Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
| 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. |
| Too Much Help: Keep Your Ear on the Ball | This lesson helps students learn how to offer and accept help from others. The story is about Davey, a new student who is blind and very independent. The students learn how to offer help, and Davey learns how to accept it. This lesson also addresses the following: answering questions about text, identifying how characters respond to events, and writing a narrative. |
| The Kingdom of Ten | This is a lesson about the power of grouping numbers into ones, tens, and hundreds. The story describes the terrible dilemma faced by Lady Di as she attempts to feed the large number of guests that arrive for King Arthur's birthday party. The knights attempt to help her count the guests by arranging the people in different ways until a final solution is found by using the power of ten and place value. The children are then given the opportunity to count people arriving from other lands by using place value blocks. Finally, the children make a number and have just a few more guests arrive from the land of Addington. They can then fill up their place value houses and watch as they must shift or regroup the people to make them fit into the proper houses. |
| Charlotte’s Web: Point of View | In this lesson, students will work with their teacher and their classmates to read chapter one from the book, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. Students will be asked to take a close look at characters' actions and motivations. As a summative assessment, students will identify and agree with a specific character's point of view, supporting their opinions with text-based evidence. |
| The Great Kapok Tree: A Study of Theme | During these lessons, students will read The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry. They will learn about the importance of trees by learning new vocabulary, analyzing characters, and finding the theme of the 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. |
| Sarah, Plain and Tall--Successful Summarizing and Character Study | Students will be reading the classic story Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. They will discuss the major events of the story and how the characters reacted to these happenings. Students will get a lot of practice summarizing by writing a short summary of each chapter. They will also be tracking the characters' emotions and reactions throughout the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story. |
| Fly Away Home: A Little Boy's Hope | In this lesson, students will work with their teacher and their classmates to read Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting. Students will tackle the idea of theme and symbolizim in this story by studying what a little brown bird means to the main character. Students will write about the theme of the story in an expository paragraph. |
| 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. |
| Charlie Anderson: Who Cat is This? | During this lesson, the students will become highly involved with the text Charlie Anderson by Barbara Abercrombie. The students will identify and describe the story elements with a focus on the character of Elizabeth. Students will write an expository paragraph about how she felt at the end of the story when she learned the truth. |
| Having Fun with Fractured Fairy Tales | Students will be delighted to be introduced to the world of fractured fairy tales. They will compare classic versions of fairy tales with the new versions that author's have created. The students will have their own chance to think about a different point of view when they explore wolf's perspective in The Three Little Pigs. After writing a short Readers' Theatre script, students will perform their creations for the class. |
| What a Pig! Character Traits from The Three Little Pigs | Students will practice identifying character traits from two classic fairy tales. They will then find evidence from the text to support those traits. Students will complete the lessons by choosing a character and a trait to write about in an expository paragraph. |
| Taking the "Worry" out of Wemberly | In this lesson, students will read the story Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes. Students will identify and discuss some of Wemberly's worries and share their opinion about them. The lesson will conclude with the students writing an opinion piece about Wemberly's school experience. |
| A Bat Adventure | In this lesson, students will describe how characters in a story respond to events and challenges after reading the story, Stellaluna. Students will answer comprehension questions pertaining to the story and demonstrate an understanding of key details. In addition, students will write an opinion piece in which they will introduce a topic, state an opinion, provide reasons to support their opinion, and end their writing with a closing statement. |
| Cooking Up Chemistry | Students will explore through fiction/nonfiction texts and hands-on activities that materials can be altered to change some of their properties. In an extension lesson, students can also explore how other forms of energy (besides electricity) can be used to cook food. |
| 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. |
| Charlotte’s Web: An Amazing Adventure about Friendship | In this lesson students will read Charlotte's Web by E.B. White and complete activities to help them comprehend the story. Students will "dig deep" into the novel by learning new vocabulary words, writing about the characters and their decisions, and taking part in some creative activities. Students will be assessed with higher order thinking questions that require them to draw on elements from the story and make connections. This lesson is for the first four chapters of Charlotte's Web. |
| 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. |
| Chrysanthemum, A Special Name | In this lesson students will listen to the story of Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. Students will discuss how teasing can be hurtful and examine how characters respond to major events. To culminate this learning, students will write an opinion piece about the story including supporting reasons, transition words, and a conclusion. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Sarah, Plain and Tall: Character Study | In this lesson, students will work with their teacher and their classmates to look deeply at chapter one from the book Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. Students will asked to answer discussio questions, determine the meaning of unfamiliar words, and make inferences about the main character. The lessons will end with the writing of an expository text and the main character's perspective. |
