After building some background about the author and pre-assessing last week, the fourth graders have started an incredible narrative elements study through the works Bunting. As of today, I have already had the privilege of teaching 2 lessons to 2 different classes. This back-to-back teaching has been such a privilege and learning opportunity - I get to make improvements to my lessons that teachers usually have to wait a year for!This first week has been geared toward direct instruction and guided practice with identifying the narrative elements in a text. Specifically, we will be looking at: characters, setting, and plot (conflict, resolution, and ending). Throughout this week, we have been reading Fly Away Home to model these elements with the students. For instance, on Tuesday, we read the story with the explicit purpose to identify and describe the main characters. Below, you can see this lesson in greater detail.
Lesson: Main characters in Fly Away Home
(1) Learning target: students will be able to identify and describe the main character(s) in narrative text. As a class, we re-read Fly Away Home with a focus on identifying the characters. Following this reading, I modeled how to fill out a Character Mapping worksheet, something that students will be required to complete in pairs next week with a new Bunting text. The worksheet has students write down information about the character's: appearance, emotions, actions, traits, experiences, and reactions from other characters. This entire process was completed both by modelling and asking for student contributions.
(2) Evidence: Using this worksheet, I first modeled information for each character facet and provided text evidence to support my claim. Students who provided contributions that followed this same process of providing text evidence were successful in meeting the learning goal.
(3) Reteach: As we move into next week, students will be working in pairs to finish the worksheet that was modeled on Tuesday. If they are having difficulty, they have both their peer and Tuesday's example to help guide them in the right direction.
(4) Extend: For students who are successfully meeting expectations, they will have time to translate this study of the narrative elements of one author into their own writing. A further extension could be to have them work with students who are struggling since teaching is one of the best ways to enhance one's own learning.
3 comments:
I like this gradual release method you are using and that in cases of reteach or extending you are putting it in the student's hands so they are more responsible. I like to give them the power over their own learning and I agree with you that the best learning I do is when I have to teach someone else. Looks like a very interesting unt.
I really like your extension about having the students teach others. I think this is a great way to challenge and dig deeper into student learning. To often we pass up the opportunity to allow students to teach students, but it is a great extension tool because students teaching have to really know the subject matter with a deeper understanding. I will deffinately store that idea away! Thanks for bringing it up and sharing.
Every time I hear about what you are doing in fourth grade, my mind goes on momentary strike. It is hard to wrap my mind around the in-depth, thought and detail based lessons you are working with. My mind is on perma-kinder mode, and I can't get D-d-d-dog out of my head (that's what I taught today).
That being said . . . I really liked the thought you put into this lesson, especially the extension - as bree and lucas have said. It is so valuable to have students teaching and helping when they are struggling with the material and when they are a managemnt issue. Students put on the spot have more focus and desire to get the information right. I definitely use this with my kinder kiddos!
Post a Comment