This is the second version of 3 books about Little Red Riding Hood that we will be comparing. For this lesson, I am letting the students take some of the lead toward imaging because I modeled it yesterday. I will encourage them to use richer vocabulary and become more independent as we move through this version of the story. I set up the events in a beginning/middle/end organizer so we can compare all the versions later. The other lessons in this unit are Add Some Sense to the Images (Lesson 1 of 4), Images Have A Voice (Lesson 3 of 4) and Wanted.. One Big Bad... (Lesson 4 of 4).
I chose this book because it was cute and funny. It gives a different motivation for the wolf and reasons why he acted as he did. The character descriptions (they all have apple names and look like apples) gave us LOTS of discussion topics. As you discuss images, you'll ultimately discuss why the wolf, girl and other characters acted as they did. We spent time comparing versions of the stories and they kids really picked up on the ideas of why the girl acted differently in this story. Describing how the character in a story respond to challenges and events (RL.2.3) gives the kids an opportunity to delve deeper into the text and explore the author's purpose in characterization.
'Imaging' is the term that my district uses for 'visualizing'. In order to stay true to the district expectations, I'll continue to use this verbage. Visualizing is a critical skill for 2nd graders because they need to 'go deeper' in the text. By visualizing as they read, they are creating and tweaking images in their minds as they actively read. This kind of 'close reading', forming images using text, verifying and changing those images, and ultimately comparing their images to the author's descriptions creates critical readers and deepens comprehension.
Underlined words below are lesson vocabulary words that are emphasized and written on sentence strips for my Reading & Writing word wall. I pull off the words off the wall for each lesson, helping students understand this key 'reading and writing' vocabulary can be generalized across texts and topics. The focus on acquiring and using these words is part of a shift in the Common Core Standards towards building students’ academic vocabulary. My words are color coded ‘pink’ for literature/’blue’ for reading strategies/’orange’ for informational text/'yellow' for writing/’green’ for all other words)
Common starting point
Although the focus of the lesson is visualizing, we want to emphasize the importance of finding information in the text. As teachers, we should let the students know that the author’s words are ultimately paramount. The Common Core State Standards ask that we base our inferences on the text because bringing in outside information can confuse the points/message in the text. As I teach these imaging lessons, we garner all the information from the text and build upon that with images.
Give the purpose of the lesson
Introduce strategy - teacher models
Guided practice - work with the students
Assign Task
Read and assign groups
When you preview the book and think about your class's ability, I will leave it up to you which pages to stop on and how often to have the kids use imaging. My kids needed more prompting so I stopped after every few pages, but did still remind them of details that I had read, gave them ideas of what to draw and helped, in general. I expect they will improve as we continue to practice this skill. Second graders typically don't have a lot of confidence about their reading and ability to form images, especially comparing them to the author. As we continue to compare author's versions of these fairy tales from other countries or perspectives (RL.2.9), they will see that there are different interpretations and no 'right answer', which should improve their confidence. I think that's why the Common Core Standards include this focus area. As students critically compare works on similar topics, they realize that perspectives vary and they should be open to different interpretations of stories.
Share what you know
As students work in groups and then participate in class discussions about this text and project, they are part of a collaborative discussion about grade level topics. (SL.2.1) The Common Core standards represent a shift from individual demonstration of a skill to group collaboration to create a finished project and present it as a whole.
Scaffolding and Special Education: This lesson could be easily scaffolded up or down, depending on student ability.
This lesson could be taught to those with language challenges with proper support. Putting some feeling and descriptive words on the board would allow them to have some ideas for the images. Grouping them with others of different abilities would allow them to use their creative ideas without the pressure of writing or spelling words. Even those students with language challenges should be able to describe the pictures if you help lead him to the answers..
Students with greater ability should be challenged to use higher level vocabulary to describe the images. Instead of 'smart', perhaps they could use 'sly' or 'sneaky' to describe the wolf. Here are my comments on some more difficult vocabulary that my students used.