I begin the lesson by having students to complete a concept map for the word "friendship." I explain to them that friendship means different things to different people. Students then share what friendship means to them as we fill in the concept map. Concept maps visually illustrate the relationship between concepts and ideas. Concept maps link related words and phrases to help students to organize and structure their thoughts in order to further understand information and discover new relationships. Using my students' prior knowledge of the word "friendship" in order to complete the concept map is a way of helping them to organize their "mental file folders of information," or schema relative to the term "friendship."
In preparation for today's lesson, students should have already read chapters 1 - 4 of E.B. White's book Stuart Little. We, then, begin our book study with the discussion questions on the attached Powerpoint resource. During the book study, I call students' attention to various Tier 2 vocabulary words. (See attached Powerpoint for questions and Tier 2 vocabulary.) During this book study, I explain to my students that they will take an active role in their learning. I will serve as a facilitator. I encourage them to take notes as they read the book Stuart Little, jotting down any questions or thoughts they have as they read. I also encourage them to write a summary of each chapter after they read it.
Problem/solution writing can be challenging for fourth grade students. It is a step-by-step process which requires students to analyze what they have read in order to determine the problem. It goes a step further by requiring them to write possible solutions to those problems. I like this type of writing because it requires my students to use higher level Bloom's Taxonomy thinking skills of creating and evaluating. In chapter 2, Mr. and Mrs. Little discuss five problems they thought existed in their home relative to Stuart. I ask my scholars to write a paragraph which details the five problems and the solutions Mr. and Mrs. Little discussed. They are free to elaborate on writing about other ways they may have chosen to solve the problems, as well.
To close this lesson, my scholars complete a vocabulary map for one new word they learned during today's lesson.
Homework - Students read chapters 5 - 7 in the book Stuart Little by E.B. White.
Be sure to continue the unit with the next lesson - Stuart Little Book Study Chapters 5 to 7.