What This Unit Will Teach
My favorite genre is fantasy. The idea that the magical can happen in the midst of the ordinary is fantastic. Fantasy really makes the phrase "Escape with a good book" meaningful. Our everyday world is at times quite predictable and mundane. Some of us dream of having magical powers or coming across a mythical beast. The supernatural is so very intriguing to me. I know that many students feel the same way. They eat up anything that has magic, dragons, wizards or talking beasts. Stories like that seem so real that sometimes the fantasy and the reality become intertwined and hard to separate. I once had a girl who was puzzled because she didn't realize that dragons didn't exist. I in no way want to encourage children to live in a world that is outside our realm and believe in the things that happen within a fantasy novel. However, I do enjoy seeing the excitement brewing within students when they are really into a fantasy novel. There's definitely a different passion for fantasy than there is for any other genre.
As a middle school sixth grade teacher I notice that the majority of my students prefer fantasy novels to most other genres. I have noticed the trend in fantasy take a huge upswing over the past decade or so. It's almost as if the other genres have taken a back seat and are waiting in the shadows for things to calm down. Since I see such resounding interest in fantasy I decided that I should write a curriculum unit focusing solely on that genre. If this is what interests our students, why not use that material to provide a teaching device. We've all had our moments of teaching a lesson only to look out and see the bored faces out in the crowd. If fantasy is what interests the students then perhaps that interest will be enough to keep our students focused for the Reading and English objectives we are required to teach.
I wish therefore to create a unit devoted purely to the genre of fantasy. We will look at fantasy in forms such as picture book and novel. If a student is resistant to fantasy, that might pose a challenge in teaching this unit. However, I believe that the teaching approach in this unit and the stories that will be taught will draw any student into an enjoyable experience with fantasy.
This unit will focus on reading and analyzing the genre of fantasy. There are some specific aspects of fantasy that make it a genre of its own. We will study these aspects and learn what makes this genre so engrossing. In addition to reading, we will do some writing. It is amazing how easy it is for kids to create the supernatural. My goal is to have pairs or small groups of students write an original piece of fantasy with illustrations—basically, to create a fantasy picture story book. This will come of course with coaching and reassurance. They have that creative spark in them, we all know that. But very often the spark cannot surface due to all the "school" that they are given. Hopefully the magical world of fantasy will intrigue the students enough to be free to write about it.
The practical purpose of this unit is the teaching of literary elements. We will incorporate as many literary devices as possible, such as plot, characterization, point of view, conflict, foreshadowing/flashback, tone/mood, and setting. We will look at where these devices appear in various texts. We will also concentrate on including them in the original fantasy stories we write.
For the short stories I intend to do teacher read alouds. For the novels I intend to do literature circles. Some of the stories I am intending to use would be novels such as Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Rabbit Hill, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, James and the Giant Peach, The Indian in the Cupboard, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Wrinkle in Time, The Lord of the Rings and Charlotte's Web. We will also incorporate some fantasy short stories such as Jumanji, Curious George, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, The Tub People, The Velveteen Rabbit and The Rainbow Fish.
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