I like this story because it's a classic in elementary literature. A lot of my kids have read or heard the story, and the prose and repetitive text are fun! It gives kids a chance to use their imaging/visualizing strategy easily because the changes over the course of the text are obvious and clear.
** "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, 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
Lesson discussion
Imaging helps me laugh or cry with a story.
Modeling
As you discuss the characters and what happens to them in the story, this isa a great opportunity to describe chow the character respond to major events and challenges (RL.2.3) My students really understood, more from the illustrations than from the text, what happened as each character fell asleep and then woke up. They wanted to share how a flea could wake up a mouse, who woke up the cat..... It was a prime example of how characters change and respond to each other.
Guided practice (read the text but hide the picture until the kids finish drawing)
Model, model, model and guide students to go back and verify their images with the text and illustrations. It's critical that they have support for their images and comprehension, based on the author's words and pictures. There are inferences to be made and background knowledge can add more information, but ultimately the Common Core Standards ask students to support their answers with information in the text.
Read and prompt as necessary
Asking students to go back to the text to verify their images aligns this lesson with the Common Core standards. There is an emphasis for kids to use the information that they gain from illustrations and words to demonstrate understanding of the plot. (RL.2.7) The goal of this lesson is that students actively read by visualizing/imaging as they read and then verifying those images once they see the illustrations and examine the text further. This lesson is asking kids to evaluate and integrate ideas in the text through visualizing (not just identify what the text is saying).
Explain the task
Give time for the project
Scaffolding and Special Education: This lesson could be scaffolded up or down, depending on student ability.
Students with academic challenges may do alright with the drawing, since there's no writing involved. Encourage them to participate in the discussion and use clear enriching vocabulary for them to be exposed to.
Students with higher language should be able to describe their images more completely. These are the students who could come up and explain why they created the images and how the text supported the ideas.