1 Nanda Natasha Nanda Dr. Ardell Educ410 February 27, 2008 Dinosaur Text Set I have compiled a text set for a focus unit on dinosaurs and other now-extinct animals to be taught in a third grade class. The unit is designed around the California Content Standard for third grade life sciences 3.e, Students know that some kinds of organisms that once lived on Earth have completely disappeared and that some of those resembled others that are alive today(www.cde.ca.gov). With the lessons and projects that I have chosen, dinosaurs will be incorporated into the students language arts, science, music, and art classes. Poem, The Dinosaur Who Couldnt Roar (Reading Standards 1.2, 1.6, 3.1, and 3.5, and Listening and Speaking Standard 1.4, 1.9).1 I would use this poem as a shared reading as the first activity to kick-off my unit on dinosaurs. First I would read the poem aloud to my class once, asking them concentrate on the pattern and rhyme of the poem. After reading it once aloud I will project the poem onto an overhead screen, one stanza at a time, with key words covered up. For example, for the third stanza of the poem, I would project, He couldnt be mean, he couldnt be gruff, / He couldnt roar, he couldnt be tough. For the first stanza I would model how I thought about the rhyme scheme of the poem (AA BB CC etc.), and then looked at context clues to deduce what word would fit best. For the next missing word I will call on one student to read the stanza aloud and fill in the missing word with his best guess. Without confirming or denying his choice I will ask him to describe aloud the
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All Content Standards cited are for the third grade. A copy of the cited Standards are included and higlighted at the end of the paper.
Nanda 2 process he went through in his head to come up with the missing word. If he struggles I will guide him through the process of looking at the rhyme and context, and reveal letters one at a time (lecture 1/23). I like this poem as a start to our unit on dinosaurs and I think its light-heartedness will help keep the students engaged and begin to stimulate some interest in the new topic. I think this shared reading would be especially beneficial for struggling readers and ELLs because it is helping to reinforce the concept of looking in the text for clues (contextual, rhyming, etc.) when they come to a word that they do not know or cannot immediately decode. The poem could also offer struggling readers, ELLs, and other students a good lesson in common sounds that have multiple spellings, such as in said and bed. Song, Dinosaurs (Reading Standard 3.1, 3.5, and Listening and Speaking Standard 1.4, 1.9) At some point during our dinosaur unit this song could be taught to the students during a music lesson. I think incorporating the theme of dinosaurs into slightly less academic settings will help keep students interested in the unit with an activity that is not seemingly focused on reading and writing. Having the students learn the song from printed song lyrics is good reading practice. Also, I would use the opportunity of my students learning this song to teach a mini-lesson on how song lyrics can be a form of poetry. I would ask my students to look at the song lyrics and draw similarities between the form of the lyrics and poems that they have learned. The song lyrics could help reinforce concepts commonly found in poetry, such as organization into stanzas, rhyme, and repetition.
Nanda 3 Nonfiction photo book, Walking With Prehistoric Beasts Photo Journal (Listening and Speaking Standards 1.2, 1.3) Each day during our dinosaur unit I would use this text in a read-aloud, one prehistoric animal per day. I think my students would get a kick out of the creepy looking pictures of the animals described. While reading aloud I would model reading with intonation and meaning, as the text is narrated like these animals are sneaking up to attack us. After the read-aloud I would initiate a grand conversation in which students would look at the pictures and discuss what animals the featured prehistoric animal resembles, and then discuss the features that make them similar (lecture 1/16). Fiction book, When Dinosaurs Came With Everything (Reading Standard 2.4) I would use this text in a read-aloud to my students. I think the kids would enjoy this book because it is humorous and a little fantastical. During the read-aloud I would focus the students attention to making predictions about the story. I would stop at certain points along the story and have the students turn to someone sitting next to them to discuss key points and make predictions about what is likely to happen next. For example I would ask my students, Knowing that the title of the book is When Dinosaurs Came With Everything, and after the boy in the story goes to the donut shop and receives a free dinosaur, what do you think will happen when he visits the doctor? After completing the reading of the story, I would initiate a grand conversation with the students to discuss whether the pattern found in the story was helpful in making predictions, and whether or not the outcome of the story, that the boys Mom ends up enjoying the dinosaurs, was predictable (lecture 1/16).
Nanda 4 Fiction book, If You Give a T-Rex a Bone (Reading Standard 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, and all Writing Strategies Standards) I found this book to be at a an appropriate reading level for third-graders and would use it in a guided reading session. In the back of the book are two pages entitled Tim Talks Dinos, in which there is a picture, pronunciation guide, and short description of each different type of dinosaur mentioned in the text. The pronunciation guide would be a great extra help to students who are still struggling with phonemic awareness, and for ELLs who would most likely not have the names of dinosaurs in their developing vocabulary. I would focus this guided reading lesson on tools and strategies used for decoding multi-syllabic words with unfamiliar spellings. When introducing the text to my group of students, I would direct them to the Tim Talks Dinos section in the back and point out how pronunciation guides are given for pronouncing the complicated names of all the dinosaurs. After the students read the book once aloud, I would ask the students to share their strategy for decoding the difficult names, and ask them to discuss the uses and benefits of having that guide at the end of the text. I would also ask students to describe to me the pattern followed by the text in the book, and how each page follows the same format (class handout 8.1 on guided reading). As a follow-up writing activity, I would ask students to write an additional page to the book, following the same format. Students would gather information about a dinosaur not mentioned in the text using the reference book Dougal Dixons Dinosaurs (to be mentioned later). In the writing activity I would stress the writing process. The writing activity would include the doing research as part of the prewriting, as well as drafting using the model of the If You Give a T-Rex a Bone text. As part of the editing and revision process I would have students pair up and
Nanda 5 read each others pages and offer corrections and feedback. I think the act of following the pattern given in the text would be a beneficial aid for any students who struggle with writing and especially paragraph organization and structure. Nonfiction text, Dinosaur Dig! (Reading Standards 1.2, 1.3, 1.6, 2.1) I would use this text at the beginning of our unit on dinosaurs during science class. This text would be for excellent introducing key scientific vocabulary that will be used throughout the unit of study. Because the text includes at the beginning a chart of new scientific words with pronunciation and spelling, it will be much easier for ELLs to learn the new vocabulary and be able to keep up with the rest of the class. The pictures for the new vocabulary words as well as the pictures associated with the main text will serve as good clues for decoding the text for struggling readers as well. I would have my students read the text with a partner. Afterwards, I would like my students to create vocabulary squares for the new key words presented in the text. For the vocabulary squares, on paper cut-outs, students will write the word, part of speech, definition, and the illustrate the word (lecture 2/20). Because the words are not explicitly defined in the text, this will be practice for the students in using visual and contextual clues to deduce the meaning of words they do not know. Reference book, Dougal Dixons Dinosaurs (Reading Standard 2.1, 2.5, and Writing Standard 1.3) I would introduce my students to this book with a think-aloud, modeling how to use the reference features of the text. I would model how if I was reading a page and came across a word that I did not know, I would turn to the glossary in the back of the book to find its definition. In addition I would model for my students how if I knew the
Nanda 6 name of a particular dinosaur that I wanted to learn more about, I would turn to the index to find the page number where my selected topic can be located. I would also emphasize how words in the glossary and index are listed in alphabetical order. Following the guided reading of If You Give a T-Rex a Bone, students would use Dougal Dixons Dinosaurs as a reference for writing an additional page for the fiction book. Students would group in three, each pick a dinosaur from the reference book that they think looks interesting from scanning the headings and captions, and then would have them read about that particular dinosaur using reciprocal teaching. In reciprocal teaching, students will look at the illustration of the first dinosaur they have chosen and predict what kind of environment it lives in and anything else they might guess from its physical features. Then the students would follow the reciprocal teaching procedures of reading, answering questions from the discussion director, summarizing the text, and clarifying anything still not understood (lecture 2/13 and Reciprocal Teaching class handout)Then the group would repeat the process for the dinosaurs selected by the other members of the trio. Nonfiction book, Uneversaurus (Reading Standard 2.3, 2.6, and Listening and Speaking 1.1, 1.2, 1.3) I would have my students read this text during a science lesson dealing with the physical appearance of dinosaurs. Before reading the text, the class would work together to create a k-w-l graphic organizer about the physical appearance of dinosaurs, transcribed by me on the chalkboard or overhead. First students will tell me what they know or think they know on the subject, then what they would like to know about how dinosaurs looked. Then I would read the text to my students in a read-aloud. I think presenting this text as a read-aloud would be best since the written material on the pages
Nanda 7 is organized in an unconventional manner, and because I could act out some of the sarcastic asides written as speech bubbles in the text. Following my reading of the text, I would bring my students back to the K-W-L chart to complete what they have learned about the physicality of dinosaurs from the reading (lecture 1/30). The K-W-L would be especially helpful for readers struggling with comprehension because it will organize the important information that students should have picked up from the text. Selected Internet web-pages for paleontologist biographies (Reading Standard 2.1, 2.2, Writing Standard 2.3) In another activity for our study of dinosaurs, I would have students conduct internet research to find the biographies of paleontologists, or people who work with museums showcasing paleontology, of both genders and of multiple ethnic backgrounds. Working in small groups, students would look for biographies using links from museum and university websites. After some research, the student groups would select a paleontologist or museum curator to write a letter to, explaining how they are studying dinosaurs in school and then asks any questions they might have about dinosaurs or about the field of paleontology. As a mini-lesson I would do a modeled writing of the conventions of letter writing (lecture 1/16). This activity would address gender issues because students will be able to see for themselves how women and men alike can be found in the field of paleontology, museums, and academia. This activity would also address cultural issues because students will be able to see that professionals in these fields can be found all over the world and come from diverse ethnic backgrounds. If my class had students who spoke any other languages, I would encourage them to use their
Nanda 8 foreign language skills in writing to a professional from a country that speaks that language. Information posters/captions as part of museum exhibits (Reading Standard 2.4, Writing Standards 1.0, 2.2) During our unit on dinosaurs, I would take my students on a field trip to a natural history or science museum with exhibits on paleontology and/or fossils. Students would be able to see great pictures, models, and fossils of the different types of dinosaurs they have been learning about in class. The museum trip would also be a literacy lesson having to do with information texts found in these exhibits. Before our museum trip, I would introduce the concept to my students of not only looking at the pictures and models in a museum, but also reading the written texts and captions that accompany the 3-D elements. Back in the classroom I would have examples of text posters from the museum. I would initiate a grand conversation with my class about the characteristics of this type of text, such as whether it tells a story, if it is descriptive, if it is factual. I would also have my class discuss how the benefits of having text as part of museum exhibits, and whether or not the class learned more about what they were looking at by reading the text.
The culminating project for the classs unit on dinosaurs would be to create a mini museum exhibit on dinosaurs and paleontology in our classroom. This project would incorporate multiple subjects, combining art, science, reading, and writing. To accommodate varying student interests, students would have choices as to what they would like to display in the museum. For example, students could make a 3-D model of
Nanda 9 a dinosaur of their choice, make a drawing or diagram of a particular type of dinosaur, draw or make a model of environments the dinosaurs would have lived in, draw a map or timeline, or draw a picture of a paleontologist or scientist they are interested in. The literacy component would be that each student would have to write an accompanying text poster with information about the display item they have created for the museum, based on the texts they saw in their field trip and what they learned in class about this type of writing. Upon completion, students would set up their display and accompanying information text around the classroom, creating their own museum, and invite the other grades as well as their families to tour their exhibit.