This video is part of the Learn and Grow with WHRO TV series. Watch Alystra Barefoot teach about character traits.
Students listen to a story and brainstorm character traits. After teacher modeling, students practice identifying character traits in their journals.
Second grade students in Boston, MA created a professional-quality music video as a culmination of an interdisciplinary study of snakes. Their song, based on Lady Gaga’s hit “Born This Way,” was written by students, and the video became a viral phenomenon. This film features the video and gives the backstory of the video through an interview with the teacher. It focuses on two themes: how students overcome their fears, and how standards can be joined to discovery, joy, and beautiful work. Illuminates CCSS ELA standards W.2.7, W.2.1, W.2.2, W.2.3, W.2.5, W.2.8, W.2.6, (All of CCSS for Writing for second grade).
The Somebody-Wanted-But-So-(SWBS) strategy (MacOn, Bewell & Vogt, 1991) is used during or after reading to help students learn to summarize. Teacher should model the SWBS by reading a short story and completing the SWBS columns. Somebody is the main character in the story, Wanted is what the character wants, But is the conflict, So/Then is the resolution/outcome of the story. This graphic organizer can be used with a fictional narrative.
The K-5 Text Analyses includes an analysis of every central text used in the EL Education Language Arts Curriculum, focusing on four specific qualitative aspects of complexity: meaning, structure, language features, and knowledge demands. This document includes text analyses for grade 4.
The students will work with a partner on a "scavenger hunt" for fairy tales. They will use their personal Raz Kids account to look for fairy tales to read. They will use a graphic organizer to review the stories and find/list the different components of fairy tales. After learning the key characteristics of a fairy tale, the students will write their own fairy tale. This fairy tale will include at least four out of the seven key characteristics found in fairy tales. According to the writing goals of the Common Core state standards, the students should be able to write narratives that include a sequence of events, characters' thoughts and feelings as well as details to describe actions. This lesson will occur over a course of several days. I will spend time during each Writer's Workshop block to check in with each student to ensure that they are using their graphic organizer and knowledge of fairy tales to compose their own story.
In this unit, students continue to explore the characteristics of chapter books by reading and engaging with the beginning chapter book series Zapato Power. Building off of what students learned in Unit 2, Pinky and Rex, students will explore what it means for two people to be friends and how friends are able to help each other by examining the somewhat unusual friendship between Freddie and Mr. Vaslov, an older man who lives and works in Freddie’s apartment building. Over the course of the unit students will also be challenged to think about what it means to be a superhero, and the differences between using “super” powers and brain power to solve problems. It is important to note that these books are part of a beginning chapter book series; therefore, there are aspects of the plot that are less developed or not as powerful as other books that students read in the progression. The chapter book series does, however, introduce students to a male Hispanic protagonist, something that is often missing from children’s literature, and helps students explore similar themes and topics from other units with texts that are accessible. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with other units from the sequence, will set students up for success in reading and understanding longer chapter books.
This unit should be done predominately as shared or independent reading; therefore, this unit gives students a chance to practice the reading skills they have developed in previous units. Similar to with Pinky and Rex, students will be challenged to think about how authors develop characters over the course of a single text and how that understanding builds as they read more books in a series about the same characters. Particularly, students will focus on character motivation and what motivates both of the main characters, Freddie and Mr. Vaslov. Students will also begin to notice the different types of descriptive language authors include, specifically figurative language, and how figurative language helps a reader better understand characters and how they are feeling. Finally, students will begin to notice how chapter titles are a clue for what is important in a chapter and can be used to guide retells and summaries of the key events within a chapter.