Ken Krupa November 9, 2010

Lesson Set #2
Interactive Read Aloud: The Chinese Book of Animal Powers

Grade: 5th

Time: 25 - 30 Minutes

Standard: 3.4 Listening comprehension

Objective: By the end of this interactive read-aloud, students will be able to identify

hidden meaning in the text while using context clues and their own experiences.

Materials: The Chinese Book of Animal Powers by Chungliang An Huang, chart of the

Chinese zodiac (so the students have an idea what animal category they fall under).

Lesson Procedures:

Lesson Introduction: Make a connection to students’ prior knowledge.

Say something like: “We are going to read another book about the Chinese Zodiac

animals today for our read aloud and I want you to pay special attention to what they

author is saying about each animal because these descriptions can sometimes tell us a lot

about the people in our lives. Has anyone heard of the Chinese Zodiac before? What we

are going to do during this read aloud is pay close attention to the animal descriptions.

Teach and Model (during reading): Stop to refocus when appropriate. Re-engage the

students and ask about predictions and/or inferences. When you reach the year you were

born in, stop to re engage the students: “I was born in the year of this animal and let me

tell you I think this description fits my personality as well!” Ask questions based on

relevance; “Do you know anybody born in the year of the . . .?”.”(Using the chart) Now

how many people here were born in the year of the . . .?” “Do you agree with what the

author has said about your animal, if you know which one you are? Why or why not?”

Use the turn and talk strategy, then ask two to four students to make contributions to the
discussion involving the whole group.

After Reading:

Turn and Talk: “What did you think was interesting about the Chinese zodiac?“

After the story has been concluded, turn and talk questions might be “What do you think

the main idea of this book was?” ”What was the author trying to communicate to us?”

These questions will also engage the students in inferential thought processes and allow

them to access their background knowledge about animals they already know about as

well as the information they will be gaining from the read aloud itself.

Whole Group: Listen to three or four students answers as a whole class before

concluding with your own impression of this book (what you as the teacher felt as you

heard about the Chinese beliefs about the zodiac and related elements).

Assessment: You will know this read aloud lesson was successful if, after listening to

the various descriptions of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, students will be able to

answer questions about inferences and figurative language as it was used by the author to

describe events without directly stating them, Students will also be successful in this

lesson if they can understand the genre elements of this book (the fact that this story can

be classified as a narrative or an autobiography of sorts).

Closure: Students will return to their desks and prepare for the next part of the day’s

schedule.

Ken Krupa November 9, 2010

 Reading Mini Lesson

Grade: 5th

Time: 30 Minutes

Standard: 3.1 E: Reading Strategies, 3.1 G: Comprehension Skills and Response to

Text.

Objective: Students will be able to identify hidden meaning in the text while using

context clues and their own experiences.

Materials: pieces of text from The Chinese Book of Animal Powers on a transparency,

Lesson Procedure:

Lesson Introduction: “ I expect that you have all become more acquainted with the

Chinese Zodiac since we have read this book aloud in class. What we are going to do

today is take another look at The Chinese Book of Animal Powers on the projector and

see the relationship of personality traits that humans and animals may possess. This

exercise will help you to identify hidden meaning in a passage by using context clues”.

Teach and Model: Use text from the first transparency - Read a description of one of

the animals and ask students to take note of the personality traits hat are being described.

After reading the passage, make some notes on the white board about the personality

traits of that animal. Say something like “do you think this passage is supposed to be

taken literally? “ “ I think this passage was talking about how sometimes animals can

show us their personality traits as though they were humans.”

Transparency 1

This hardworking, dependable, mighty creature has a great capacity to absorb an

abundance of knowledge. Folk legend often depicts the cow as a strong, unruly self, who
 needs to be tamed and put it it’s rightful place. The cow is strong and responsible, and

can work hard if it wants to. It may seem slow moving but it is steady.

Now Readers, can anyone remind the class what a context clue is? Context clues

are part of how we make inferences while reading a book. Lets make it simple: Context

Clues + Background Knowledge = Inferences. Can anyone think of a reason why we

need context clues sometimes in order to make inferences (when background knowledge

isn’t enough)?

Guided Practice: Following the modeling put up another transparency and this time

allow students to use the context clues to discern the kind of personality that animal, or

human person born in that year might be said to have.

Transparency 2

This robustly imposing animal gallops and neighs, it‘s handsome mane dancing in the

wind. If you were born in the year or month of the horse, your true nature is to run and

jump and be naturally wild. Horses hate to be tied down, but it does feel good to help

out and be useful - except when your saddled with everyone else’s load.

Allow the students to raise their hands and give possible answers. Offer the

advice that there may be more than one right answer so that the students feel they can

have more to contribute to the discussion.

Independent Practice: Once students demonstrate confidence in deducing the implied

personality traits of each animal, put up the next transparency, but this time offer little to

no help as the students try to understand the subtext.

Transparency 3

This most human like animal can do almost everything we do except talk and compute. If
 you were born in the year of the monkey you can be funny, delightful, and brilliant. But

you can also be a royal pain with your antics. You can’t sit still long enough to

accomplish anything at hand. Monkey are born to be show offs, clowns and performers.

Allow them to determine if the questions about subtext in these passages have only one

right answer or many possible answers. Wait for the majority of the students to agree that

they have brainstormed all the possibilities of what the author meant. Ask two to three

students for their thoughts on this animal description.

Assessment: You will know if this lesson was successful based on the students

articulation of their thoughts regarding the relationships between personality traits that

animals and humans might happen to share. The students will be most successful if they

use context clues and their own prior experiences to discern the relationships of humans

and animals in terms of personality traits.

Differentiation: For students who struggle with this exercise, help them to discern the

relationships of some of these animals to the characteristics expressed in the book;

relating them to their prior experiences/observations if possible. Try to relate the book to

their lives a bit more. Ask them if their parents have talked with them about the zodiac at

all, or if they have heard about it from some other source. If not, send a note home

asking one or both parents to spend some time reading together out loud and talking

about what they’ve been reading.

Closure: “who can tell me what we have learned about why some personal qualities

have been applied to animals in this text? How do you think you could write about

animals if you write based on what you have read here today?”

Ken Krupa September 28, 2010

 Writing Mini Lesson

Grade: 5th

Time: 40 Minutes

Standard: 3.2: writing forms, audiences, and purposes

Objective: The students will be able to utilize hidden meaning in their own writing using

context clues. The point of this mini lesson is to allow students to exercise hidden

meaning through the use of context clues in their own writing. Students will be able to

use real writers as teachers in addition to the classroom teacher in this exercise.

Materials: students’ writing journals, pencil, students should also have access to the

classroom’s library.

Lesson Procedure:

Lesson Introduction:

Anticipatory Set: “Students, does anyone remember the Chinese book of Animal

Powers? Who remembers the animal of the year you were born in? Who can remind the

class why this is important?”

Today we are going to review our recent study of the Chinese Zodiac animals. More

specifically, we are going to take a close look at the animals we are all associated with.

After we become more acquainted with our animal, we will be get to write about how we

think we are like that animal!”

Teach and Model: Model the kind of writing the students will be doing by reviewing the

passage from The Chinese Book of Animal Powers about the year‘s animal that you, the

teacher were born in. Check to make sure everyone understands the relationship of the

animal traits described here and actual human traits by doing thumbs up or thumbs down
for whether they understand or are confused, respectively. If they are still confused, ask

the class to recall some of that animal’s traits and list them on the board, then talk about

ways in which you, the teacher, might be like that animal.

Guided Practice: Ask the students to try thinking about the Chinese Zodiac while

reminding them how to use the chart to know which year they were born in and how to

match it up with the corresponding animal. Have one or two students try this before

proceeding to independent practice (There won‘t be much difference because most of the

students will fall under one of probably only two years). If needed, ask the other students

to recall some of the animal traits if those called up don’t remember more than one or two

qualities.

“Now I want you all to think about the qualities we read about for the animal you

have. Once you have an idea about what to write about, write for 2-3 pages in your

journals about the zodiac animal you are associated with and why you are like that

animal. If you think you are more like another animal, you can pick another of the zodiac

animal to write about. If you write about a different animal If you get confused about

what to write for the animal, we have the traits listed on the chart up front, and you can

take turns looking at the book itself to refresh yourself. Everyone, be sure to mention at

least five qualities of the animal you are writing about. The important piece here is that

you are thinking about that animals qualities as if they were human people.”

Independent Practice: Students will write a short narrative, derived from the writing

styles of texts they have read previously while trying to acknowledge the personality

qualities of animals in The Chinese Book of Animal Powers to use to describe how they

feel they are similar to the animal year they were born in. However, because there will be
many possible duplicates of the same animal, students may also chose to write about the

animal they feel they are more like/would rather be instead.

Differentiation: For students struggling with creating their own writing using hidden

meaning, provide examples from The Chinese Book of Animal Powers and discuss how

metaphors can be used. The key in this exercise is for students to see the similarities in

real people and how animals are talked about in this book.

Assessment: The students will be assessed for their use of grammar, proper spelling,

penmanship/cursive handwriting, and their use of context clues in their writings in which

they are to suggest relationships in terms of personality traits between humans and

animals.

Closure: When finished writing, students will place their writing journals in the bin by

the teacher’s desk for the teacher’s review of their writings and proceed to the next part

of the days schedule.