During social studies, you guys have been talking with Mrs. Rodriguez about Native Americans that have come to our area. You've also been talking about colonists that have settled here in Delaware. During reading, we have been talking about analyzing perspectives. We've talked about...
perspectives from an aunt and a boy we've also talked about our own perspectives from current topics such as uniforms in school extended school year cell phones in school vending machines in school so now what we're going to do is we're going to merge those two topics. We're going to merge our social studies aspect of Native Americans, colonial times, and colonists and our analyzing perspectives. So our essential question is going to be how do we analyze perspectives from different viewpoints from different people. We're going to activate that today by looking at photographs which is also a text feature that we've been talking about during our literacy reading time. You're going to work in your group and just take about a minute to look at these photographs with the these photographs, I want you to just get a general idea of what colonial times may have been like, okay?
And see if you can pull any information out of these photographs that you think is going to help us later in our lesson when we're analyzing perspectives, okay? They use tents like we do when we go camping, but that's like their norm. That's where they stay. that many people when we go camping.
Right. Probably tell us guys. That's where they live.
Who would like to share out what you saw in your photograph or what you found interesting or what might connect to what we've been discussing? They look like pilgrims. Okay, it looks like there's some pilgrims. Anybody want to add to what Liberty has said?
There's lots of farming. There's lots of farms, okay. And there's churches.
I see Jay saying, me too. Nice job, Jace. Diego, what would you like to say?
In the dandelions, there's the sod houses. Okay, the soddy houses. So you made that text connection, which I really like. Go ahead, Angel. They're sitting around the fire telling opinions about the future.
Oh, they're sitting around the fire talking about opinions about their future. Do you think their future, that they'd ever expect us to be where we are today? No.
Probably not, right? There's oxen, and they could have pulled the wagons to get somewhere. They could have used the oxen to pull the wagons. their wagons, their covered wagons to get to the destination they were going. Nice job.
I understand some of you still want to share, but we need to move on. I'm going to collect your photographs. You did an amazing job analyzing these pictures.
Right before this lesson, the students used their Delaware Adventure book. While reading the book, they read with their partners, used a graphic organizer to fill out various areas that these settlers came from and which areas in Delaware that they settled, what resources they used, what attracted them to the land, and why they settled. settled where they did.
When we previewed the passage previously, can somebody tell me what we previewed it for? What were we previewing this passage for? What did you do with partners when you worked with them? They told us to put sticky notes on the papers.
Okay, I wanted sticky notes on the papers. What purpose did those sticky notes serve? Important words.
Important words, right? Important vocabulary. Some of the vocabulary words we came up with, we've posted on the back wall that you wrote. after you did that you looked for key ideas and details as Delilah said today we're going to read it for a different purpose we're going to read it looking at perspectives we're going to analyze it we've not talked about who wrote these passages we've not talked about the time period of these passages that's why I showed you the pictures to help get you thinking about the time period so who can tell me now by a raise of hands what time period you think we're going to be reading about Colonial times? Colonial times.
Very good. So, how we're going to do this is, the very first passage you should have in front of you is called Prairie Farmer. So go ahead and take that passage.
You can remove the post-it notes from it because they're going to be in the way while you're reading. You are going to take about three minutes, maybe five, depending on how long it takes you, and you're going to read this text in... independently while you're reading I want you to think to yourself whose perspective was this written from what's perspective mean what's a perspective mean Madison what's another word for perspective viewpoint their viewpoints nice job so you're going to analyze this piece of text you're gonna break it apart you're gonna study it okay you're gonna look through it to find out whose perspective Whose viewpoint this came from. In doing that you're going to have to look at evidence in the text. You're going to have to use the test to help you.
In order to delve deeper into Common Core, I feel that the students need to be able to look in and use evidence to clearly see that everyone's perspective is not the same. They saw that within themselves in their daily lives, but looking through the lens of a historian, they need to realize that as well. With some to look for wood, and Thomas like his brother.
So it has to be like a kid. And whose perspective do you guys think that it's from? Farmers. Farmers, okay.
A little kid's farmer. Oh, a kid's farmer or a farmer's child possibly. In today's lesson I was very pleased that they were able to delve into the text.
I think it's because we spent so much time talking about perspectives and analyzing what it meant. So once they broke into their expert groups, they were able to dig in and delve in without my guidance standing there looking over them. We are going to read this one, whole group.
We will set up a meeting. We set up a large house in a big village now. We use long poles to build its structure.
The roof covers the cooking area so that it is even bigger than the floor. A strategy that we have implemented school-wide are close readings. The students have that down to a science as to when they're reading an informational text, the best way to read it in order to get the most information out of it. So with this particular passage, the students read it once independently, quietly to themselves.
They read it a second time. second time with a partner to help increase that fluency and just familiarize themselves with the vocabulary. The third time they read it they used post-it notes to pull out academic or content vocabulary.
Instead of giving that to them, I thought that it was important that they pull out the vocabulary words that they thought went along with our theme and social studies that we're currently working with. And then they looked through it a fourth time to find the main idea or key details. It says it has a sister.
So you think it's a boy? Yeah. It says it has a sister.
Now, let's take this a little deeper. Girls can have sisters. You're right.
Girls can have sisters. You're exactly right. You don't just have to have brothers. You're telling me that you think it's a child. Let's agree on that, that it's a child.
Do you think it's the same child that the other passage came from? Or do you think it's a different child? Different. Okay. What do you mean when you say different?
What do you think the other child... Where do you think the other child was from? And where do you think this child is from?
What are your... your thoughts. This one, this child is in like a village and then when you're in this one they're like in there like... I think I know what you're saying.
The first child lives in a village. And Rocky chimed in. Rocky, you said, Brittany said they're in a village, and then what did you say?
Native Americans. They're Native Americans. Do you guys agree that this is a Native American child?
Nice job, boys and girls. Our third and final passage, as I said, you have already pre-read it independently and with partners. But now I'm going to read it to you. So go ahead and remove your Post-it notes.
And please follow along as I am reading. Settlers came to this area to build farms. They found the land difficult to plant in. You're going to take about another minute in your group.
Jot down whose perspective this was written from. You're going to decide as a group what is their perspective of this time period. What was life like for them?
That's going to be the top box of your organizer. box is the word evidence. What's evidence mean?
What does evidence mean? Proof? Fine, proof! That's what I was looking for.
Important details and proof. I wonder how the pioneer plant, squash, plants stay green without the rain. Or the hunting one. The hunting?
Where's the hunting one? Yeah, because when it snows, the dad can go. Which one is that one?
It's in here. Because the dad went to save it. We went hunting and found the prints and got food for their family.
What are we finding for evidence that their life was harsh? That they can't just go to a grocery store and buy food. They had to farm and work hard.
Okay, they had to farm and work hard. They can't run to Walmart like we can now. They didn't get an education.
They didn't get a very good education because they didn't have schools back then. Very good. Well, they had schools, but typically the schools were a...what kind of school? A week's...
It was a weaker school but they were all together in one room, all grade levels, right? It's because if you forgot the firewood for the class then you would have to go sit in the back of the room. And nice job pulling that background knowledge because that wasn't in your text, was it? That's what you've learned during social studies with another teacher, is that they had to bring their wood to heat their home or heat their school. If you didn't bring it, then guess what?
Your punishment was you're sitting in the back of the room being cold, and do you think you'd forget it again? No. No, very logical consequence, isn't it?
Nice job. Any other evidence to support? We're still thinking. An area that I would like to see improved, I felt they pulled too much of their background knowledge and maybe not as much. as evidence from the text and that comes from the previous lessons that we've done with settlers so they feel confident in that subject so I would just explain to them next time only evidence from the text at this point and then when you go to do your diary entry you can pull more more of your background knowledge into that part of it A speaker from each group is going to come out and share out.
Brittany and Colin are experts on prairie farmers and one of you could please share what was the perspective of it was a child the farmers child. The life was happy because they enjoyed their life, but they had to work. Okay. Do we all kind of agree because we read that passage? Would you say the child's life was happy?
They didn't seem miserable, did they? They seemed happy and content, but they had work to do. They couldn't play video games, right?
They couldn't just sit back and watch television. They didn't have video games. Their life was different than our life today.
What's your evidence to support it? Colin. No wood, meat, no fire in school, and you would be punished and have to sit in the cold. We had to build fences.
We had to borrow plants, farms, other families. We will sell corn to buy more animals. It was my job to gather fire. firewood and water.
Let's give them a round of applause for presenting their perspective and evidence. And now let's have settlement. Who are my speakers for settlement?
What was the perspective? The settler's life was harsh. Okay, it was harsh. Harsh meaning hard. It was difficult.
What was your evidence that it was harsh or hard? They can't go to stores to get food. They need to plant their own.
Okay, they had to plant their own food. What else? Once they're done with those questions.
independently, we will share them as a whole. The final assignment is actually to create a diary entry. They can choose one of the perspectives, whether it's a Native American perspective, a child perspective from Colonial Times, or an adult perspective, and write a diary entry of what their day was like during Colonial Times.
Our summarizing activity, we will finish filling in our graphic organizers at a later point. Our summarizing activity, you're going to create a dialogue. You're going to create a dialogue between two different perspectives.
You can use the Native American child or the settlers or farmer's child or the adult settler. In that dialogue you're going to go back and forth just two conversations, what they might say to each other. Remember I did that with you the other day when we did homework. My dialogue was homework was important. It helped review what I did in class.
You came back at me and said Mrs. Robbins, it's not important. I have to help with dinner and I play ball. And I say that's not important.
not important. Homework is going to take you farther in life. And you said it's important to eat.
Right. So that was our dialogue back and forth about the perspective of homework. You're going to have a dialogue back and forth from the perspective of two of these people.
We have three. You need to choose two. One person's going to be in one color. One person's going to be in the other color.
And you're going to complete the trifold. I can honestly say that with Common Core, I feel like my students have created a new love of reading. And with pulling in these different text complexities. and the information on the nonfiction pieces, the students have embraced it and they're wanting to read and they're excited to read that next novel or do a research project with it.
So I feel like as teachers, now that we know what our focus is, it's a more clear focus, we can find activities and novels, nonfiction pieces to pull in to help them find the love of reading that as teachers we all want our students to have.