This cluster includes the following access points.
Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.
| Name |
Description |
| 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. |
| Opinion Writing Using Sarah, Plain and Tall: | Students will learn about opinion writing using a classic text, Sarah, Plain and Tall. Students will differentiate between fact and opinion and use a graphic organizer to plan an opinion piece about a favorite character. They will also use an editing checklist to peer review their written pieces before writing a final draft to share with the class. |
| 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. |
| Dog or Cat...What is Your Perspective?: | Students will have an opportunity to respond to a prompt based on the perspective of one of the characters from the book I Am the Dog, I Am the Cat by Donald Hall. Students will write a narrative paragraph from the perspective of either the cat or the dog from the story. |
| 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. |
| Learning about Theme with Brave Irene: | Who doesn't love a theme! Students will use the book Brave Irene by William Steig to learn about themes. They will create a story map for the text and look closely at the problem and solution and how the main character changed throughout the story to determine the big idea. Students will demonstrate their understanding by writing about the theme and identifying parts of the story that support that thinking. |
| 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. |
| Are You Pulling My Leg!? A Lesson On Idioms: | In this lesson, students will practice recognizing and explaining the meaning of common idioms through poetry. As a summative assessment, students will complete an Idiom Art Project demonstrating an understanding of the difference between the literal and figurative meanings of the idiom they selected. Students will also mark and recognize rhyme scheme notation. |
| Star-Belly Sneetches and What They Teach Us: | This lesson allows students to dig deeply into a popular, fun fictional story by Dr. Seuss to determine the theme and the life lesson it provides. Students will work in groups to act out the story in a skit, participate in a brainstorming activity with higher-order thinking questions, and design a creative response poster incorporating the story's theme to share with the class. Who doesn't love a Dr. Seuss classic that teaches students a lesson they can apply to their daily lives? |
| 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. |
| Hamming it up with Plot: | Using the classic story, The Three Little Pigs, students will learn will use a plot line graphic organizer to record the action in this story. Students will use this plot line to help them retell the story in writing and record their paragraphs using technology such as Voice Thread. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| A Closer Look at Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes: | In this lesson, students will examine character development based on the events of the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. During multiple readings of the text, students will take a deep dive into text dependent questions and participate in group activity determining how Chrysanthemum felt during different parts of the story. Finally, students will take the perspective of the character, Victoria, to write a letter of apology to Chrysanthemum to say that she was sorry for the way she treated her. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Practicing Fluency with Shel Silverstein: | Your students will be delighted to become immersed into the world of Shel Silverstein’s masterful poems. As students practice fluency and oral presentation, they will also learn how to identify various rhyme schemes and record their favorite poem. |
| 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. |
| 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.
