Visit the library. Dewey lived in a library, so take students to your local library on a weekly basis and make them feel more at home in the library's surroundings. Read "Dewey the Library Cat" to the students in the library the first week, and then give each student the opportunity to read part of it or a different book out loud on subsequent library visits.
Challenge the students to come up with their own version of the story. Ask them to write about how it might be if they were to go and see Dewey in his library, or if they found him in their own library.
Get the students to keep a journal and to work on an entry week by week. Ask each of them to imagine being a cat in an animal shelter, waiting to be picked up by an owner. This should be based on the thoughts they think the cat must have, the desires and the needs.
Identify your local animal shelter and ask each student to create their own poster, persuading people to help out the animals kept in that shelter. Think about donations people might be able to make and support that they could give to the shelter.
Ask students to think about Dewey's situation. He was abandoned by his owner and left to look after himself. Make clear that this happens to pets all over the world, even though there are plenty of animal shelters available. Challenge students to come up with ways by which they can encourage people to care about abandoned pets.
Ask each student to choose two different types of cat. Allow them some time to research the breeds using the Internet, gathering as much information as they might need. Once the research is complete, set them the task of comparing the two using images and writing and then presenting the information to the class.