excerpts displayed or shared according to school permissions, paper or six-panel comic templates, pencils, erasers, crayons or colored pencils, and chart paper.

Learning Goals

Explain how Derek’s response affects Natalie’s feelings and actions, using evidence from words or pictures.
Distinguish between a character’s temporary feelings and their lasting strengths or worth.
Describe how panel sequence, facial expressions, and pauses affect a comic’s pacing.
Create and revise a short comic that communicates an emotional change through words and pictures.

Activity Steps

1.Introduce the book and provide context for a selected excerpt about Natalie’s disappointment and withdrawal. Explain that caring about someone does not require them to return the same feelings, and establish that students may discuss fictional situations rather than personal experiences. Allow 7 minutes.
2.Read the excerpt together. Chart what Natalie feels, what she does, and what remains true about her strengths; support observations with visual or verbal evidence. Allow 8 minutes.
3.Model turning one emotional moment into three panels: an event, a reaction, and a quiet pause. Discuss how dividing the moment changes the reader’s experience of time. Allow 5 minutes.
4.Have students plan a six-panel imagined extension: a reminder of the disappointment, three panels slowing Natalie’s reaction, a supportive choice, and a small next step. Students may use stick figures, speech balloons, captions, or dictated text. Allow 15 minutes.
5.In pairs, students read their comics aloud, pausing between panels. Partners identify where the story slows down and offer one suggestion for making Natalie’s feelings or choices clearer. Allow 5 minutes.
6.Invite students to revise one panel and complete an exit response: 'One moment does not define Natalie because…' Allow 5 minutes.

Standards Connections

ELA: CCSS RL.K.3, RL.1.3, RL.2.3, and RL.3.3 — Developmentally appropriate work identifying characters, describing responses to events, and explaining how actions affect a story.
ELA: CCSS RL.K.7, RL.1.7, RL.2.7, and RL.3.7 — Use illustrations and words together to understand characters, setting, mood, and events.
ELA: CCSS W.K.3–W.5.3 — Grade-appropriate narrative composition through drawing, dictation, or writing, with attention to sequence, detail, and responses to events.
ELA: CCSS SL.K.1–SL.5.1 — Participate in collaborative discussions, listen to others, and build on ideas.
SEL: Self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship skills — Recognize emotions and strengths, respect others’ boundaries, and identify supportive choices.

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

Forget Me Nat offers a useful study of how graphic storytelling controls the speed of an emotional experience. Natalie’s confidence changes after Derek says he wants to be friends, but a writer does not have to explain every feeling in a long paragraph. Scrivan’s cartoon storytelling invites readers to gather meaning from dialogue, expressions, gestures, and the sequence of panels. Study a selected scene twice: first for what happens, then for how its presentation makes the moment feel quick, awkward, heavy, or quiet. In a Pace-Write-Read workshop, students notice a craft choice, try it in their own comics, and read their drafts aloud to test the effect. Encourage them to distinguish story time from reading time: several panels can stretch a brief reaction, while a transition can move past a longer interval. Use teacher-selected excerpts for younger students and fuller sequences for older readers. The goal is not to copy Scrivan’s drawings, but to make intentional choices about how much space and time an important feeling deserves.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
1. Pacing	Compare a passage showing Natalie’s confidence with one showing her disappointment. Notice how panel count, dialogue length, and silent reactions influence reading speed.
2. Plot	Trace the cause-and-effect chain from Natalie’s hopes about Derek to his response and her withdrawal. Ask students which events change her situation and which show her reaction.
3. Prosody	Read selected dialogue aloud using the artwork to guide expression, stress, and pauses. Compare how the same words sound when Natalie seems confident versus uncertain.
4. Word	Examine a short piece of Natalie’s dialogue or narration and identify a word that carries emotional weight. Try a substitute and discuss how it changes the tone or reading pace.
5. Concept	Explore the difference between 'someone does not share my feelings' and 'I am not enough.' Ask how Natalie’s experience helps readers see that these ideas are not equivalent.
6. Voice & Worldview	Notice how Natalie’s perspective colors her interpretation of events before and after Derek’s response. Discuss how a character’s voice can reveal a belief without making that belief true.
7. Point of View	Identify whose feelings and interpretations guide the selected sequence. Rewrite one brief moment from Derek’s or a friend’s perspective, separating what the text establishes from what students imagine.
8. Setting & Place	In a school scene, examine how the arrangement of people and surroundings shapes Natalie’s experience. Ask how the same exchange might feel different in a busy shared space versus a quiet one.
9. Original Characters	List the traits that make Natalie more than a character with a crush, including her talents, friendships, and vulnerabilities. Give an invented comic character similarly varied interests and concerns.
10. Dialogue	Study the exchange in which Derek says he wants to be friends. Discuss how dialogue can establish a boundary while the following reactions reveal its emotional impact.
11. Details	Find a small visual detail, such as Natalie’s posture or gaze, that helps explain her response. Ask students to include one purposeful detail rather than several unrelated decorations.
12. Descriptions	Translate a panel of Natalie into a short written description, then compare the two versions. What can the image communicate immediately that prose needs several words to convey?
13. Firsts	Use Natalie’s newly gained confidence and the disappointment surrounding her crush to discuss why unfamiliar experiences can feel especially significant. Have students slow down a fictional character’s first encounter with a difficult feeling.
14. Immediacy & Engagement	Choose a panel that brings readers close to Natalie’s reaction. Identify whether expression, dialogue, framing, or another visible choice makes the moment feel immediate.
15. Story Scenes, Summaries & Structures	Distinguish an exchange shown moment by moment from transitions that move the story forward. Ask why Derek’s response benefits from a scene rather than only a report that Natalie was disappointed.
16. Tension / Suspense / Surprise	Examine the difference between Natalie’s hopes for her relationship with Derek and his actual response. Discuss how readers’ expectations create tension even in an everyday conversation.
17. Flashback, Flash-Forward, Cliffhanger	Check the selected pages for an actual time shift or unresolved stopping point rather than assuming one is present. As a writing experiment, add an imagined memory of Natalie feeling confident and discuss how it interrupts or deepens the present moment.
18. Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	Inspect an actual page turn or chapter ending near a change in Natalie’s emotional situation. Ask what readers know before the break and what makes them continue afterward.
19. Pace & Creativity	Draw Natalie’s reaction first in one panel and then in three. Compare which version gives readers more time to interpret her feelings and why neither version is automatically better.
20. Play	Invite students to experiment with several cartoon expressions for Natalie’s uncertainty. Keep the focus on communicating a feeling, not making fun of her disappointment.
21. Performance	Perform a brief exchange with a narrator describing important visual information. Add a deliberate pause after Derek’s response and discuss how silence changes the audience’s experience.
22. Personality	Compare Natalie’s behavior when she feels confident with her behavior when she doubts herself. Ask which traits remain part of her even when her outward behavior changes.
23. Humor	Choose a humorous moment from the book and examine how words and cartoon art work together. Discuss how humor can offer relief without dismissing Natalie’s hurt.
24. Pause	Look for a reaction panel or a moment with little dialogue. Practice letting Natalie’s face or posture communicate before adding explanatory words.
25. Poetry / Poetic Devices	Explore the wordplay in the title Forget Me Nat and its echo of 'forget-me-not.' Students can invent a brief, figurative caption for Natalie’s feelings, clearly labeling it as their own writing.
26. Repetition	Look for repeated expressions, ideas, or visual arrangements in a selected sequence. If repetition occurs, discuss whether it suggests persistent worry, emphasis, or a change from an earlier moment.
27. Rhythm	Read a sequence panel by panel, marking the pattern of speech and silence. Try a similar pattern in a comic about Natalie choosing whether to reconnect with a friend.
28. Punctuation	Examine the punctuation actually used in a selected speech balloon and connect it to the character’s delivery. Test how changing a question mark, period, or exclamation point alters the voice.
29. Questions	Separate questions the characters ask aloud from questions the story raises for readers, such as whether Natalie can value herself independently of Derek’s feelings. Use one unanswered reader question to motivate the next panel.
30. Compare-Contrast	Compare a confident image of Natalie with an image after her disappointment. Identify changes in behavior and presentation without assuming her underlying worth has changed.
31. Objects	Select an object actually visible in a scene connected to Natalie’s interests or school life. Discuss whether it contributes to characterization or simply establishes the setting.
32. Threes	Experiment with a three-beat sequence: Natalie hears something disappointing, reacts, and makes a choice. Present this as a student craft exercise, not a claim that the book consistently uses groups of three.
33. Lists	Create an evidence-based list of Natalie’s strengths, interests, and sources of support. Turn three items into quick visual snapshots to show how a list can become a compressed comic sequence.
34. White Space & Negative Space	Examine gutters and uncluttered areas around Natalie in selected panels. Ask how blank space directs attention or invites a pause, while recognizing that not every empty area has symbolic meaning.
35. Art & Graphics	Study how Scrivan’s expressive cartoon style conveys emotion through faces, bodies, and composition. Cover the words briefly and identify what readers can infer from the art alone.
36. Interactives & Gamification	Use a teacher-created panel-order challenge based on a brief, appropriately shared excerpt about Natalie’s response to disappointment. Students justify their sequence with visual and verbal clues; this is a workshop addition, not a feature claimed for the book.
37. Placement	Trace where your eye moves through a page, including speech balloons and Natalie’s reactions. In student drafts, test whether balloon placement makes the intended reading order clear.
38. Form	Discuss why a graphic novel is well suited to showing a gap between what Natalie says and how she appears to feel. Compare a short comic sequence with a prose retelling of the same event.
39. Dummy	Make a small folded-paper mock-up of an imagined scene in which Natalie takes a supportive next step. Move a reaction or reveal across a page turn to test its effect before making finished artwork.
40. Passion	Connect Natalie’s distancing from her talents to the importance of maintaining interests beyond another person’s approval. Invite students to give their fictional character a meaningful interest that remains valuable during disappointment.

Pace-Write It!

20-minute Pace-Write-It! task: 'One Moment, Two Speeds.' Minutes 0–3: Revisit a teacher-selected sequence connected to Derek saying he wants to be friends, with enough context to understand Natalie’s response; identify a reaction worth slowing down. Minutes 3–6: Students make a two-panel imagined extension showing Natalie feeling hurt and considering a supportive next step. Minutes 6–12: Redraw the same events in four panels, adding a silent reaction and a meaningful visual detail without adding another plot event. Minutes 12–16: Partners read both versions aloud, pausing at panel boundaries, and discuss which gives Natalie’s feelings more room. Minutes 16–19: Students revise panel size, words, or placement to achieve their intended pace. Minute 19–20: Complete the craft reflection, 'I slowed down or sped up this moment by…' K–2 students may draw and dictate; grades 3–5 should explain one specific pacing choice. Label both versions as imagined extensions rather than scenes from the published book.

Classroom Activities

More Than One Moment

Students create a six-panel comic about Natalie responding to disappointment without letting it define her. They slow down one emotional moment with several small panels, then show an imagined next step toward a friend or valued talent. This is a clearly labeled imagined extension, not a retelling of the book’s ending. Although the supplied category is Picture Book, Forget Me Nat is a graphic novel; use selected, contextualized excerpts for this K–5 lesson. For K–2, frame the discussion around friendship and disappointment, allow drawing and dictation, and avoid requiring personal disclosures.

More Than One Moment

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