Grade 3 Reading Unit: Following Characters Into Meaning
Nov. 17- Dec 18 Total Teaching Days 21
(November- 8 days, December 13 days)
Stage 1: Desired Results
Enduring Understandings
● Readers grow and develop understanding and empathy for fictional characters.
● Readers support character ideas with story text
● Readers notice story structure and understand that the structure affects how they read
the text.
Essential Questions
● How can I use the story text to know the characters and develop empathy for them?
● How can I support my character ideas with the story text?
● What must I do as a reader to notice and track character change from the beginning to end
of a story?
Students will know and be able to:
● Infer character’s thoughts and feelings
● Use personal experiences to empathize with character
● Predict story events based on knowledge of character and personal experience
● Envision to picture the text and identify with the character and their feelings
● Grow theories about characters
● Work in partnerships
● Build independent reading stamina and fluency
● Choose words to more precisely describe a character or event
Standards
RL.3.1 Ask and answer questions for understanding of text
RL.3.2 Recount stories, determine message, explain with key details
RL.3.3 Describe characters’ traits, motivations, and feelings and explain how they contribute to
the story
RL.3.5 Refer to parts of stories, describing how each builds on earlier sections
RL.3.7 Explain contribution of illustrations to mood, character, setting
RL.3.9 Compare characters, themes, settings from stories written by same author
RF.3.4 Read with accuracy and fluency to support comprehension
Misunderstandings
● Understanding how a text-to-self connection enables a reader to know and empathize
with the character.
● Predictions should be based in text, previous knowledge of how stories go, or connections.
What do I do when my prediction wasn't correct?
● Visualization - e.g. size, shape, movement, number, color…
Stage 2: Assessment
Pre-test: Envisioning, Inferring, Predicting based on a picture book read aloud in class using stop
and jot as the story progresses.
Two options: Students write and draw their thinking, or record their thinking on the Macbook as
the book is being read
Final Assessment: Envisioning, Inferring, Predicting based on a picture book read aloud in class
using stop and jot as the story progresses. The book will have the same character as in the
pre-assessment but in a different situation
Two options: Students write and draw their thinking, or record their thinking on the Macbook
as the book is being read
Stage 3: Learning Plan
Because the first part of the unit helps readers approach character study with empathy (walking in the shoes of
a character, seeing through a character’s eyes, predicting a character’s next steps), while the second and third
parts channel readers to approach texts as researchers might (pulling back to develop a bird’s-eye view of a
text, gleaning facts and insights about characters, and synthesizing this information into evidence-based
theories that can apply across books), the arc of the unit is important. Your goal, by the end of the unit, will be
for readers to move fluidly between nose-in-the-book, totally engaged, aesthetic reading and the more
“professorial,” analytic reading.
Bend 1: Walking in a Character’s Shoes: Envisionment & Prediction
6 lessons over 9 days (November 17-November 26)
Lesson 1 (Day 1)- Pre-Assessment
● Envisioning, Inferring, Predicting based on a picture book read aloud in class using stop
and jot as the story progresses.
● Two options: Students write and draw their thinking, or record their thinking on the
Macbook as the book is being read
● books: Me First or Hurty Feelings
Lesson 2 (Day 2)- Readers make sure they are not reading on ‘emotional autopilot’—we
need to make sure we’re not just seeing words but also the world of the story through the
eyes of the character.
● We can ‘become’ the character in a book and we do this by making a mental movieEnvisioning. Use your imagination! Think…
○ What do I see?
○ Who is there? What are they doing?
○ What do I hear and smell?
Resources: The One And Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, The Paperboy, Edward Tulane By:
Kate DiCamillo
Lesson 3 (Day 3-5) - Readers get inside a story by walking in their character’s shoes. To
help us do this we can (ongoing anchor chart) (choose these based on what you think your
kids need from this):
● Envision by sketching or jotting a note about an important scene.
● Look at illustrations and think about how they contribute to a better understanding of the
character, mood, and setting
● Empathize by using our own experiences to infer what the character is thinking, feeling,
and experiencing (making connections)
● Become the character—act out a scene as if you were there!
a. How to Act out an Important Scene:
i.
Choose an important scene with lots of dialogue
ii.
Give partner a “previously in …” update to what’s going on in the story
iii.
Open the book to the scene and place it between you, deciding who will take
which part.
Resources: The Relatives, Empathy Organizer in Shared Folder, Edward Tulane By: Kate DiCamillo
Lesson 4 (Day 6)-Readers revise their mental movies when they learn new details from the
text that change their thinking.
Resources: Tuesday (David Weisner), Flotsam (David Weisner)
Lesson 5 (Day 7-8)-Readers predict (anticipate) as if we are the character (both can be
done in one day, and repeat, but decide based on student needs).
● We see something bad or good coming and say “Oh, no!” or “Oh yes!”
● We can predict by…
● Making a movie in our mind and tell what’s coming bit by bit
● Bringing in details that you know from earlier in the story about the character
● Imagining what the character will do next and how he will do it
● Thinking about our personal knowledge of similar experiences to anticipate what
might happen next
Resources:
Lesson 6 (Day 9)- Readers share their thinking with their partner.
● Ideas for Partner Talk
● What kind of person is the character?
● Do you like her/him? Why?
● Why do you think the character did that?
● Why is the character feeling that way?
● Do you think he/she did the right thing? Why?
● What do you think will happen next?
Resources:
Bend 2: Building Theories About Characters
6 lessons over 8 days (December 1-10)
Lesson 7 (Day 10)- Readers pull in to read a book but we also pull back from reading to
think.
● We read like we are a character.
● We also read like we are a professor, growing intellectual ideas about characters’ traits,
motivations, and feelings.
Resources:
Lesson 8 (Days 11-13)- Possible Teaching Points
Readers grow their ideas about a character by (ongoing Anchor chart):
● Noticing the actions a person has made, and thinking,
○ “What did they do and how did they do it?”
○ “What does that tell me about their personality?”
○ “How is this a window into understanding this person?”
● Realizing that actions are choices people make and thinking,
○ “How else could that person have acted?”
○ “What do their choices tell me about their personality?”
● Pushing harder to find something significant if the character’s actions don’t seem to reveal
anything. Try saying,
○ “Maybe this suggests….”
○ “Perhaps it could be…”
● Noticing patterns of action and thinking,
○ “Why does the author have the character continually do this?”
○ “What might this mean?”
● Noticing when a character acts out of character and thinking,
○ “What motivated them to act this way?”
○ “What does this tell me about the character that I didn’t already know?”
○ “Is the character changing?”
○ “Should I change my thinking about the character?”
Resources:
Lesson 9 (Day 14)-Readers use precise words to describe their character’s actions and
feelings.
There is a difference between an adjective/ character trait and a (verb)feeling word.
Resources:
Lesson 10 (Day 15)- Readers look beyond the character and their actions for clues to think
more deeply about the character.
○ Notice the objects that a character holds close and think,
● Why is the object important to the character?
● What does the character’s relationship with this object tell me?
● Pay attention to the way other characters view the main character
○ How do they treat him/her?
○ How do they speak to her/him?
○ What voice and body language do they use when speaking?
Resources:
Lesson 11 (Day 16)- Readers, like professors, come up with an idea and record their
thinking.
○ Prompts to Grow My Ideas
■ “This could be important because…”
■ “This makes me realize that…”
■ “The bigger idea here is that…”
Resources:
Lesson 12 (Day 17)- Readers have conversations so they can share but also so they can
revise their thinking with new ideas from their partner. ○ Prompts for Partner Talk
■ Or it could be…
■ But what about…
■ This is really important because…
■ A stronger word to describe that is…
■ It’s just like…
■ Remember earlier in the story when…
■ I thought that too because…
■ Wait. I’m confused. Are you saying…
○ Ways to Get Our Partner to Say More
■ Gesture to get your partner to say more
■ Nod or comment to show you’re listening
■ Ask questions
■ Repeat what your partner said
Resources:
Bend 3- Growing & Learning Lessons Alongside Characters
3 Lessons over 5 days (December 11-17, no lessons on Dec 18)
Lesson 13 (Day 18-19) Readers can learn important life lessons from characters they care
about. We can do this by:
● Paying attention when the character will be forced to make a decision or take action and
think…
○ What does the character stand to lose or gain?
○ What would I be thinking in this situation?
● Paying attention when the character begins to resolve their problem and discover…
○ They have what it takes to solve the problem even if they don’t realize it right in the
moment.
○ We also have what it takes within us to solve many of our own problems. ● Reflecting on what the character knows now that they didn’t know at the start of the story
and think…
○ What lesson has the character learned?
○ How might this book change the way I behave in my own life?
Resources:
Day 14 (Day 20)-Readers pay attention to how secondary characters influence the main
character and think...
• Who do I let influence my life?
Resources:
Day 21-Post- Assessment
● Envisioning, Inferring, Predicting based on a picture book read aloud in class using stop
and jot as the story progresses. The book will have the same character as in the
pre-assessment but in a different situation
● Two options: Students write and draw their thinking, or record their thinking on the
Macbook as the book is being read
Tips:
● Keep in mind, the number of books you’d expect children to read in a week is different
according to the levels of the books in their hands. For example, readers in level K should
be reading eight to ten books per week, while readers in levels L/M, four to six per week,
and in N/O/P/Q, two to four per week. Either way, they’ll be reading a lot—and this
matters more than anything else in this curricular calendar.
● You’ll also want to check students’ book logs at the start of the unit, and throughout the
unit, to be sure that kids’ volume is sky high. Watch out that stopping and jotting, sorting
Post-its, filling out book logs, and other tools aren’t eating away at actual reading
time—teach kids to be efficient and selective when it comes to using these tools, so that
they can read as much as possible every day.
Resources: ­ Mentor Texts, Professional Resources, etc. ● ∙ Lincoln’s Way, Patricia Polacco
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Clancy the Courageous Cow, Lachie Hume
Horace and Morris but mostly Dolores, James Howe
Love and Roast Chicken: A Trickster Tale from the Andes Mountains, Barbara Knutson
Dancing in the Wings, Debbie Allen
Three Cheers for Catherine the Great, Cari Best
Thundercake, Patricia Polacco
The Summer My Father Was Ten, Pat Brisson
A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams
A Day’s Work, by Eve Bunting
Chester’s Way, Kevin Henkes
Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse, Kevin Henkes
A Case of Bad Stripes, David Shannon
Super-Completely and totally the messiest, Judith Viorst
Say Something, Peggy Moss
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The Keeping Quilt, Patricia Polacco
● Marty McGuire Digs Worms- Kate Messner- Cross curricular link with science unit
Professional Resources ●
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A Curricular Plan for Reading Workshop Grade Three (located in the drive under TC Units of Study) Following Characters into Meaning Volume I and II Units of Study Grades 3­5 Reflection: This is the reflection from 2013 Reflection of reading ‘Character Unit’ (Unit 2). 1. What worked well? ­ strategies: visualizing, walking in the characters shoes, detailed predictions, developing inferential thinking skills, ­ aligment with personal narratives supported visualization 2. Barriers/challenges? ­ difficult for students to visualize with details ­ communicating with clarity 3. Proposed changes? ­Bat Boy? Does this book have too advanced emotional concepts that take away from student ability to infer, predict, visualize, etc. ­ Pre and Post Assessment need to align (Independently reading book vs. book read aloud) ­ What are our proficiency expectations for students at this time in the year? independently reading and comprehension OR teacher read aloud with teacher prompted comprehension throughout read aloud?