Unit Opener General Resources Page

This unit opener acts as a bridge between the end of the Imagination unit and the start of Storytelling in OCR 2000. At the end of the Imagination unit, students read a biography and report on it in some form. We had the students choose from four options, all of which involved an oral presentation and answering questions from the class about the person they read about: 1. Students could choose to become the person, dress as the person, and present their life story to the class, then answer questions about their lives; 2. create a timeline of the life and experiences of the person, orally present the person's life; 3. Create a grab bag of artifacts that would help tell the story of the person's life, present the life to the class, etc.; 4. Write a report about the person's life, present it to the class and answer questions, etc.. All of the above had criteria and points that were essential to include in the presentation.

After that activity, each student creates a timeline of their own life, including memorable events, trips, hospital stays, arrival and departure of beloved pets, births of younger siblings that the child remembers, deaths of grandparents or other family members. Class brainstorms appropriate topics to include. We supplied paper for the timeline, and specified a vertical orientation so it would fit our available display space. Timelines are due the day before the storytelling unit opener. On unit opener day, students view each other's displayed timelines. They write about them, noting interesting topics on others' timelines, ideas they might have like to include, insights about their classmates. Early in the unit, students are assigned to write the biography of a classmate. Students use the timeline as an initial source of information, then also interview their classmate for additional information. At the end of the unit, students keep their own biographies. The value of this !
activity for a unit opener, is that students have a bank of ideas to draw on for writing about memorable experiences at the start of the unit. They can use ideas they have put on their timelines, or ideas that their biographer has elicited from them.

At our school we've had several classes at the grade level cooperating with the timeline display and reflections, so students see many other students' work and ideas. This is only one activity of the unit opener that we plan for Storytelling. We also have a teacher who is disguised as a Scottish storyteller tell a story to the class, and we do the usual preview activities as well.

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