Introduction and Rationale
I teach 5th grade English Language Arts and Social Studies at a small, diverse elementary school in the heart of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Located in midtown, our students come from all over the city, including the community surrounding our school. Half of our students walk to school. The other half wakes up early to take long car rides across the metro area. Tulsa is still segregated; students coming from different areas of town represent racial and socio-economical differences. Academically, students who read on a 2nd grade level and students who read on a high school level all sit in the same room. For this reason, I chose the movie Encanto to anchor this film unit. Students seem to gravitate towards this film regardless of their backgrounds, personalities, or interests. I chose Wadjda because it about a girl who lives in a different part of the world and will challenge students to use their empathetic skills. This unit will focus on 5th grade ELA standards and needs. However, students in 3rd - 6th grade can benefit as well.
I try to put myself in my students’ shoes as much as possible when planning my lessons and units. As a general rule, if I find something uninteresting or boring for myself, I have to change the lesson somehow. I am a product of the school district I teach in and when I look back at my elementary school days, I only remember happiness, exploration, and genuine fun. Unfortunately, the state of education has drastically changed. Teachers enjoy less freedom and are pressured to prepare students for an incredible number of assessments throughout the year. In my own bubble, I try to create the excitement for learning that I had the privilege of experiencing. However, eleven-year-olds are not the easiest crowd of people to impress or engage. One thing that my students have better than my generation is their abundant knowledge of the world and current events. I recognize that they have lived through unprecedented times their entire lives. I am always impressed by the current events they bring up in class and the topics they ask to learn about. Throughout the year, we study four to five novels. Each protagonist has a unique background and most are from different countries from Mexico to India, to South Africa. Students build empathy towards these characters and enjoy learning about the worlds in which they live.
In 5th grade, students engage with texts critically and learn to interpret stories. A strong emphasis is placed on recognizing literary devices, themes, plot development, characterization, and point of view. Great storytelling captivates young readers and even self-proclaimed haters of reading will become engrossed in our class novels. The most ambiguous standard to teach kids in literature for me is theme. The term can refer to lessons in a story or overall topics present. For this lesson, I will focus on the latter, thematic ideas in a story.
Theme can be difficult to teach because first students must understand the plot. Then students must recognize the actions of characters and their motivations. After all of this, students can answer the question that leads them to the theme; what is this story actually about? The question is challenging because a story is almost never about just one thing. For instance, we read the historical fiction novel, Esperanza Rising, every year. The thematic ideas are immigration, coming of age, riches to rags, and injustice. My goal is for students to recognize the motivations of characters and thematic topics in a film as they do in a novel. In elementary school, films are typically used to share information or to illustrate a complex topic for students. In this unit, film will give students an opportunity to analyze storytelling using a different medium. We will use the movies Encanto and Wadjda, the first a wildly popular film and the second a critical success.
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