Unit Activities
As I previously stated, six weeks is the expected duration of this unit. In developing the activities, I have established a pattern that will be repeated each week with each of the historical figures. As you will see, this pattern will be readily adaptable to any other biography chosen for study at any level. Because this unit is specifically written for first grade, if you intend to use it for other grade levels, it allows the freedom to extend certain activities and truncate others.
Before we can begin the study of the historical figures, it is necessary to spend at least one day introducing the genre of biography by name, and explaining exactly what it is, why they are written, where they are located, and why we are going to study them. In order to accomplish this, I will arrange a "field trip" to our school library. I will enlist the partnership of the librarian by explaining exactly what I would like to do and soliciting any input she might offer. It is extremely important to gain the support of the librarian in this venture by showing her the proper respect and recognition of her authority over all that happens in her area of responsibility. I will discuss my ideas with her well in advance. It is important that this excursion fits into her schedule. I would also like to add some festive decoration to the Biography section, and that is certainly something that cannot be done without the advice and consent of the librarian. I will also need to use technology resources during the field trip which will need to be set up prior to arriving with the children. In addition, I envision a table set up with thirty to forty picture book biographies on display. I will encourage my librarian to be a "guest speaker" to offer whatever she might like to add to the children's knowledge of this new topic.
This field trip should include the introduction of many of the informational text features often found in juvenile biographies. In order to do this, I will prepare a brief power point presentation with a slide for each one of the following features: maps, timelines, captions, charts, headings and sub-headings, informational notes, tables, indexes, and bold-faced vocabulary. I will also have previously marked, with post-it notes, examples of each of these features in a variety of biographies. These books can be passed around for the children to see concrete examples of each. I will have previously made a chart with each of these features that will be in our classroom during the unit for easy reference.
Following the introductory presentation, I will allow the children ample time to explore the biographies set up on the table. I will ensure that the biographies cover a wide variety of people over a long timespan. One biography of each person we intend to study will be included in this display, but I will not disclose the actual figures we will study. The children should be reminded of the proper way to handle books and be encouraged to do so while examining the books.
Nearing the end of the field trip, I will invite the children to join me in a circle on the carpet. We will discuss questions related to biography such as: What is a biography? Why are biographies important? What is their purpose? Are biographies fiction or non-fiction books? Who are biographers and why would anyone want to do "life writing"? Can biographies be written about ordinary people or does the subject have to be famous? This will also be an important time to ask the students for any questions they may have. I will also ask some leading questions directly related to our objectives for the study such as: Do you think you might have some things you do in your life that are similar to the lives of the people in these biographies? Do you think everyone can make contributions to our country and the world? Is there anything you can think that we do in school now that is the same as people have done in the past? What kinds of things are different?
To conclude the field trip, I will briefly announce that in the coming weeks we will be reading and writing about some of the biographies that we have looked at during our visit. I will also add that I will have a "classroom library" of biographies, courtesy of our librarian, available for them to read during station time in our reading block and at "waiting times" (waiting for all to arrive in the morning, waiting in the restroom line, waiting for the buses to come in the afternoon) during the day. Then, upon our return to the classroom, the students will design bookmarks with the word "Biography" on one side and the words "life writing" on the other side. Laminate the bookmarks, if possible, for students to use in the coming weeks.
Please refer to the strategies section for details on how to implement the strategies I will list for each day. Also note that although I name specific biographies for some activities, they are to be regarded merely as suggestions. I would encourage anyone who uses this unit to personalize it by choosing the books he or she deems most appropriate for his or her class. I do believe the Paul A. Adler picture biographies will be most useful to me as read-alouds, as well as the National Geographic biography series. There are many high quality biographies available to choose from, and hopefully, you will not need to venture beyond your school library to find them.
Before moving on to the weekly schedule, there is one more thing I want to remind myself to address each and every day of the week – the explicit teaching of informational text features. I would like to encourage the students to watch for the features we introduced on our chart and to bring them to everyone's attention in a polite manner when they see one in a book we are reading. I will review the chart daily, and remind everyone to be on the lookout for these features. Now, below you will find the order of activities I will use in teaching this unit each week:
Monday
Introduce the historical figure of the week. I will utilize the File Folder Schema method to activate any prior knowledge the class may have about the person whose biography we will be studying. We will update our schema each day with newly acquired information. I will follow the schema discussion with a short video clip from one of the sites mentioned in the technology integration strategy. United Streaming and Biography provide brief mini-bio clips suitable to first grade attention spans. Seeing video is familiar and engaging and often a good introduction to the Interactive Read-Aloud. I will end each Monday with an Interactive Read-Aloud using either an Adler or National Geographic picture biography, depending on the class and the historical figure. After a brief discussion, students will use post-its to add to their Schema File Folder.
Tuesday
As a method of review, we will utilize the Exclusion Brainstorming strategy. As the weeks go by, I will be able to mix up facts about all the persons we have studied thus far. Doing this will not only reinforce information about the biography we are currently studying, but will act to solidify facts about those figures we have already covered.
After the Exclusion Brainstorming, it will be time to consult our Schema File Folders again to make sure we have included all the facts we know and begin to think about any erroneous information we may have picked up. This would be a good time to use the K-T-W-L Chart, making sure to place anything we are not sure of in the "What we THINK we know" column. We will revisit the chart on Wednesday.
In each Tuesday class, we will complete an exercise called "Just Like Me." In this exercise, I will invite the children to work with their reading partner to spend a few minutes engaged in a "knee-to-knee, face-to-face" pair chat. During this pair chat, they will make a list of things they have in common with the historical figure of the week on a dry erase slate. After circulating and monitoring the conversations for "on-task" talk for about 7 – 10 minutes, we will gather back as a large group to make an inclusive list of all the things they discussed as being "Just Like Me." This will serve as a natural lead-in to the "literacy biography" of each figure. Depending on the person of the week, I may have a book that details the way this figure learned to read and what schooling meant to them – or I may flex my storytelling muscles and cover the key elements of how this person came to read and what learning meant to them and their future. To wrap up the Tuesday activities, we will complete an Interactive Write-Aloud literacy biography of the figure we are studying and post it on the bulletin board.
(Note: You will find resources for the literacy biography of each person following the Unit Activities section.)
Wednesday
The middle of the week is the perfect time for giving the class the freedom to explore as many resources as possible about the person of the week. Pertinent websites will be pulled up and ready for exploration at the Computer Station. The Listening Station will be supplied with the current person's biography on tape and books to follow along in. The Writing Station will be stocked with writing paper, markers, and resource books to compose a few paragraphs about our subject. The Biography Basket will have varied level biographies available for reading and reflection. The Art Station will have materials prepared for creating a memorable scene from the week's biography. Finally, the Talk Table will be available for practicing oral language and the conventions of conversation.
Wednesday's class period will conclude with a Grand Conversation about all the key points we have learned from the biographies this week. Included in the Grand Conversation will be points of disagreement that we may find in the resources, i.e. Ben Franklin's kite experiments, George Washington's coin toss, etc. These will be clarified using the K-T-W-L Chart.
Thursday
Interviewing and writing will be the focus of the day. We will have a weekly guest from the school to be interviewed. Before the guest's arrival, I will guide the children in generating a list of ten questions agreed upon as important. I will conduct the guest interview each week, modeling the proper way to ask questions and listen politely. They will also see the importance of following up unclear responses with clarifying inquiries.
After our guest leaves, the children will choose one of two ways to write about the interview they have just witnessed. They may choose to write a Five Fingers Bio Sketch. The Five Fingers Bio Sketch is a writing technique in which students will use the outline of a hand to write a sentence gleaned from the interview on each finger. The Five Fingers (and when appropriate Five Senses) technique is something my students will already be familiar with from language arts and can see how it can be applied to other forms of writing. Students may opt instead to create an Open Mind Portrait of the guest. In this writing technique, a student will draw a "neck up" portrait of the person, leaving space between the subject's hair and face – thus creating an "open mind." Then they will write the things remembered from the interview in that space. This will create a visual and written biography.
Friday
Friday is designated as assessment and Biography Freedom day! After answering a five question quiz about the person of the week, the children are free to read and explore biographies that interest them from our classroom biography collection. The children can use "whisper phones" to read silently. Students can partner read or he or she may participate in an extension activity such as writing a biography at www.biguniverse.com at the Computer Station.
Final Thoughts in Concluding the Unit
Like most teachers, I begin the school year with an "All About Me" activity. I generally do this either the first day of school or sometime during the first week of school as a tool to get to know my students. I developed a formulaic approach many years ago that seeks answers to questions such as: What is your favorite food? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Who do you live with? What kind of games do you like to play? What is your favorite sport? What is your favorite season? Who do you like to spend time with? and so on. At the very end of the six weeks, I would like to conclude the unit with a writing exercise called "All About You." In this activity, students will receive a blank "All About Me" worksheet with the title changed to "All About You." Each student will choose someone he or she would like to write about. He or she will use his or her interviewing skills to procure the answers to the questions in "All About You." Using the information from the interview, the students will write a short biography and present it to the subject of his or her "All About You" biography.
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