Crazy Characters

This past week in ELA we focused on the standard RL.5.1.3 which states that students are able to compare and contrast characters in a story by focusing on specific details in the text. We also chose to focus on RL.5.3.9 which states that students are able to compare and contrast different stories within the same genre.

Once again, I planned this week’s lessons with my fellow resident Sara. Because this week was our week for our literacy coaching cycle, we also had help planning from our coach, Sherridon. When we met with her the previous week, we discussed how we didn’t love the paired text that went along with the focus text of the week: LAFFF, a science-fiction story about time travel. Because of this, she suggested that we think of another science fiction story that we could use instead. This ended up leading to a discussion about sci-fi movies that we all enjoyed. This then led us to consider pairing a movie with LAFFF, rather than using another text. We ultimately decided to use Back to the Future!

For the first three days of the week, we planned to focus on LAFFF. Because the text was lengthy, the first day’s focus would be on reading the story in its entirely and beginning to identify character traits of the two main characters, Peter and Angela. When students finished reading the story, they would participate in a chalk-talk by coming up to the Promethean board and writing a character trait for either Peter or Angela. For Day 2, we a planned to have students complete a graphic organizer where they would list character traits for both Peter and Angela, as well as text evidence to support those traits. When students finished their own graphic organizer, they would write one of their character traits and supporting evidence on a class graphic organizer, on chart paper hung-up in the room.

Day 3, Wednesday, was an important day for planning purposes because it was the day that would set up what we wanted to be able to do on Friday, the day of our coaching lesson. On Day 3, students would be completing a written response to compare and contrast Peter and Angela. Sara and I planned to model what we expected from a written response using the characters Belle and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. We also planned to model another way that students would be able to show us they knew how to compare and contrast characters, other than a written response. This would be a tableau, where motion and facial expressions, not words, are used to demonstrate a character and a trait that describes them. Those participating in a tableau are only allowed to talk and explain what they are doing when they are tapped by another person. Sara and I modeled tableau for our students, once again using Belle and the Beast. We took turns playing each character since we got to model the tableau for both of our reading classes. We felt that modeling, rather than just explaining, was incredibly important because this was something completely new to our students.

On Day 4, we planned for students to watch scenes from the movie Back to the Future. They would be using the same graphic organizer from Day 2 to take notes about different character traits of Dr. Brown and Marty. We also planned for students to again participate in creating class graphic organizers on chart paper for the two characters. For Day 5 we planned for students to now use both of the stories from the week to demonstrate to us that they were able to compare and contrast characters across different sci-fi stories (and movies). Students would have the choice to either complete a written response where they would compare and contrast Dr. Brown and Peter or Angela and Marty; or they could create a tableau using the same two sets of characters.

My favorite teaching days this week were definitely Wednesday and Friday! Sara and I had a lot of fun modeling tableau for our students, even though we had a really hard time trying to stay in character and not laugh! Modeling the written response was also important because it showed our student how we expected them to have similar and different traits for their characters, as well as evidence to support those traits. When we looked over the written responses on Wednesday, we found that our students were successful in identifying character traits and being able to compare and contrast the characters based on those traits. The part that some students still needed to work on was having evidence from the text to back up what they said.

We loved getting to watch our students attempt tableau on Friday! However, we noticed in the first class because students weren’t getting a chance to talk throughout their performance, that they were, again, not providing us with evidence for the character traits. This led us to change “tableau” to “skit” for our second class, so that students would be able to talk and explain the entire time if they wanted to. The funniest performances were certainly from those pairs of students pretending to be Peter and Dr. Brown, two slightly crazy scientists focused on successfully travelling through time!

I always love working with Sara and I feel that our strong teamwork really made this weeks’ worth of lessons successful. I look forward to sharing my video from our lesson on Friday with our coach Sherridon and getting to participate in a post-conference to further discuss student learning and where we go from here!

FEAPS: 1a: Aligns instruction with state-adopted standards at the appropriate level of rigor

1f: Develops developmentally appropriate learning experiences that require students to demonstrate a variety of applicable skills and competencies

2e: Models clear oral communication skills

2f: Models clear written communication skills

2j: Integrates appropriate and available communication technologies

3a: Delivers challenging and engaging lessons

3d: Modifies instruction to respond to student needs

3j: Utilizes student feedback to monitor and support instructional needs and to adjust instruction

4d: Designs and aligns formative assessments that match learning objectives

4e: Designs and aligns summative assessments to determine mastery of learning objectives

5c: Reviews data with colleagues to evaluate learning outcomes and plan effective lessons

5d: Collaborates with stakeholders to support student learning