Hi Judy -- If the students have some background about the social and political environment of the time period because they are studying it with their social studies teacher, what about a historical fiction unit? Perhaps you can have book clubs reading different titles, and their task is to examine how the social and political environment of the times impacted the individual characters: how the time they lived in prompted the conflict they encounter in the story, and how the time period perhaps limited their choices for solutions to that conflict. Then maybe they can collectively create a matrix on butcher paper that each group fills in, with the usual "title, author, character, setting, conflict, solution", but where they can also record their thinking about what if the character lived today, and how the story would be different, or if the character were different how it might have affected the story. They also fill in connections they make (to self, to other texts, to world, to their social studies content), and record "big questions" they encounter through their reading and conversations.
I did something similar, and I will see if I can find any of the materials I created (don't hold your breath....). During my unit I read aloud Phoebe the Spy and Samuel's Choice; I chose those because I taught in a New York City school and both books take place in New York at the time of the Revolution. The main characters are both young African-Americans who have to make risky choices to join in the fight in small but meaningful ways, but Phoebe is free and Samuel is a slave, though they lived at the same time and across the river from one another. We started the matrix with this shared experience through the read aloud, and then groups of students read a book together in book clubs that was at their level but still was historical fiction from the time period. Just a thought... Randy Lichtenwalner Elementary ELA Developer Public Schools of the Tarrytowns _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
