Welcome to Week 5 of our Wonderful Wizard of Oz book study! This post features teaching materials and skill-building strategies for Chapter 5: “The Rescue of the Tin Woodman.” Whether you’re teaching the full novel or using this chapter to explore character comparison and grammar skills, you’ll find flexible resources to support your classroom goals.
If you’re just joining us, be sure to begin with the Introduction to the Book Study for pacing tips and setup ideas.
Learn how the Oz novel study is organized, with details on the full unit, free sampler, mentor sentences, and chapter handouts.
Mentor sentence lessons, student practice pages, and grammar-focused writing tasks are included.
Download the free handout for this chapter, complete with instructions and materials for the activities described here.
Chapter Summary
Chapter 5: “The Rescue of the Tin Woodman”
While stopping for a drink near a stream, Dorothy and the Scarecrow hear a strange groaning sound coming from the woods. They discover a man made entirely of tin, rusted stiff and unable to move. After oiling his joints, the Tin Woodman shares his story: he was once a human woodcutter, but a curse from the Wicked Witch of the East caused him to lose his limbs one by one, each replaced with tin.
Grateful for the rescue, the Tin Woodman joins Dorothy and the Scarecrow on their journey to the Emerald City. He hopes the Great Oz will give him a heart, believing that without one, he cannot truly feel.
This chapter deepens the theme of longing and introduces a new companion with his own emotional quest.
Chapter 5: “The Rescue of the Tin Woodman” Projects
Mentor Sentences
One way to turn classic literature into a powerful teaching tool is to pull mentor sentences straight from the text. Instead of random worksheets, students get to see grammar, punctuation, and style in action inside a story they’re already reading.
Here are a few examples you can use right from Chapter 5 of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
Dorothy at once ran back to the cottage and found the oil-can, and then she returned and asked anxiously, “Where are your joints?”
Focus: Compound Sentence with Dialogue
- Show how narration and dialogue weave together.
- Practice: Write a sentence that blends action and dialogue.
They are rusted so badly that I cannot move them at all; if I am well oiled I shall soon be all right again.
Focus: Complex Sentences with “so…that” Constructions
- Teach cause and effect structure.
- Practice: Students write a “so…that” sentence about their own lives.
Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg.
Focus: Sequence Words
- Point out “thereupon, when, as soon as, at once” as a transitional phrase showing sequence.
- Practice: Students brainstorm other sequence words (first, then, finally).
Backstories
- Compare & Contrast: TV vs. Oz
- Play a theme song like The Beverly Hillbillies or The Brady Bunch.
- Have students identify the backstory elements: Who are the characters? What happened before the story began?
- Then, read one of the Oz backstories and compare: What’s similar? What’s different in tone, detail, or delivery?
2. Backstories in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Scarecrow’s Backstory
Scarecrow shares that he was placed on a pole in a cornfield to scare away crows and had no life or thoughts until the day Dorothy found him. His desire for brains stems from feeling useless and empty during that time.
Tin Woodman’s Backstory
The Tin Woodman was once a flesh-and-blood man who fell in love with a Munchkin girl. But the Wicked Witch of the East enchanted his axe, causing it to chop off his limbs one by one. Each time, a tinsmith replaced the missing part with tin, until he had no heart left and could no longer love. Now he longs to feel again and hopes the Wizard will give him a heart.
Cowardly Lion’s Backstory
The Lion doesn’t have a detailed origin story, but he explains early on that he was born without courage and feels ashamed of it. He believes he should be brave because he’s a lion, but he’s constantly afraid.
- Discuss how backstories help readers understand character choices, build empathy, and create stakes.
- Use Baum’s characters to show how their pasts shape their journey.
Tin Woodman Character Study
Students dive into the Tin Woodman’s emotional backstory and explore how losing his heart affects his choices. The handout includes constructed response questions and a backstory comparison activity to deepen understanding.
Focus Skills
Each chapter in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Novel Study includes a constructed response question and a skill-based graphic organizer. These two pieces are part of the full-paid unit, which includes comprehension questions, skill lessons, assessments, answer keys, and Google Slides versions.
The free handout linked below includes the activities from the blog post for this chapter. If you’d like the complete set of constructed responses and skill organizers for all 24 chapters, you’ll find them inside the full unit once it is released.
Constructed Response Skill – Comparing Characters
Students compare the personalities, motivations, and emotional needs of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. A foldable organizer helps students track traits, cite textual evidence, and reflect on how each character contributes to the group dynamic.
Standards: RL.5.3, RL.6.3, RL.7.3
Language Arts Skill – Uses of Pronouns
This chapter introduces pronoun usage, focusing on subject and object pronouns in narrative writing. Students use a foldable organizer to identify pronouns in context, revise sentences for clarity, and explore how pronouns shape sentence structure.
Standards: L.5.1, L.6.1, L.7.1
Click here to download the FREE Chapter 5 resource.
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