Literature Unit: Being Afraid

Literature Unit:

Being Afraid

Unit Overview

Topic: Being Afraid focuses on grade-level appropriate literature about characters in potentially frightening situations.

Goals:

Students will gain confidence in public speaking.
Students will act out stories with appropriate portrayal of the characters who they are playing.
Students will appreciate and understand the jobs of an author and an illustrator.
Students will compare and contrast different pieces of literature.
Students will be able to describe various elements of plot and story structure.
Students will formulate questions about what they are afraid of.
Students will understand the importance of reading fluently and increase their fluency speed.
Students will come to appreciate the rhythmic nature of poetry.

Concepts:

Sometimes people are afraid of things that are actually harmless.
Students will become familiar with children’s book authors Maurice Sendak, David Wiesner, and Mercer Mayer and see the similarities between books of the some author.
Students will be able to use the Internet to research answers to their questions about fears.
Students will learn to focus on the key points of longer blocks of text.
Students will use technology/tape recordings to assess their own reading fluency.
Students will create a published piece of writing through the writing process.
Students will present a research report through a HyperStudio computer project.
Students will use actions to represent what they have read through drama and dance.

Standards:

Standard 1.1: Select a focus when writing.
Standard 1.2: Identify the title and author of a reading selection.
Standard 1.8: Blend two to four phonemes into recognizable words (e.g., /c/a/t/ = cat; /f/l/a/t/ = flat).
Standard 2.1: Write brief narratives (e.g., fictional, autobiographical) describing an experience.
Standard 2.2: Respond to who, what, when, where, and how questions.
Standard 2.5: Confirm predictions about what will happen next in a text by identifying key words (i.e., signpost words).
Standard 3.1: Identify and describe the elements of plot, setting, and character(s) in a story, as well as the story’s beginning, middle, and ending.
Standard 3.2: Describe the roles of authors and illustrators and their contributions to print materials.

Timeline: Two weeks.

Block plan

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Week One	Brainstorm list of things we’re afraid of. Guided Reading: "My Brother Is Afraid of Just About Everything." Discuss. Partner-read. WRITE: Students will write about being afraid. Prewrite (Draw).	Read: poem, "Something Is There." Mini-lessons: visualization and rhythm. Partner read. Students read poem in front of class for fluency. Continue practicing during week. WRITE: Continue Pre-writing. Mini-lesson: Webbing.	Guided reading: "Goblin Story". Grand conversation. Partner reading. WRITE: Drafting. Author’s Chair Independent reading: David Wiesner’s Tuesday	Guided reading: "Strange Bumps". WRITE: Mini lesson: story structure. Continue drafting Begin researching a topic of fear e.g. dinosaurs, scorpions etc… In library & on internet.	Guided reading: Where the Wild Things Are Grand convers. Story map. WRITE: Author’s Chair. Begin revising for structure. Continue examining research materials.
Week Two	Guided reading: There’s A Nightmare in My Closet Discuss WRITE: Students continue revising. Independent reading: There’s An Alligator Under My Bed. Discuss Mercer Mayer. Begin formulating HyperStudio reports on fear.	Guided reading: "Clyde Monster" Story map. Dramatize. Continue to work on dramatizations>>>>> WRITE: Mini-lesson: capitalization. Proofread. Mini-lesson: Punctuation. Independent reading: June 29, 1999. Input reports in computer.	Begin to complete HyperStudio reports, dramatizations of Clyde Monster, and recordings of "Something Is There." WRITE: Mini-lesson: high frequency words. Proofread.	Videotape, digitize, and tape record performances & reports. Prepare book experts to report on favorite books. WRITE: Publish. Author’s Chair. Invitations to haunted house.	Haunted House: Students present their tapes, video, writing, computer reports, and favorite scary books in literary haunted house. Other classes invited.

Assessment:

Reading
Students will increase fluency speed and expression by reading poetry on tape with no more than one flow-breaking pause in their speech.
Students will discover and demonstrate interest in their favorite author’s by selecting other books of theirs in the library.
Students will be able to discuss a particular author’s style by stating one similarity between a particular author’s books.
Writing
At the end of the unit, students will have created a piece of writing that has a comprehensible beginning, middle, and end.
Students will use correct capitalization and end punctuation seventy percent of the time in their writing.
Students will prepare a computerized report, which stays on topic and uses correct capitalization and punctuation.

Modifications

ELD 1 students will be allowed to write in a mix of Spanish and English but will still be asked to use correct capitalization and punctuation.
Student receiving resource services will begin to recognize high frequency words in literature and partake in the "reading" of complex picture books such as David Wiesner’s Tuesday and Free Fall. He will be able to compare and contrast those books.

References

Adams, Marilyn Jager and Carl Bereiter. Open Court Reading Book 2. New York: Harper Collins, 1988.

Thompkins, Gail E. Literacy for the 21^st Century. 3^rd ed. New Jersey: Merril Prentice Hall, 2003.

Literature Used

Crowe, Robert. Clyde Monster." Open Court Reading Book 2. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. A tale of a beautifully ugly monster child who is afraid there is a human hiding under his bed.

Lobel, Arnold. "Strange Bumps." Open Court Reading Book 2. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. Owl is scared of strange bumps at the foot of his bed, which move whenever he does.

Mayer, Mercer. There’s An Alligator Under my Bed. New York: E P Dutton , 1987. A boy imagines an alligator lives underneath where he sleeps and comes out at night. He concocts a plan to trip him in the garage.

---. There’s A Nightmare in my Closet. New York: E P Dutton, 1992. The child of "Alligator" confronts his fear of monsters living in his closet by inviting them to sleep in his bed with him.

Moore, Lilian. "Something is There." Open Court Reading Book 2. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. A spooky poem about something coming down the stairs provides excellent practice with fluency and rhythm.

Osborn, Lois. "My Brother Is Afraid of Just About Everything." Open Court Reading Book 2. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. A realistic story about a brother whose sister tries to stop him from being afraid of all other people and places only to reveal her own irrational fear of dogs.

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. Angry with his mom, Max imagines himself cavorting about with "wild things" in the jungle but returns home after missing his mother’s love.

---. "Goblin Story". Open Court Reading Book 2. Ohio, SRA/McGraw-Hill, 2000. Goblin keeps running away from the monster chasing him, only to found out it’s only his shoes.

Wiesner, David. Tuesday. New York: Clarion Books, 1991. Strange things happen one night as frogs and pigs fly while everyone sleeps.

---. June 29, 1999. New York: Clarion Books, 1995. Fruits and vegetables fall from the sky, the result of a third grader’s science experiment–or is it?