5th Grade, VPS Reading Unit 5 Historical Fiction In this 30 day unit students will have the opportunity to read historical fiction side by side with non-­‐fiction, poetry, and other complementary texts. The characters in students’ books will be entangled in real historical events making the stories inherently complicated. Attached is a suggested progression of teaching points that are aligned vertically across grade levels and with the common core standards. The expectation is that teachers will adapt the teaching points and pace according to the needs of their students. The bends (areas of focus) for the unit are as follows: Bend One: Deep Comprehension and Synthesis of Complex Story Elements In this bend, the teacher will introduce students to the historical fiction genre. They will use mentor texts to demonstrate close reading strategies and citing textual evidence. In this genre, the literary element of setting is particularly important. Right from page one, students will need to pay attention to clues about the time period, physical setting, and mood or tone of the story. The setting may have literal and symbolic meaning. As students dig into the setting, they may have gaps in their knowledge about a specific time period. The teacher will show them how to consult with nonfiction books and read other literature from that time period to deepen their understanding of their book’s setting. Students will learn how to create time lines of historical events and story plots, so that they can lay them side by side to do interpretative work. Towards the end of the bend, teachers will focus on identifying the point of view, and analyzing how the character’s may be different than the reader’s. At the same time, students will be working in Book Clubs. The power of this structure is that no single reader will notice as much, or synthesize as many details, as a small group of readers. Therefore, teachers will coach their students to listen carefully to each other, build on each other’s comments, and honor relationships so that every club members feels valued. Bend Two: Interpreting Complex Texts In this bend, the focus will shift to developing big ideas or identifying themes of stories. The teacher will model how readers generate and revise big ideas. First, readers choose passages to linger on – usually surprising or dramatic sections. Then readers write and discuss their ideas to deepen their understanding. Finally readers constantly revise their thinking and look for multiple big ideas as they continue reading. Figurative language, including allusions and symbolism, is studied as they often convey ideas that are not easily expressed in ordinary language. Bend Three: Becoming More Complicated Because We Read Finally, readers combine what they have learned so far to step back from the historical worlds in their books and think how the meaning of their stories bring understanding to their own lives. Teachers will show students that this is done by analyzing multiple points of view – multiple characters’, authors’, their own. Readers also analyze historical fiction by looking at the story through the lens of power – who has it, what form does it take, and does it shift in the story. Information gained from nonfiction texts will support this work and allow readers to talk across texts. Students will become more empathetic and observant. Mentor Texts: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco A Cello of Mr. O by Jane Cutler Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocente Anne Frank – Biography for Kids – Just the Facts! by IP Factly Who Was Anne Frank? by Ann Abramson Standards: RL.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are uses in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes. RL.5 Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem. RL.6 Explain how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described. RL.7 Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem). RL.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics. Organization: As with all the reading units, students are expected to keep up a high volume of reading at their just right levels. Choice is an important factor in keeping engagement high, so teachers will want to make many historical fiction novels and picture books available. “Time Travel” books, such as Magic Tree House and The American Girl series, are good choices for lower level readers. Teachers may decide to set up inter-­‐textual baskets for each book club, designed around the time period of the book club’s historical fiction novel. The basket can include non-­‐fiction texts, articles, photographs, primary source material, and poetry. Students will be put into book clubs based on reading level and may need some reminders or lessons on how these clubs function. Writing: Units of Study: Shaping Texts From Essay and Narrative to Memoir, Book 3 by Calkins & Marron Bend One: Deep Comprehension and Synthesis of Complex Story Elements 1. Readers identify time and place, noticing clues and specific words/phrases about what kind of place is being described. (RL.3) 2. Readers study sections of the text closely to notice the words the author choses to describe a character or place, paying attention to the feeling, mood or tone being described. (RL.1, 4, & 5) Mentor Text: Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocente, mood is oppressive, scary, available at… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQVgniMcuoE 3. Readers notice that settings become dynamic and essential to the story (levels R & higher). The setting may become part of the problem that a character has to overcome or may be symbolic (ex. the dust of the prairie may mean more than simply that the land is dry). (RL.2 & 3) 4. Readers explore the setting as an emotional space as the story progresses (Is this the kind of town where people are good to each other or where groups mistrust each other? It is a place on the brink of change? What is the mood?) (RL.5) 5. Readers learn and infer about the world in which the story is set by paying attention to descriptive, transitional passages that tell about daily life. Also, readers realize that nothing happens in a story accidently. They ask themselves, “What am I supposed to be thinking?” (example: Why is there a thunderstorm now?) (RL.3) 6. Readers of historical fiction are often presented with a large amount of crucial information from the very first page, and therefore readers need to accumulate and synthesis details. Readers keep an imaginary felt board to keep track of important characters, their world and way of life, and the challenges and conflicts they face. (mentor film clip: Mulan, 1st 3 minutes) (RL.5) 7. Readers of historical fiction notice gaps in their knowledge related to the historical time period and consult nonfiction texts to clarify their understanding. (RI.3 & 7) 8. Readers develop tools (such as time lines, graphic organizers, and lists of characters), particularly where time moves fast there are flashbacks, or when there are pivotal moments for the main character. (RL.5) Mid Workshop TP: Sometimes there are several plot lines or timelines in one story. Readers keep track of simultaneously unfolding events. 9. Readers use their graphic tools to analyze the relationship between the main character, secondary characters, and historical events. Readers realize that characters exist in a relationship with history. (RL.2) 10. Readers identify the point of view of the main character and realize it might be radically different than their own. The reader has to separate his or her own perspective and frame of reference from that of the character. Readers do this by suspending their own judgments and then analyze how and why the main character behaves the way he or she does. (RL.6) Mentor Text: Number the Stars, ex. Annemarie and Ellen are speechless and brave in first scene. We don’t understand why until we realize that Ellen is Jewish and she is being stopped by a Nazi police officer. Bent Two: Interpreting Complex Texts 11. Readers respond to text through their personal lens. Each reader’s history informs their personal response to reading, so there is no right or wrong. Sometimes you read as a big sister or a victim of bullying or as an expert on a historical time period. Each reader may have a different focus on the same text. (RL.1 & 3) Mentor Text Number the Stars: ex., you may think Annemarie struggles to be a good friend and I may think that Annemarie is a better friend than she is a sister because I too struggle to be a decent sibling. 12. Readers pause as they read, lingering in certain passages – usually the extra dramatic or surprising ones. It is almost as if those parts of the story are written in bold. (use “push your thinking prompts) (RL.1, 2, 3 & 4) 13. Readers develop big ideas by stringing together details they accumulate as they read. They do this by jotting, writing, and discussing important parts of the story. Book Clubs compare their thinking, connect ideas to other parts, and have long discussions. They often come away with big ideas to carry with them as they keep reading. (RL.2, 3 & 5) Mentor Text Number the Stars: ex., Annemarie finds a Star of David imprinted in her palm after clutching Ellen’s necklace to hide it from the German soldiers 14. Readers continue to build on big ideas, looking for evidence to support or refute those ideas. They do this by wearing special lenses that help them maintain a focus on some of those ideas as they read. They even jot themselves notes. (RL.2 & 9) 15. Readers interpret historical fiction to look for more than one idea or theme. They are open to a journey of thought, not a single thought. Also, readers draft and revise their thinking about the ideas contained in books. (RL.5) Mid Wksp TP: It’s okay to change your mind as you read on and listen to the comments of your fellow book club members. 16. Readers compare themes across texts. They place two ideas next to each other in order to form a new, more nuanced, one. (RL.9) 17. Readers use allusions, figurative language, and symbolism to convey ideas that are not easily contained in ordinary language. (RL.4) 18. Readers compare themes with their own lives. Readers author their own responses by realizing that what they notice in a text is intricately related to their own personal and ethical concerns. (RL.6) Bend Three: Becoming More Complex Because We Read 19. Readers discern their own point of view and that of different characters in a story. They become more empathetic, imaginative, observant, and discerning. (RL.4) Mentor Text Number the Stars: ex., How might the young German soldier who is searching for hidden Jewish children in Annemarie’s apartment feel? How might young, Jewish Ellen feel at that moment, as compared to Annemarie? There is abundant information in the text about Annemarie’s inner thinking and emotions, but the reader can only imagine Ellen’s feelings from her silence – and only a critical reader would pause to consider the soldier’s point of view. 20. Readers re-­‐analyze their stories, or parts of them, through the lens of power. Readers ask themselves who has power, how is power visible, what forms can power take, and how does power shift. (RL.2) Mentor Text Number the Stars: ex., power is not always about weapons or physical strength, in the end it isn’t physical prowess that defeats the Germans’ attempt in the book to round up the Jews in Denmark, it is the power of community, integrity, and collective courage 21. Readers read some nonfiction alongside their fiction (books, articles, or even just a list of statistics) to deepen comprehension by referencing the time period. (RI.3 & 9) Mentor Text Number the Stars: ex., number of children who died in the Holocaust gives the reader an even greater sense of what was at stake when the Johansens took it upon themselves to hide Ellen 22. Readers study pictures/images from the time periods in their books, so that they can use these as references while they envision. (RI.3 & 9) Mentor Text ex., pictures of Anne Frank or Miep Gies 23. Readers talk about ideas across texts – both fiction and nonfiction, realizing that an idea a reader has in one text can be true in another text. (RL.9) Mentor Texts Number the Stars & The Butterfly show that war teaches children to grown up fast. *Teachers don’t need to build text sets around themes. You want your readers to begin to imagine that each text they read can be read in comparison to other texts, almost as if they are making virtual text sets. 24. Readers can compare the story or the character to another story or character that is familiar to their audience. Making an allusion is helpful when you struggle to find words that contain thoughts so big. (RL.3 & 9) Example: If a reader says that the main character in a story they are reading is as clever and self-­‐
sacrificing as Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web, we know what that means. 25. Readers step back from the historical worlds they’ve stepped into to think more largely about the meaning these tales bear for their own lives. (RL.1 & 10) Example: What can we learn from Annemarie’s decision, in a moment of high stakes, to rip off her best friend’s Star of David necklace, which identifies Ellen’s Jewishness and now potentially marks Annemarie, too? There are lessons in these defining choices that characters make. 26. Readers celebrate the end of the unit by re-­‐enacting a powerful scene from their book club novel. Students can work within their clubs to dress, talk, and act like the characters and showing the physical and emotional setting of the story. (RL.10) Book Club Title Suggestions
Level
Title
Level
Title
M
The Drinking Gourd (F. N. Monjo)
Q
Friends (Gloria Whalen)
M
P
Magic Tree House: Civil War On Sunday
The Night Crossing (Karen Ackerman)
R
S
Snow Treasure (Marie McSwigan)
Mississippi Bridge (Mildred D. Taylor)
P
P
Abbey Takes a Stand (Patricia McKissack)
Freedom’s Wings (My America Series)
S
S
The Gold Cadillac (Mildred D. Taylor)
The Friendship (Mildred D. Taylor)
P
Q
My Brother’s Keeper (My America Series)
Meet Addy (American Girl Series)
Freedom Crossing (Margaret Goff Clark)
S
T
Song of the Trees (Mildred D. Taylor)
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr)
Escape from Warsaw (Ian Serraillier)
Q
T