Children's Literature, Infancy to Early Adolescence

Unit Lessons

Lesson Plan One: How Do You Know What You Want to Read?

Time Frame: Two Days

Essential Statements:

• Knowing and choosing what we like to read can enhance our reading experiences.
• Reading can open a window on ways we can deal with life's problems.

There are two purposes for this lesson. One is for the teacher to administer a reading survey and the Issues Completion exercise so that the teacher will have some information to use as she begins to conference with students. The second purpose is to familiarize students with the books available in the classroom library. Knowing what books are in the library, and actually interviewing many of these books, will help my students to choose books of interest to them. This will be done with a Book Pass.

Book Pass Teaching and Learning Activities:

1. Prior to the lesson, the teacher will group desks in quads, or in otherwise configured small groupings. In the center of each group, the teacher will place a stack of classroom library books. The books should be from various genres and reading levels, if possible.
2. The teacher will begin the lesson by reviewing the highlights of the discussion from the previous day, using the chart constructed during the class discussion.
3. Using a book from the classroom library, the teacher will review the way to interview a book. This will be a modeling activity. The teacher should look at and talk about what she notices about the cover of the book. She should read and comment on the blurb on the back of the book. She should look at the table of contents, if present, to get an idea of the chapter titles. She should read a little from the front of the book, and a little from the middle of the book. All the while, the teacher expresses her own opinions about the book.
4. The teacher should then help students review the interview process by asking them what they noticed her doing. She should make sure students understand the process.
5. She will then explain the class activity, the Book Pass. Students will divide their notebook paper into two columns lengthwise. At the top of the left column, students should write "Book Title and Author." At the top of the right column, students should write "Comments." The teacher will explain the following procedure:
   - Students will choose one book from the stacks in the center of their groups.
   - The teacher will tell students they are going to interview some books, and hopefully find one they might like to read.
   - The teacher will direct students to write the name and author of their books in the left-hand column on their paper.
   - The teacher will set the timer for four minutes. Students are to go through the interview process with the book they have selected. When the timer rings, students will take two minutes to write their comments about the book in the right-hand column on their papers. Students should comment on whatever they have noticed about the book.
   - When the timer rings again students will take the book from the student on their right, or select a new book from the stack in the center of the quad.
   - This activity should continue until students have interviewed at least four books, or until the teacher wants to stop the activity.
6. In a class discussion, students will be asked to discuss which one of the books on the interview list they might want to read, and why. Students should then check out their books, and spend twenty minutes in independent reading.
   Note: If students want the same book, suggest alternate titles, or let the student go to the Media Center to check out the school's copy of that book. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to happen very frequently.)
7. Student observation sheets should be placed in the Reading section of their notebooks to be used in the future for reference when choosing books to read.

When this lesson is complete the teacher will begin independent conferences. These conferences will be shaped by what students have written on their Reading Survey and Issues Completion Activities. The teacher should be prepared to offer a suggestion to each student about a book or books that address some of the issues they have noted on their surveys. The point of this first conference is to begin to build a relationship with the student, fostering a climate of openness to sharing and suggestions. Obviously, conferences are limited by time. To get used to spending only four-five minutes with each student, the teacher might want to set the timer. This will help the teacher to stick to the conference schedule. Conferences might be held during independent reading time or during student work periods. The teacher might aim to conference with two or three students daily until the class has been covered. Also during this conference the teacher might direct students to the resource box she has created. She should tell students that they might browse through that box to get ideas when looking for a new book to read. She can show the student an index card and explain its elements: The book title, the author's name, the publication date, the number of pages, the reading level of the book, the concerns with which the book deals, and a short summary of the plot. Students should realize that this is a resource to help them find reading material that deals with the concerns that bother them.

Lesson Plan Two: Thinking About Characters

Time Frame: One - Three Days

Essential Statement:

- Making connections with the characters in a novel can help a reader to understand the themes of that novel.

Teaching and Learning Activities connected with The Outsiders:

1. The teacher will provide each group with a piece of chart paper and markers.
2. The teacher will create a stick-figure characterization chart (idea taken from Janet Allen's Yellow Brick Roads: See appendix for sample) of Dallas Winston to model for students how to do the characterization. (Dally is a character that most students don't immediately think of when given this assignment.)
3. Students will create their own charts for a character in the book, using Ponyboy's thumbnail sketches in Chapter 1 to help them. Students will present their sketches to the class, explaining why they chose the particular traits of that character.
4. Students will independently read Chapter 2 in the book. After reading this chapter, students will respond to the following prompt in their reading journals:

Which character in the story do you think you most resemble? Why?

5. The teacher will read the responses in the students' reading journals, and record this information to use when recommending books to students.

Lesson Plan Three: Chapter 12: "When I stepped out …"

Time Frame: One - Two Days

Essential Statements:

- Thinking and writing about the painful issues in our lives can help us gain some insight into them, and possibly begin to solve them.

Teaching and Learning Activities:

1. The teacher should read this last chapter in the book aloud to students. During the reading, the teacher should facilitate discussion by using the chapter questions for Chapter 12 (chapter questions have been provided in the appendix for reference.)
2. During final conferencing with students related to this section of the book, the discussion should center around the idea that what Pony has learned to do, which is the reflection process he goes through in this last chapter, is what the students themselves have also learned to do as they have read both the novel and their own independently read books.

Further Insight into this Unit:

One of the important things to remember when using bibliotherapy in the classroom is that students should not be embarrassed in front of their peers. The teacher has to be careful when recommending books to students that deal with the issues in their lives. Just recommending the books is not enough, and sometimes too much discussion with the child about the problem may be embarrassing and counter-productive. This unit attempts to address several common issues that teenagers experience in the novel study of The Outsiders. Analyzing the survey, the completion activity, and the information gleaned through conferences with students can help the teacher make individual recommendations to students and avoid embarrassing them.