Different Approaches to Literary Skills

Today we turned our attention in our Open Court reading to the idea of plot. This is not an easy concept for the third grade mind. Third graders understand the idea of story, that is, they understand that there is a sequence of events in a fiction selection. But they do not natutrally understand why these events take place in the order in which they happen. So we spend much of this year helping them to view stories in terms of problem and solution, or, to use somewhat more traditional terms, conflict and resolution.

We studied the plot today of Angel Child, Dragon Child. We did it in three separate stages. First, I simply discussed with them what them the difference between story and plot, and we talked about problem and solution. We then worked together on a workbook page in which they had to identify all the major literary elements in the story: setting, characters, conflict, events, climax, and resolution. But we didn't leave it at just doing a worksheet.

We next created storyboards, like the one you see above this post, in which the students had to identify the major events at the beginning of the story (showing the start of the problem), the middle of the story (showing the climax of of the conflict), and the end of the story (showing the resolution of the conflict). We identified Raymond's taunting of Ut for wearing "pajamas" as the start of the conflict, the fight between Ut and Raymond as the climax of the story, and the Vietnamese Fair which paid for mother's passage to America as the resolution. Students made pictures for each one.

After recess, we took this to another level. We pushed our desks aside, and I showed students what a tableau is in drama. We practiced a few simple tableaux such as being a mountain or a boat on a river. The students then worked in small groups to turn the three scenes that they had illustrated in their storyboards into three tableaux and they practiced transitioning from one to another. They then shared their performances with the rest of the class. A picture of one of these scenes is posted above.

Homework: Tonight students should continue studying the spelling words. They should complete the rough draft of the paragraph on a topic of choice if this was NOT done LAST NIGHT. They should complete the Challenge or Reteach worksheet on "Plot" that I gave each of them. They should rhythmically notate "Pease Porridge" which each of them copied before they left the room today. Finally, in Math, Number Sense 1.2 needs to be finished by tonight. Most of the students have already started on the troublesome concept of rounding covered in Number Sense 1.4.