Behind the Wardrobe: A Progressive Story

Grade level: Grade 4/5.

Subject: English Language Arts

Keywords: Holocaust, Nazis, Jews

Description
Progressive Story: Students sit around a circle and build a group story as each student adds successive
sentences to a starter sentence.

Curriculum Framework
Topic: Stepping Back In Time: World War II Poland
Strand: Listening and Speaking
Objectives: During the lesson, students will be able to:
 demonstrate appropriate listening behaviours
 connect and use prior knowledge to help make a coherent story
 determine and note main ideas and important details confirm and change story add on based on
information presented
 use oral cues (e.g., pauses, emphasis, loudness) to construct and confirm meaning
 recall details
 express ideas concisely and clearly
 experiment with words and sentence patterns to create interest and variety
 select and use appropriate volume, gesture, and intonation
 use language appropriate to audience, purpose, and situation

Preparation
Preparation time: none
Length of lesson: 10 minutes
Resources required: Bits and Pieces a memoir by Henia Reinhartz, loose-leaf paper and pens

Pre-Lesson Strategies:
1. Show students a map of Europe.
2. As a group make a web about what you know about World War II.

Procedure
1. Students find a partner.
2. Teacher gives a starter sentence:
My family and I were in hiding. The entrance to our hiding place was a wooden
wardrobe positioned against a plywood partition...From dawn until dusk we sat in this
little room. We didn’t talk...We were mute, not a sound could be heard, a dead room.
 We were sure they would discover us...Suddenly I heard someone panting on the
stairs...We didn’t breathe. Who was coming now?[ CITATION Hen07 \l 4105 ]
3. One student in the pair creates the next sentence while the second student records the
sentence on their worksheet.
4. Then the student that was writing passes the worksheet to the student that added the sentence.
5. The second student then adds a sentence while the first student records it.
6. The worksheet then gets passes back to the second student and the process continues.
7. When the story is done, the students write “The End” at the bottom of the page.
8. Each pair reads their story to the whole group.

Reflections

1. Was it more difficult to do the progressive story telling it as a whole group or was it easier, and
why?
2. Do you prefer the method of story telling you just completed or do you prefer the whole group
storytelling, and why?

Student Evaluation

Listening Self Assessment

 Progressive Storytelling Worksheet
My family and I were in hiding. The entrance to our hiding place was a wooden
wardrobe positioned against a plywood partition...From dawn until dusk we sat in this
little room. We didn’t talk...We were mute, not a sound could be heard, a dead room.
We were sure they would discover us...Suddenly I heard someone panting on the
stairs...We didn’t breathe. Who was coming now?[ CITATION Hen07 \l 4105 ]

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Works Cited
Reinhartz, H. (2007). Bits and Pieces: a memoir. Toronto: Azreieli Foundation.