Classroom Activities
Storyboard
Comprehend strategies are integral parts of the fourth grade reading standards. One strategy that I want to use in this activity is visualization strategy using a storyboard. Visualization allow students to form mental pictures of what they are reading in a text. It helps them better remember main ideas or events in a story. One strategy for visualization is to use sensory words from the text to readjust as they read for details.
In this activity, I will explain that good readers read, they create a kind of “movie” in their minds. I will tell students to close their eyes and visualize the first part of “This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” from the book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. We will talk about what they visualized, and direct them to the story board. Students will etch and sketch what they visualized adding as many details as they can. Another strategy for visualizing text is for students to look for words they can picture. Then I will ask them what keywords in the text (adjectives, adverbs, prior knowledge, etc...) helped them “draw” the text. Is it easier to visualize mountains, rez cars or alone? It is easier to visualize mountains and rez cars because these are something they see every day. I will explain that they need to look for words that represent things they can see in real life. I will read longer passages in the story and stop once in a while to add to the story board. As we read more, I will explain that students can learn more about a character by visualizing his or her actions. In the story, it describes Thomas Builds-The-Fire's physical attributes and character traits in details. What keywords helped you visualize what he looks like? What about the other characters? After we complete the story, I want students to pair up and retell the stories. There are two things I am looking for in this activity. One, is as a pre-assessment. I want to know how many students use comprehension strategies, such as visualization, keywords, and ideas. Secondly, can students sequence the events in the story?
Key Ideas and Details
According to Arizona’s College and Career readiness Standards, students in fourth grade should be able to read texts closely to determine main ideas and details. I will explain to the students that in this curriculum, they will look for the main idea or message of a passage. They will also find details that best supports the main idea. Sometimes, writers do not always clearly state the main idea of a passage, so you have to figure out the main idea. Details tell us more about the main idea. Sometimes, sequencing events in a story help us understand passages. Understanding the order of events help us with comprehension.
In this activity, students will read the screen play that correlates with the selected scenes from the curriculum unit. Again, students will be asked to visualize the scene using keywords and character actions. This time, however, students will determine the main idea of the scene. For example, in Dances with Wolves scene, there is no doubt that Thomas likes the movie, but what evidence in the story determines that he likes the movie? Howe do we know? I will explain to the students that they have to pay close attention to the passage to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences. Then we will reread to determine what evidence we can find to support our conclusion. Here, I will be using guided practice to help them find the conclusion.
Compare and Contrast
Compare and Contrast are reading skills that students need to develop to have good comprehension. In fact, the Arizona standards states that students can compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics and patterns of events in stories. Again, I will be using the scene selections, and the screen plays are similar and different? How are they similar or different from the short story? How are the characters different in each story? How are the stories told differently in the movie and in the short story? How are the quests of the boys the same or different? In the movie, a whole scene was added to show how Victor was able to come to terms with his absentee father. In the short story, he came to terms with his father in a subtle way, and almost have to reread the story to get to the same conclusion. I want students to search for the differences especially, and discuss why the movie had the extra scenes. Did it help with the story or did it not help? This last activity will conclude our unit.
At the conclusion of the screenplay and film, students will go back to their storyboard, compare and contrast activities, and main ideas and details activity to see if it is what they visualized from the beginning. Have they learned any new strategies? Do they have a better idea on how to visualize texts? Eventually, I will have the students re-view the film in its entirety, and see if that made a difference than seeing it a section at a time.
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