Mary C. Elmore
The first phase of my curriculum unit takes place in the second marking period wherein students are exposed to informational text during Reading Workshop and are expected to write an expository piece during Writing Workshop. This phase is designed to give students an introduction to the various rescue efforts, which have gone on throughout the world in the recent past. Through the use of our core-text, Rescues!, I provide my students with relevant information regarding the various facets of survival which entail preparedness before, during and after a particular event. I must ensure that my students are grasping this information by way of modeling and providing practice using the eight power strategies of reading informational text: Monitoring Understanding, Identifying Text Structures, Identifying Text Features, Previewing Text, Asking Questions, Notetaking and Specialized Vocabulary. You will find that we often make use of the numerous graphic organizers provided by the Plugged-Into Reading program which highlight word studies of specialized vocabulary, the use of text-features when reading non-fiction texts, initiate small research projects and measure students' comprehension of the material covered throughout the text.
Lesson 1: Utilizing Text Features to Preview the Text
Through the use of the 'Plugged Into Reading' graphic organizer " Previewing with Book Parts" (pgs. 77-78), students explore Sandra Markel's Rescues! and are prompted to make inferences and predictions using the text clues found in photographs, headings, glossary and other critical text features. Students are then paired up to discuss their findings and share connections they might have to the information they come across.
Lesson 2: Activating Background Knowledge by Asking Questions
Through the use of a KWL chart, students jot down any information they feel they already know about Rescue efforts under the K column. Students are then asked to fill in the W column of their chart with Questions they still have regarding the topic, which arise as a result of previewing the text. Students come together whole class and one large KWL chart is generated in order to share common understandings and questions. As students read the text in the coming days, they are encouraged to fill out the L section of the chart with 'What I have Learned'.
Lesson 3: Identifying Text Structures: Sequence and Chronology
Students read their first rescue account, "Hasty to the Rescue" and work with the text structure of Sequence and Chronology to create a diagram, which demonstrates the main events in the story, which began with the avalanche disaster and culminated in the rescue of the victim in a plot diagram. Students are guided to include the conflict, rising action, climax, falling action and conclusion.
Lesson 4: Identifying Text Structures: Sequence and Chronology
Students read 'Frozen Child" and continue to work with the text structure of Sequence Chronology to describe and depict what occurs when Hypothermia takes over the body using the Plugged Into Reading graphic organizer (pg100).
Lesson 5: Identifying Text Structures: Sequence and Chronology
Students read "Nine Miners Trapped" and create a timeline with illustrations and captions, which depict the sequence of events leading up to the disaster and culminating in the rescue.
Lesson 6: Identifying Text Structures: Compare and Contrast
Students read "Baby in a Burning House" and "Saving Elvis" and compare and contrast the circumstances in each situation to determine what factors were similar and different in each disaster using the Plugged Into Reading graphic organizer (pg 132). Students draw conclusions regarding what is most important to remember in such an emergency situation and how best to be prepared for such an unfortunate event.
Lesson 7: Determining Critical Information
Students read "Tsunami Strikes" and jot down the measures that need to be taken before, during and after such an event to increase the likelihood of survival.
Lesson 8: Determining Critical Information
Students read "Surviving Katrina" and compare the circumstances of Hurricane Katrina to those of the Tsunami in Thailand using the Plugged Into Reading graphic organizer (pg 161). Here students are guided to summarize the critical information using the specialized vocabulary words floundering, tsunami, survivors and debris when describing "Tsunami Strikes" and evacuated, agencies, generator and chaos when describing the events of "Surviving Katrina".
Lesson 9: Elements of a Survival Guide
Students read 'A Kid's Wilderness Survival Primer' by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht from the Plugged Into Reading resource materials (pgs. 185-189) and take note of the structure and organization of the guide by way of its paragraphs, headings and sub headings. This serves as a model of expository writing.
As a final project for this phase, students write their own survival guides on "How to Survive Fourth Grade since, in many ways, the children are starting to become 'experts' on ways they have found to meet with success, both academically and behaviorally. In order that the brochure follow expository writing guidelines and also lend itself to a survival guide of sorts, the students must come up with a thesis statement to the effect of: "In order to be successful in fourth grade you must be prepared before, during and after." Students then list which strategies, routines and/or ideas of preparedness they have for each phase of fourth grade thus far in the year and will support each with specific examples. As a reflection of what they have gleaned from the text features and structures within the Rescues! book, students are required to include 4 or more text features within their brochure as a way to make it more visually appealing and engaging for their audience. Students eventually present these brochures to the incoming third graders at the end of the year as a way to bring purpose and meaning to their projects. To follow is the rubric used to assess their brochures:
