Christine A. Elmore
To begin this section I plan to 'test' my young learners' knowledge of real wolves by having them respond to the following survey of statements. I will read each statement and they will place an X in the box for either true or false.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WOLVES?
By employing this survey I will spark my students' interest in doing research on wolves.
On a KWL chart such as the one below I will record my students' ideas about wolves. This interactive strategy activates prior knowledge and heightens students' curiosity about a subject.
I will begin our scientific study of wolves with the book,
Wild, Wild Wolves
, by Joyce Milton. It is an age-appropriate text that presents a well-balanced introduction to wolves, their behavior, pack structure and endangered status as well as their place in folklore and in people's imagination. This reading will be followed on subsequent days with children's informational texts that use many of the standard features that my young students need to be able to use skillfully in order to extract text meaning. They include: table of contents, index, glossary, maps, labels, diagrams, photographs, headings, and bold text or terminology. My read-aloud books will include
Wolves
by Gail Gibbons,
Wonderful Wolves
by Justin McCory Martin and
Gray Wolves
by Patricia Fink Martin. A collection of other informational texts will be offered in the classroom for use by my young researchers.
After these readings as a whole group we will gather some initial facts about wolves and record them on a large version of the following graphic organizer:
Wolves
Important terminology such as alpha wolf, beta wolf, pack, predator, territory, canine, den, incisor, litter, omega wolf, prey, snout, endangered will be explained and displayed on our topic of study word wall for the class to refer to.
I have found much success with pairing students to do research. I call it 'buddy research' and I plan to suggest two possible research projects that students can do. The first booklet will be a natural extension activity taken from the dialogue of
Little Red Riding Hood
. Each page will feature a different exclamation: What Big Eyes You Have, What Big Ears You Have, What A Big Nose You Have, What Long Legs You Have, What Big Hands You Have, What Big Teeth You Have, What a Big Tail You Have, and What a Thick Coat You Have. Under these titles students will research and record related facts as well as sketch pictures that further explain the content.
In the second type of research project students will formulate 4 questions about wolves and research and record answers on each of 4 pages in a flip booklet. In Lesson Plan 1 I explain this in greater detail. These booklets will be on display in our classroom library for classmates to 'check out' and read. The internet also provides a rich source of information on wolves. The websites my students will be encouraged to use are cited in the bibliography at the end of the unit.
Now I will move to some creative writing activities so that my students can take all their newfound knowledge and perspectives about wolves and express their feelings about them. First, we will write cinquain poems about wolves, both real and imagined. In Lesson plan 2 I will present a step-by-step description of this activity. A second type of poetry that I will teach my students to write is the ode. I chose this format because it will allow students to tap into their emotions and senses as they express their feelings about wolves. In Lesson Plan 3 I will describe how I plan to go about this in greater detail.
Readers' Theatre activities allow the young student to do repeated readings of a script, strengthening his/her reading skills, fluency and comprehension. Students also will be able to practice their speaking skills of pronunciation, inflection and expression. Two of the readers' theatre plays that I plan to use in this unit feature wolves and pigs. One is called the
The 8 Little Pigs and the 2 Wolves
and the other is entitled
Mock Trial Script: B.B Wolf (a/k/a Big Bad Wolf) v. Curly Pig
. These particular scripts will help students to learn about looking at an event from the eyes of both the wolves and the pigs and may help them to question the pervasive use in fairy tales of a negative depiction of wolves.