This cluster includes the following access points.
Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.
| Name |
Description |
| Plot: Identify and Describe How Characters Affect the Plot: | This is the final lesson of a three-part unit on plot. In this lesson, students will identify and describe how characters affect the plot. In the teacher modeling portion, the featured text is When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins. In the guided and independent practice activities, the featured text is Strega Nona Meets Her Match by Tomie dePaola. The other lessons in this unit are attached as related CPALMS resources. |
| Opinion Writing for an Author Study: | In this lesson, students will listen to the stories Franklin in the Dark and Franklin Wants a Pet. Students will analyze story elements and story structure, which will assist them in writing an opinion piece about their favorite Franklin story. |
| A Close Look at A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams: | A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams is a delightful story of a family who faces the hardships of life together. The focus of these reading lessons is to identify story structure and discuss how the characters responded to challenges. After students complete several learning centers about the book, they will retell the story through writing using grade-appropriate conventions. |
| A Closer Look at Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain: | Introduce your primary students to the rhythmic story of the African plains, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema. This story is filled with rich vocabulary and rhyming patterns that allow students to interact with context clues and and answer questions about the story elements. |
| Hamming It Up with Character: | Students will learn about characters in narrative text through group collaboration, the creation of character trading cards and an oral presentation of original dialogue. Students will work in collaboarative groups to think of adjectives that would best describe how the characters look, behave, and feel. |
| Once Upon a Time: What Makes an Interesting Setting: | There are stories that make you feel like you are there experiencing everything along with the characters. Often times, this is because the writer is describing the setting in vivid detail. These lessons will look at the componants of a setting and give students the opportunity to write the beginning of a story based upon a setting of their choosing. |
| Questions of Character, Setting, and Plot: | Students will read texts including characters that face a challenge or major event and describe the characters, setting, plot, and how they responded to the challenge. With a partner, students will read a book about other brave characters and create six comprehension questions that they will type on a computer. These questions will be presented to another partnership who will read the book and answer their classmates’ questions. |
| CinderWHO?: | Students will compare and contrast various versions of the Cinderella story through story element charting, partner discussions, carousel brainstorming, and semantic feature analysis. Students will think critically and hold grade-level appropriate dialogue about each story. Students will complete a piece of opinion writing stating which Cinderella story was their favorite and why they liked it. |
| Perspective is a Walk in the Park: | Using the books Seven Blind Mice and Voices in the Park students will learn to identify the unique perspectives that characters bring to a story. After completing a retelling activity and drawing how several characters are feeling, students will compose a short narrative writing from the perspective of a character from Voices in the Park. |
| Understanding Miss Maggie: | Students will love talking about the unlikely friendship that forms in Miss Maggie by Cynthia Rylant. They will share their opinions by writing a paragraph after learning new vocabulary words and discussing character traits. |
| Plot: Retelling a Story with Story Elements: | Students will retell a story using story elements. The teacher modeling uses the story Dog Breath: The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis by Dav Pilkey. The guided and independent practice activities use the story When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins. |
| Plot: Identifying Story Elements: | In this lesson on plot, students will identify and describe story elements using a graphic organizer. The featured text in this lesson is Dog Breath: The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis by Dav Pilkey. This lesson is part of a unit on plot. Other lessons in the unit are attached as related CPALMS resources. |
| Digging Deeper: Developing Comprehension Using Thank You, Mr. Falker: | Good readers demonstrate comprehension of text using a wide variety of strategies. Making personal connections to stories is one way to develop deeper understanding of both character and theme. This teacher read-aloud of Thank You, Mr. Falker and follow-up whole-group instruction provide a basis for improved higher-level reading comprehension. The teacher works with the whole class to model making predictions and personal connections, envisioning character change, and understanding the themes of the book. Response journals can also be used to further student connections to the characters and themes in the book. |
| Describing a Character's Personality Traits: | This is a lesson on characters. Using the story Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes, students will practice describing a character's personality based on the character's thoughts, actions and feelings. |
| Describing Characters with Rich Language: | Students will use descriptive language to describe a character's personality. This lesson uses two stories by Kevin Henkes: Julius, the Baby of the World and Lilly's Big Day. |
| I'll Huff, and I'll Puff, and I'll Write My Own Version!: | Children love the classic fairy tale, The Three Little Pigs. In these lessons, students will compare the story elements from the original versions with other fractured fairy tale versions. Students will also be delighted to use their creatively to create their own fractured fairy tale. |
| Once Upon a Time: | In this lesson, students will identify and describe story elements and compare and contrast two versions of fairy tale Cinderella. Students will write an expository paragraph describing the similarities and differences of the two texts and provide textual evidence for support. |
| Predicting a Character's Actions: | This is the second lesson in a three-part unit on characters. Students will predict a character's actions based on his or her personality. This lesson uses two books by Kevin Henkes: Julius, the Baby of the World and Lilly's Big Day. The other lessons in this unit have been attached as related CPALMS resources. |
| Using Picture Books to Practice Retelling: | Did you know that wordless picture books can ignite creativity in your students? These lessons encourage students to tell interesting stories in their own words based on several wordless books. After practicing identifying story elements, students will write creatively to retell one of the stories. |
Vetted resources students can use to learn the concepts and skills in this topic.
