Unit 5 Fantasy Book Clubs April - May

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1 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Welome to the Unit Unit 5 Fantasy Book Clubs April - May In this final fition reading unit for sixth grade, you ll find an emphasis on developing students knowledge of literary traditions, and enouraging students to read with more maturity and independene. The unit reflets an aute awareness that we need to ensure students are ready to make their own way through longer and more ompliated books, to find and form their own study groups around reading, and to work through hard parts with a toolkit of strategies and a sense of resilieny. The unit is strutured so students work in small book lubs, reading fantasy series. They ll read several novels, both so they beome deeply immersed in this literary genre, and so they an develop the kind of higher level thinking skills needed to study how authors develop haraters and themes over time. Indeed, whether students are reading Dragon Slayer s Aademy, Harry Potter, or The Dark is Rising, they ll synthesize details and make onnetions aross hundreds of pages in this unit of study. There is an emphasis on transfer in this unit. The teaher introdues new work through a read aloud of parts of a riveting fantasy novel for students (we suggest The Thief of Always or The Lightning Thief), as well as a few short texts. Meanwhile, students will pratie this work aross the several fantasy novels they read, eah time exploring how the work differs slightly in different texts. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 1 of 24 At the start of the unit, in Bend I, students will find that they need to read losely right away, as they onsider the work authors do at the very beginning of a novel to develop the setting as a physial and psyhologial plae. Beginning of the story omprehension work really matters in more omplex narratives, and so you ll alert students to ways that novels beome more hallenging, and lead your readers through more triky narratives, teahing them, for instane, to learn alongside the main harater, and to suspend judgment as they arefully analyze senes that introdue new and ompliated haraters and plaes. In Bend II, you ll lead students to think metaphorially and analytially, teahing them to explore the quests and themes within and aross their novels. You ll also invite students to engage ever more deeply by onsidering the impliations of the onflits, themes, and lessons in the stories they read as they relate to the students lives and the lives they want to lead. As you move into Bend III, you ll fous students on studying literary traditions, inluding arhetypes, quest strutures, and symbolism. Finally, you ll lead readers to apitalize on their expertise, studying how the thinking work developed through reading fantasy novels will pay off in other genres as well. Expet students to read hundreds of pages, to think and talk like young literary theorists, and to fall ever more in love with reading. If you follow our urriular alendar, you may pair or follow this unit with a study in fantasy writing, allowing students to pratie the story struture, harater development, and attention to setting that they are notiing in their reading. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

2 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, As a resoure, you may find it helpful to read A Quik Guide to Teahing Reading Through Fantasy Novels by Mary Ehrenworth, put out by Heinemann in Overview Essential Question: How an I takle the demanding and omplex genre of fantasy reading? What will my strategies and goals be that help me to make sense of multiple plot lines, layered haraters, omplex themes? Bend I: Reading losely at the start of a book - learning to build the world of the story when it s another world How an I learn to read losely at the start of a novel, paying areful attention to the role of the setting, to multiple plotlines, and to new information as it arises? (one-two weeks) Bend II: Developing themati understanding it s about more than dwarfs and elves How an I use all I have learned about how authors develop themes to study the way authors approah ommon themes in fantasy? (one-two weeks) Bend III: Literary traditions, inluding arhetypes, quest strutures, and themati patterns How an I deepen my thoughts about fantasy stories by thinking about the hoies the authors have made espeially thinking about symbolism, allusion and raft? (one-two weeks) Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 2 of 24 Anhor Texts: The Paper Bag Priness by Robert Munsh Exerpts from The Thief of Always, by Clive Barker, or The Lightning Thief, by Rik Riordan Alternates: The Third Wish, by Joan Aiken en.pdf The Giant s Tooth, by Brue Colville (Kindle ebook $.99) or Bend I: Reading losely at the start of a book - learning to build the world of the story when it s another world In Bend One of the unit, readers will draw on all of the skills and strategies they have learned for omprehension to synthesize aross omplex fantasies individually and with their lub members. Readers will pay lose attention to details as they build the worlds of stories, onsidering what these worlds are like both physially and psyhologially. They will learn about the worlds of the stories alongside the main haraters and hold on using different tools as stories get more ompliated and plots and problems begin to multiply. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

3 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Bend II: Developing themati understanding it s about more than dwarfs and elves In Bend Two students will ome to see fantasies as more than epi adventures but as symboli of larger themes and they will begin to think and talk about their fantasies metaphorially. Bend III: Literary traditions, inluding arhetypes, quest strutures, and themati patterns In Bend Three students will apply previous learning about themes and strengthen this work by onsidering how different authors approah the grand themes found in fantasies, reading aross fantasies to disuss arhetypal haraters, raft of authors, elements of allusion, and so on. This third bend will push students to draw on all the work they have done so far and beome more analyti about their fantasies, and thus we suggest that you allot the most time for that bend (keeping in mind, also, that you will always want to base your teahing on what your data shows your students need). We have found that in many lassrooms, this analyti work is the work whih students find the most hallenging and so spending more time on this teahing makes sense. You an also, of ourse, return to earlier work during your small group and onferring aross these later bends if your students need more support. CCSS/ LS Standards Addressed in this Unit Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 3 of 24 In previous literature units, students takled many of the reading literature standards and by the time they enter this unit, your teahing has addressed eah of the literature standards. This unit, then, is a time to help students see how to apply the learning they have already done to a new ontext and a new type of literature. Throughout the unit, you will be addressing a range of Standards, inluding ones in Speaking and Listening, Reading Literature, Foundational Skills, Writing, and Language. This unit does aim, though, to emphasize a few standards in partiular and it is worth noting these. In previous units, students learned to ompare and ontrast haraters, settings, and events, and in this unit they will ome to see these elements as symboli (RL 6.3). Throughout the unit, students will onsider the role that haraters and setting play and study how authors have set up ontrasts to help onvey the larger messages of the story. This unit will also plae a speial emphasis on deepening work with voabulary and language. So muh of fantasy is about the symboli use of language, plays on words and multiple meanings of words. Throughout this unit students will fous on determining the meaning of unfamiliar words in ontext, inluding figurative language (RL6.4), but also onsider nuanes of word meanings and relationships that words play to the larger themes of the story. A third major fous of the unit will be in the area of theme. As students are all engaged in reading within the same genre, they are able to do the omplex work of analyzing the way authors approah similar themes differently. In partiular, in the third bend, students will begin to ompare and ontrast elements of fantasies, explaining how authors hoies have led them to take a different angle on a theme or to say something else about a theme that another author did not, work expeted by Standard 6.9. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

4 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Getting Ready As you prepare to teah this unit, the basi prep work that will be needed is to help students gather fantasy series for their book lubs, and to gather books for your read aloud(s). If you are able to gather other resoures, ideally you ll be able to gather a few other types of texts (film lips of fantasy movies, audio lips of songs from fantasies). This will mean enlisting the shool librarian (if you have a shool library), parents, and espeially students themselves during the weeks before the unit in olleting the right books so that lubs an all get to read at least two books by the same author. A book osts about the same as a soda and a bag of hips, and it s a better investment. A big hange we ve made in middle shools is teahing kids how to get books - how to buy used opies, have bake sales, trade opies, read e-books, use the library. Kids who know how to get books are more likely to ontinue to read outside of shool. Gathering and hoosing books for read alouds and book lubs Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 4 of 24 There are so many fantasy series now, whih is why this is a great book lub unit. From Spiderwik Chroniles, to the beloved Narnia, and Pery Jakson and the Olympians, there are wonderful hoies in this genre and reently, terrifi dystopian novels for young readers as well. Get students launhed on a first book in a series, and they ll undoubtedly keep going. One thing that is partiularly helpful about fantasy, for diverse lassrooms, is that fantasy inludes a range of levels whih allow all readers in the lass, regardless of their instrutional level, to aess the work. Many of the lower level series (just hek out Dragon Slayer s Aademy, for example) feature ompelling, ompliated haraters, intriguing subplots and symboli images and objets. These lower level series also feature haraters who serve as arhetypes and the same sorts of grand themes that readers who read at higher levels will find in their books. If you have readers reading below level N in the Fountas & Pinnell system, audio books an be a support for them. You might set them up to spend some time/days with audio support and some time/days reading books at their level, whether these are fantasy titles or not. The higher levels allow your highest level readers to read ompliated narratives, without straying into plot developments that are not appropriate for their age. Fantasy is a genre that supports all readers. This is a good time to teah your students that powerful readers seek and get books! They srounge their lassroom libraries. They go to the publi library. They get e-books. They buy used books. They trade with friends and family members, so that they an read the books they want with their friends. Remember that these series are meant to be read in order. For read-aloud, you ll probably want to hoose a novel and a short story. Good hoies for novels to exerpt are The Thief of Always, and The Lightning Thief, with the former being dense, but short. (Note that if you have inoming sixth graders who were in elementary shools following our reading urriulum, it s likely they may have heard The Thief of Always as a read aloud. This isn t bad - you won t be reading the whole thing anyway, and if some know the whole book, great. But you will want to be prepared to say just that if kids say, We ve read this! ) Colleting trailers and lips of popular fantasy movies If you have aess to a SMART board, omputer or DVD player, you may find it engaging to show a Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

5 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, few trailers or lips of popular fantasy movies, suh as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Narnia, as these brief lips vividly demonstrate the different settings of fantasy how some start in the real world and then magi infuses that world, and others are set in a magial world, that is usually medieval, with horses, swords, dragons, and so forth. In future years, students will be expeted to ompare film and print versions of stories and this is a great time to support them in beginning that work. Students an look losely at the hoies that filmmakers have made versus authors to onsider the differenes and similarities in their effets on readers/viewers. Another great resoure to ollet would be songs from fantasy films or shows. Wiked (a takeoff on the Wizard of Oz) is a fantasy on Broadway with many songs that are ideal for interpretation work (Unlimited, for example, or For Good). So many of the songs play with the terms good and bad and rely on multiple meanings of these words. Listening to and analyzing these songs an help students do similar work of looking losely at the way authors have used language in their books. If you wish, prepare for literary enters Centers have figured prominently in the RWP s work around ontent area, as well as during test prep. Centers are a powerful method of instrution whih allows for intensive ontent and skill knowledge while also maximizing student ollaboration and independene. Typially, enters are organized in baskets or some other reeptale (in some ases, this might be a luster of laptops or a desktop omputer), spread around the room. Students go to a enter with a small group of other students. At eah enter there is a task ard, whih lets students know the work they an do at that enter. Any additional materials are also provided. Students typially rotate through enters so that by the end of a set time period (a few weeks, a few days, or a period) they will have visited most if not all of the enters. Centers are a highly engaging way to dump a lot of ontent or skill knowledge in a short amount of time, while also freeing the teaher up to do foused small group work or oahing into the ontent. For this unit we are imagining you ould use enters as a method for helping students to learn about and fantasy literary terms and traditions. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 5 of 24 You ll find examples of enters, some of whih will work for this unit, on Treasure Chest, available to shools that ontrat with TCRWP throughout the year. Fantasy is a partiularly apt genre for enter work, as there are so many examples of different kinds of texts and genre onventions available - enters are a way to allow for digital texts, paintings or drawings to beome part of the reading work that kids get to do. If you develop additional enters and are willing to share, please send to audra@readingandwritingprojet.om and we will add to our digital olletion. Assessment Are students reading? The first thing you want to assess is your students overall engagement with reading. You an do this through a quik in-lass written inventory, in whih you ask them to name a few favorite books and authors, and tell you about their reading history. If your kids are reading, all your teahing will stik. They ll have a lot of pages to pratie on, and they ll ontinue to move up levels of omplexity. If they re not reading, or they read below grade level, you want to find that out now. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

6 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Look at students reading notebooks and their reading logs or reords, as well as any reading assessments of reading level you ve given, and help students reflet on how reading is going for them. This is a good unit for helping kids inrease their volume and move up levels, so have a baseline from where kids are starting. Do students read at grade level? Pay attention to any kids who aren t reading at grade level yet, and use this unit to introdue students to new series that will help them move up bands of text omplexity: Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 6 of 24 Serets of Droon (M-O) Tony Abbott Dragon Slayer s Aademy (N-P) Kate MMullan Spiderwik Chroniles (Q-R) Blak and DiTerlizzi The Edge Chroniles (R-U) Stewart and Riddell City of Ember Series (R-U) Jeanne DuPrau Deltora Quest (R-T) Emily Rodda Warriors (R-S) Eri Hunter Narnia (T-U) C.S. Lewis Rowan of Rin (T-V) Emily Rodda Animorphs (T-U) K.A. Applegate The Ranger s Apprentie (T-U) John Flanagan Among the Hidden (U-V) Margaret Peterson Gregor The Overlander (U-V) Suzanne Collins Series of Unfortunate Events (U-V) Lemony Sniket Artemis Fowl (W-X) Eoin Colfer Pery Jakson and the Olympians (U-W) Rik Riordan Divergent Trilogy (W-X) Veronia Roth The Dark is Rising (X-Y) Susan Cooper The Mortal Instruments (X-Y) Cassandra Clare Redwall (Y-Z) Brian Jaques Harry Potter (V-Z) J.K. Rowling The Golden Compass (Y-Z) Phillip Pullman Dragons of Pern (Z-Adult) Anne MCaffrey Also pay attention to kids reading rates. Have them put some Post-its in their books, marking how many pages they read in ten minutes, and then in half an hour. Gradually build up to forty minutes, to see how they maintain stamina over longer periods. You re looking for most sixth graders who read at grade level (levels V-Y aross the year) to average around forty to sixty pages a day, as many days a week as possible. That would be about twenty-five pages in shool and twenty-five at home minimum. If they need more time to read, so be it. Help them to arve out more time for reading outside of shool. Volume will help inrease their rate and develop their stamina, and in the long run will also help their flueny and omprehension. Are kids able to show their analyti reading skills through performane assessment? You might want to do a very simple pre and post-performane assessment. You and your olleagues may want to agree upon a few texts to use in suh an assessment - suh as short stories or opening hapters by the authors under study. Plan stopping plaes so that every student reads to the predetermined spot, then ask students to stop and jot in ways that show what they have gleaned from Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

7 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, the text about haraters traits, for example. Ask them to support their ideas with evidene from the text. Then they an read a bit more; this time you might pause to ask at an important part: What does this partiular part suggest about how this harater is hanging? You might have another spot where you ask them to write about the author s style or raft and what makes it reognizable. You don t need to do all of these - the main thing is, you want to assess how your students synthesize detail and attend to raft before and after the unit. This assessment will give you a window into your kids analytial skills. Bend I: Thinking Analytially at the Start of a Book - Learning to Build the World of the Story When It s Another World The goal of this bend is for readers to use all the strategies for holding onto and monitoring for omprehension as they are reading what will likely be more omplex and ompliated fantasies than they have enountered before. As they launh into reading fantasies with great enthusiasm, they ll quikly beome enmeshed in multiple subplots and haraters and it will be helpful for them to develop and try out tools to help them hold onto the worlds of the fantasies. This is work that students will likely have done before as they learned to hold onto the worlds of their realisti fition novels earlier in the year, but fantasies typially ontain even more haraters and many more setting details. Thus, you ll want to remind students that they have already learned these strategies and help them to apply these tools to this new type of reading work. Bend I, Session One: Reading losely at the start of a story For the first few sessions, and some sessions aross the unit, you may want to use an atual fantasy novel as your read aloud and anhor text - just exerpts, as you won t have time to read all of it. This ould be one that some lubs are reading as well. You ll want to be able to help readers navigate the density of whole novels, whih is what they re reading. Later, you an move to reading fantasy short stories, as lose reading work will pay off there and still transfer to lubs novel reading. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 7 of 24 You might launh your unit by gathering students around your many fantasy novels, their overs adorned with dragons, astles, and symbols. Gesture to these books as you tell your readers that in these tales the fate of all of mankind may rest on the hoies made by the main harater. Everything is more important, more intense, more vivid in fantasy stories. Explain that when we study fantasy, we are really studying the human ondition. The stories are never really about elves and hobbits. They re about the struggle between good and evil, they re about how power sometimes orrupts, they re about the quest to be better than we are, and they re about how even the smallest of us an affet what happens in this world. Finally, by giving your students a vision of where they re heading as readers, you an explain that as we beome powerful readers of fantasy, we re likely to beome more powerful readers of all texts. Your readers will be eager to pik up these novels and get started. It is important that students determine the kind of plae in whih their story is happening. Beause the novels are so ompliated, you ll want to teah students that fantasy readers use multiple resoures to researh the settings of our stories. We look for lues about the plae and the magial elements, in partiular, using the over, blurbs, and details from the beginning of the story for our researh. You might demonstrate how you synthesize these details from the over of a book suh as The Thief of Always then let your students try doing so using Dragon Slayer s Aademy, or The Dark is Rising, or Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

8 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, any of the books you have gathered. Any lose reading work that you have done in the past will be espeially helpful here. Having kids hold on to multiple details from a text, looking for patterns. Looking losely at one word the author uses to desribe a harater and asking, why that one word? Keeping an eye out for author s raft. All of these skills will be useful as your students begin a journey into fantasy. Today I want to teah you that fantasy readers know to read losely at the start of a book, asking, What kind of plae is this? Fantasy readers look for lues about the setting and the magial elements, in partiular, using the overs, blurbs, and details from the beginning of the story for their researh. Bend I, Session Two: Analyzing the setting as a psyhologial site If your students are adept at mentally onstruting the setting in the books they read, partiularly if they have done this work in historial fition, or they are already avid fantasy readers, then take this teahing to the next level by teahing them how to analyze the setting for its psyhologial impliations as well as its physial. In The Lightning Thief, the setting of the museum is so important to Pery s realization that Mrs. Dodds is not just some substitute teaher - the bakdrop of the Greek and Roman art are previewing themes that will ontinue through the whole series! It s easy to read past setting, so you ll want to alert readers to not do this, even though it s so tempting to read for plot and not notie the surroundings. As you set students up to think about the atmosphere of the setting, show them how to not simply desribe it, but to analyze it, so that you lift their work to the level that the Common Core requires. Students in sixth grade are expeted to ompare and ontrast settings so students will ome to see that in many fantasies there are multiple settings, eah with its own psyhologial and physial elements. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 8 of 24 Of ourse, this work is most easily begun in the land of emotions. Demonstrate how you read a desription of setting in a fantasy text, like the outside of the museum in the first hapter of The Lightning Thief, where the storm is brewing, showing how you notie not just what that plae looks like, but also how it feels. This foray into the emotional life of a setting will allow your students to start thinking about tone. Today I want to teah you that fantasy readers onsider the setting not only as a physial setting but also as a psyhologial one. They analyze the mood, asking how the author develops the setting. Bend I, Session Three: Investigating power early in the novel As your readers investigate the setting in their novels, teah them to be alert to who has power. There will be different kinds of power - teah your readers to look for signs of power, and to trae the various kinds of power they see aross their novels. For example they might notie who in their books has the ability to hoose what they do - in a day or with their lives. Who has overt power - like a King - and how do they wield it? Who resents that power and who aepts it and why? Who desires power, and when does that seem to be a good thing, and when does that desire beome dangerous? Students an trak the aquisition and loss of power between different haraters aross a text, and an start to pay lose attention to what this partiular book is saying Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

9 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, about power in soieties, as well as power between people in relationships. You might remind students of the work they did in the Soial Issues Book Clubs unit - they studied power in realisti fition already, so fantasy novels an simply provide a new avenue to explore these ideas. If your sixth graders find this onversation onfusing, you an divert them to a harater study, pointing out that fantasy, like any fition text, is rife with haraters that beg for analysis. Bring bak harts and teahing points from your earlier unit on harater to help your students reinfore those skills. Today I want to teah you that fantasy readers investigate power in their novels, asking who has power, and analyzing the visible signs of power in its different forms. Bend I, Session Four: Learning alongside the main harater Next, you may teah your students that fantasy readers expet to learn alongside the main harater. Often, parts seem onfusing to the reader just as the main harater is also onfused by what is happening. In many fantasies, the hero or heroine is naive at the start, drawn into a world full of dangerous (and sometimes politial) problems. The main harater is dropped into that world and must make sense of it and so must the onfused reader. At the start of The Lightning Thief Pery doesn t understand why Mrs. Dodds tries to kill him and neither do we. In The Thief of Always, we re not sure if the house is good or evil. Yet, as we ontinue reading, this earlier onfusing sene takes on more signifiane and we understand more learly. We begin to see how the piees are fitting together. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 9 of 24 As readers read fantasies with multiple plotlines, jumps in time, and deliberately onfusing senes, they need to learn how the parts of the story fit together, referring to earlier parts of the text as these now take on greater signifiane. In other words, students need to be able to Explain how a series of hapters, senes, or stanzas fit together to provide the overall struture of a partiular story, drama or poem (RL6.5). You an teah this effetively by building on students experienes and knowledge of harater. Often the main harater sets out on an adventure, and has to figure out what the rules are about the plae where that adventure, or quest, takes plae. Harry has to learn about Hogwarts and the magial world. Pery has to learn about half-bloods. Wiglaf has to learn about Dragon Slayer s Aademy and its greedy prinipal. As these haraters learn, visibly, about the values, beliefs, and ustoms of this plae, the reader is supposed to learn as well. It s one way the author eduates the reader, through the expliit learning experienes of the harater. Many younger readers don t realize that there are lues in omplex novels that alert them to times when they should sit up and take notie, beause an important bit of information is going to be onveyed. For your stronger readers, you may also show them how in omplex novels, sometimes the reader synthesizes information ahead of the harater that is, our understanding omes before the main harater, as we infer more rapidly than he or she. It s the way readers knew that Bella, in Twilight, was in love with a vampire before she knew that, or realized that Harry himself was perhaps a horrux, before Harry did, in Harry Potter. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

10 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Today I want to teah you that in ompliated stories suh as these fantasy novels, often the main haraters begin without a lot of knowledge, and they have a steep learning urve. When the main haraters are told important information or have new and unfamiliar experienes, alert readers see those moments in the story as opportunities not only for the haraters to learn but for them to learn hand in hand with the main haraters. Bend I, Session Five: Takling hard voabulary by studying patterns, word families, and Latin roots Another aspet of fantasies that may give readers some diffiulty at the start is the language. As students read their fantasies, they will likely enounter unfamiliar terms (e.g. minstrel), perhaps even words that were invented by the author of their fantasy (e.g. Wookie; Muggle). It might be worthwhile, then, make sure you dediate instrution to the partiular task of understanding the language -- arhai, invented, ompliated -- that is one of the hallmarks of the hallenge of reading fantasy. Today I want to teah you that that knowledgeable readers expet fantasy novels to inorporate hallenging voabulary. Readers, then, study the way that writers use words again and again, they onsider the signifiane of word families, and they beome familiar with Latin roots to help figure out meaning. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 10 of 24 You will likely want to help students deal with unfamiliar terms first through envisioning and making sense of the words in the ontext of what is happening in the story - espeially as fantasy writers tend to use words again and again. For example, in Harry Potter, the word Muggle is repeated and though at first it is meant to be a deliberately onfusing term, the reader an pay attention to how and when the term is used in order to get more information about what it really means. You an show students how it will be important to pay attention to how the word is used in order to figure out the type of term it is. For example if Drao Malfoy looks down his nose at Hermione and alls her a Muggle, readers get the lue that the term is one of disrespet and later find out while it means one who is not a wizard or with, it is also an insult. This repeating of key terms is a ommon tehnique---look at how half-blood is repeated twie in the first paragraph of The Lighting Thief, for example. Study word families and Latin roots as well, and you ll see that many fantasy writers reate words using Latin origins (Lumos, in Harry Potter, for example, or Mr. Canis, the Big Bad Wolf in Sisters Grimm). This is a good time for a quik study of the most ommon Latin roots. Some ideas for small group instrution around voabulary For students who have the most diffiulty in determining the meaning of terms, you might want to set them up for suess by working through the first hapter of their text with them. Begin to read aloud to the students and demonstrate how you enounter unfamiliar terms then use lues to help you to ontinue to figure out what is happening in the story. So, for example, if you have a group of students who are reading at what is onsidered below grade level and they are beginning the first book in the Dragon Slayer s Aademy, you an read aloud the first few pages, pausing right after the Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

11 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, seond sentene to show students how you start doing work to figure out unfamiliar terms immediately. Who s there? Fergus bellowed from inside the hovel. Right here you might stop and say, Hmm...I m not sure what hovel means, but I see that Fergus is inside of it so it must be a plae of some kind. I ll read on to get more information about what he is inside of. By the next page, you ll ome aross information that the whole hovel was but one ramped room whih he shared with Morwena and their thirteen sons and you an here stop, triumphantly and begin to fill in your vision of where Fergus is. Okay, so a hovel is only one room so he lives someplae really small with a ton of people so it s really rowded! Wow, let me piture that for a minute. You an do similar work with the term minstrel as well as help students use the illustration to help them get further information to help determine the meaning of lute. After a few pages (around page four) you an stop and tell the students, We ve ome aross a bunh of terms we had to do a lot of work to figure out. When that happens and you have a handful of words that are kind of unfamiliar, you want to stop and then summarize what has happened to make sure you re understanding the story. So let s stop here and make sure we an summarize what s happening. In addition, you an help them to use these terms. As we summarize the story, let s try to use the voabulary we re enountering. The minstrel is shouldering the lute, it says. So let s use that term in our onversation instead of just plain old, arrying. For your higher level readers, you an do similar work, involving them rereading the first few pages of a text like The Lightning Thief and pausing after that first paragraph to onsider what terms the author wants to forward and how those terms are being used. So you might say, Not only is Pery using this term half-blood in a really onfusing way, he s letting us know that it s something that you are, it s dangerous and sort of out of your ontrol and speial to be a half-blood. Let s write all that down in our notebooks and pay areful attention to what other lues the author gives us about this term. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 11 of 24 Some students may be enountering unfamiliar terms with history behind them (for example, the Lightning Thief onstantly refers to gods and goddesses, mythologial monsters, and so on). These students might find it helpful to also have a opy of a book on myths (D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, for example) beside them as they read. Students who are reading other series may find a ditionary of mythial reatures helpful. Bend I, Session Six: Literary enters, first rotation Today you may deide to introdue literary enters relevant to fantasy reading. This is a plaeholder - you ll deide if now is the time for this, with kids visiting just one enter today, and rotating to different ones in future sessions, or if you save enters for later in the unit, and have kids rotate through all of them in a single, longer time frame. Of ourse, you may deide not to do this, and to instead inorporate this kind of work into small groups that you lead. Up to you! You will likely want to have the enters already organized and plaed around the room. Usually when teahers introdue enters, they report the best suess when students are gathered all in one spot (like the meeting area), and the teaher moves from enter to enter, a la Vanna White, as you talk, letting the students look to see the loation and materials of eah enter. Depending on your students and their experienes with enters, you might want to set up a few Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

12 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, simple guidelines. One shool had these written on a hart: 1. Go to enter with your group and sign in 2. Read the task ard 3. Complete a task 4. Put materials bak the way you found them 5. Apply what you learned with your independent reading book right away You might want students to be in enters with their lubs, a ombination of two lubs, or perhaps another onfiguration. You will also want to deide ahead of time if there is a set time for how long students have to work at a enter, or if they an stay at the enter for the entire period. Additionally, sine students will try the ativities out in their books, you might want to deide if students will stay at the enter to do their reading, or if it would be better for them to go bak to their regular seats. One you have done a quik (30 seond) introdution to eah enter and its materials, you an send the students off to work. Expet that at first there will be a bit of onfusion as people take turns reading the ard, deiding how to best omplete the task or tasks, and generally figure out how to navigate this new ativity. One the students are fairly settled, you ll want to rotate around yourself, giving lean prompts to keep them going, taking notes on the work they are doing, sharing important information as needed. Today s work ould either feel as if you re not teahing at all, or onversely, you might end eah of your lass periods overed in sweat beause you feel like you ve been working so hard. Ideally, we d like to hope you feel something in between! Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 12 of 24 Bend II: Developing Themati Understanding It s About More Than Dwarfs and Elves Now that students are reading, attending to small details and building worlds of the stories and their notebooks are full of tools to help them hold onto their omprehension, they will begin reading to do the deeper themati work that will let them onsider the larger meanings of fantasies. In Bend Two, then, students will ome to see fantasies as more than epi adventures but as symboli of larger themes and they will begin to think and talk about their books metaphorially. Bend II, Session One: Developing themati understanding Perhaps some of the most powerful work fantasy alls readers to do, and the work students are most likely to skip without expliit instrution, is the work around developing themati understanding. You might begin this part of the unit by showing an image from an old map whih inludes that famous term "Here be Dragons," suh as The Carta Marina. There are zillions of images online, suh as sea monsters attaking ships, in plaes the mariners onsidered dangerous. The Lenox Globe, of whih there are also zillions of online images, was the first map to inlude the phrase "Here be Dragons." You might explain to your students how this phrase, and these maps, Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

13 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, show how early map makers were depiting their literal understanding of the world, as well as their metaphori understanding that it was dangerous. "Here be Dragons" symbolized the host of unknown dangers that travelers might enounter. You may deide to read aloud a whole story today (perhaps The Dragon s Tooth, by Brue Colville or The Third Wish, by Joan Aiken.) This will give you a omplete text to talk about - whih is helpful, as symbolism often doesn t pay off totally until the end of a work of literature, or it shifts its signifiane aross a story, and you just won t have time to get through a whole novel as a read aloud. But a short story will allow you to teah the art of notiing how symbols hange aross a text, and show this quikly! Speifially, teah your students that some of the dragons that haraters fae are metaphori dragons (as are the hero s powers). Students will begin to think metaphorially, onsidering the dragons that haraters fae (both metaphorial and physial) and how these dragons drive the haraters. One way readers explore these "dragons" is to onsider the inner struggles that haraters fae. These are the onflits inside a harater s soul that haunt that harater. (For further support in teahing this lesson see session V starting on page 223 in the unit Learning from the Elves, in the volume, Construting Curriulum of the series, Units of Study for Teahing Reading Grades 3-5). Readers, today I want to teah you that in stories you are reading, the haraters fae dragons- not just literal dragons, whih some fantasy haraters do enounter, but also metaphori dragons, whih are the onflits inside haraters souls that haunt them. Powerful fantasy readers learn to think metaphorially about these dragons. You might enourage book lubs to think about the "dragons" in their own lives, as well as the lives of their haraters. After all, one reason we partiipate in book lubs is so that we ome to know eah other better through the books that we read. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 13 of 24 The Common Core expliitly states that students in sixth grade are expeted to be able to study haraters responses to struggles and onsider not only what those responses say about haraters but also about the larger meanings of the text. Your students have heard this before in earlier units. But you will want to wath how they pay attention to the different haraters troubles and onsider what eah harater struggles with and how those different struggles influene the other haraters as well as onvey larger meanings. Students might ask questions of themselves and others suh as: How do the different haraters respond to trouble? What lessons does the harater seem to learn? How? What lessons an we learn from how the harater responds? What do the haraters struggles say about the larger meanings? Bend II, Session Two: Analyzing how authors develop themes From thinking about the "dragons" that haraters fae, you an then move to teahing students that readers ask ourselves: "What is this story really about?" We realize that there are underlying themes and life-lessons in the stories we are reading and we pay attention to how authors develop these themes. Turn to your read-aloud story, though you may also disuss some of the underlying Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

14 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, themes of popular fantasy stories suh as Harry Potter, the Narnia books, and The Lord of the Rings. Readers, today I want to teah you, that often, with great stories, the plot is the vehile for teahing about ideas. Insightful readers onsider how the author develops themes aross a narrative, inluding by onneting senes. You might, for instane, desribe how fantasy readers know that The Lion, the With and the Wardrobe isn t just about withes and fauns. This story is about the struggle between good and evil. It's about how power orrupts. And it's about how the physially strong an use their gifts to protet others. This story is about how even the smallest and physially weakest an find moral strength to defeat evil. It's about love and how love drives us to be better than we are. This story and other fantasy stories, too enompasses all of these omplex, essential themes. That s why we read these stories! Teah your readers that in their lubs, they an move from retelling what happens in their books, to investigating the underlying themes that the story seems to suggest. They ll begin to see that stories are about more than one idea, and that ideas run aross multiple stories whih is how you ll know that your readers are developing themati understanding. Bend II, Session Three: Investigating dominant themes As your readers begin to reognize the struggles between good and evil in their novels, you an teah them about the internal struggle for good and evil that many haraters experiene. One thing that happens in fantasy novels more often than in other books your students have likely read, is that haraters are sometimes unpreditable, or even deeptive, beause they struggle between good and evil. Luke, in the Lightning Thief, turns out to be trouble despite his harming persona. Snape, in Harry Potter, turns out to be heroi despite his nasty personality. This harater work an easily lead kids toward more thoughtful work on theme. Kids an think and talk about how this partiular book takes on the theme of a struggle between good and evil -- is it the kind of book where evil seems too strong, able to overpower the good, until the very end? Or is it instead the kind of book that teahes us that we all have good and evil within us and must make the hoie ourselves? Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 14 of 24 Readers, today I want to teah you that often, in fantasy novels, a dominant theme emerges of a struggle between good and evil. Knowledgeable readers often analyze how that theme plays out in their partiular novels. Bend II, Session Four: Analyzing inner as well as outer struggles You ll also want to remind your readers to do the work they do in any novel, suh as to pay attention to the inner as well as the outer struggles of their haraters. In fantasy novels, as with many omplex novels, the haraters fae more than one struggle. Some of their struggles are plaed on them from the outside. Harry struggles and battles with Voldemort, for instane. But some of their struggles are internal, suh as the way Harry misses his parents so muh. You ll want, therefore, to teah readers to trak the multiple problems faed by haraters. There are also larger numbers of haraters, so that it s produtive to examine a few of the major haraters, paying lose attention to the pressures they suffer, the fores that are exerted on them and by them, the relationships they make, all the intriaies of their ompliated inner lives. Sometimes the problems of one harater, for instane, affet the other haraters. Sometimes the emotional onflits of one harater affet another. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

15 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Today I want to teah you that fantasy readers are alert to the inner as well as the outer struggles of haraters. They pay attention, for example, to the small details that demonstrate a harater is haunted by his or her past, or by harater flaws. Remind students of questions they learned to ask themselves and others in earlier units. You ll want to go bak to the harts of questions you put up during your harater unit and soial issues book lubs. For example, here are a few questions that students likely began asking eah other earlier this year and will want to ontinue asking: How does this harater respond to those obstales? What resoures does the harater draw upon, from deep inside, to meet the hallenges and reah the goals? How does harater feel toward (other haraters/a partiular situation)? Why? Whih sentene from the story explains how it ould be that (inferene about a harater s ations)? Whih sentene from the story explains why? How are the haraters similar and different from eah other? How do they seem to influene eah other? How does the setting in your book influene the main harater? Bend II, Session Five: Analyzing point of view You might also use this time to again teah students about the role of the narrator s point of view, and how it influenes the way events in a novel are desribed. Building on what they already know that texts will be told very differently when they are told by a harater within the story or a removed outsider you will then help them to see that the hoie of who tells the story is a deliberate one made by the author and for good reason. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 15 of 24 Readers, today I want to teah you that often the narrator s point of view dramatially influenes how events are desribed in a novel. Experiened readers analyze the narrator s point of view, inluding how it is shown, and how it affets the story. You might ask your readers to onsider how Harry Potter might have been told otherwise if Harry himself had told parts. What would be hanged? What would be lost or gained in those different hoies? Students an ompare this narration to the first person narration in The Lightning Thief. Pery tells his own story. How does that influene the mood and tone of parts of the story? How does that influene the way events are told? You an show students that the author might have made this hoie to put the reader in the same plae as Pery--totally onfused. A third person narrator would likely have more understanding and the story would lose the tension between what is happening and the reader (and Pery s) onfusion about events. By starting this work on texts where the narrator is evident and there are more overt reasons for why an authorial deision has been made, students will be able to transfer and apply analysis of the narrator to their own texts. Bend II, Session Six: Dealing with multiple plotlines One thing you ll begin to notie with your readers is that even as a harater seems to solve one problem, another arises. Or the original problem turns out to have many parts. Basially, the plot Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

16 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, lines begin to multiply in these novels, within the book, and aross the series. One way readers keep trak of the haraters, problems, and storylines is we use harts, timelines, and other graphi organizers, just as they might have done when reading nonfition or, in earlier years, in histori fition. Readers, as you takle more and more ompliated books, the stories will begin to have multiple plotlines. This means that the main haraters will have more than one problem and that problems will arise for other haraters, and it also means that the problems will not be resolved by the end of a story. Often readers find it helpful to use harts, timelines and other graphi organizers to trak the problems that arise in a story in order to follow the multiple plot lines. You may want to teah your readers, therefore, that alert readers often use a penil as we read, so that we an jot lists of haraters, timelines, maps, make skethes and so forth. You an model this work through your read-aloud text, for whih you and your students will probably reate some of these learning tools. Students will work in lubs and use their reading notebooks to try out a variety of tools to help them hold onto the world of the story. You an also have a teahing share, where lub members leave open their notebooks to a favorite page, and then students do a gallery walk looking at what other readers have done for ideas for how they, too, might use their penil effetively and swiftly as they read. Bend II, Session Seven: Centers Here would be another opportunity for enters, if you wish. Bend III: Literary Traditions, Inluding Arhetypes, Quest Strutures, and Themati Patterns Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 16 of 24 As the unit progresses, students will be speaking about the themes they see running through their various fantasies and ontinuing to work to synthesize ompliated texts. In Bend Three you ll raise the level of their work even further by pushing them to onsider the literary traditions found in fantasies and begin to ompare and ontrast the ways that different authors develop fantasies. For an anhor text this round, you may ontinue to refer to texts you ve already introdued, and also turn to a simple piture book, suh as The Paper Bag Priness, as a way to be able to quikly pratie some ritial reading of familiar fantasy themes and strutures. Students will apply previous learning about themes and strengthen this work by onsidering how different authors approah the grand themes found in fantasies, reading aross fantasies to disuss arhetypal haraters, raft of authors and plot strutures. Bend III, Session One: Analyzing arhetypes A preditable aspet of fantasy novels is that the haraters often play expeted roles in the story. Teah your readers that the main harater is usually the hero of the story. But ommon herotypes inlude the traditional hero, suh as Prine Caspian; the relutant, or everyday hero, the ordinary person who finds herself swept into great events, suh as Harry Potter; and the anti-hero, Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

17 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, who usually has several non-heroi traits. She may heat, or lie, or steal, or be ruel. Yet she plays a heroi part in the drama. Snape is that kind of anti-hero, as is Sinbad, or Puk in the Sisters Grimm. Other ommon harater roles in fantasy inlude the mentor, who teahes and guides the young hero; the ompanions, who usually aompany the hero on the quest; and the villain, who is often disguised and an even appear to some to be benevolent, like the Queen in Narnia. Just before Book Six of Harry Potter was released Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prine, there was a lot of press about it. Someone from the publisher had leaked that a major harater would die in the novel. Fans everywhere met and surmised who it would be. Would it be Ron, Harry s volatile best friend? Would it be Hagrid, the loyal gamekeeper at Hogwarts? Would it be malevolent Professor Snape, who detests Harry? Avid young fantasy readers, though, were onvined that it would be Dumbledore who would die. They reasoned that Dumbledore had to die beause he s the mentor, and the mentor has to die so the hero an ome of age. They were right. They understood about arhetypes and narrative strutures. We suggest you bring in film lips of other fantasy and dystopian stories that students will be familiar with - Harry Potter, The Lightning Thief, even Frozen might have a plae. You an then teah your students that experiened readers of genre often onsider the role that haraters play in a story, thinking about them as arhetypes, or as partiular kinds of agents in literature. Students might brainstorm in lubs various haraters that they have seen versions of again and again. Some students might know the arhetypial name for these haraters if so, hart that name. If not, you an provide it. In this way, Ares, Ursula the Seawith, Voldemort beome grouped together as arhetypial villains, while Dumbledore, Gandalf, and Haymith are dubbed the arhetypial mentors. If you hoose to read The Paper Bag Priness here (it s quite short, so you ould likely show some lips and still have time to read the story, talk about arhetypes, then send kids to read with this new lens for another 15 minutes of lass), both Elizabeth and the Dragon ould be interesting to disuss with this lens. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 17 of 24 Today I want to teah you that readers often notie the struture of a text and how stories and ertain literary traditions often have similar strutures. Fantasy and dystopian readers are espeially alert to quest strutures, and they look for how a quest may be physial or psyhologial. Other arhetypes they might notie, or you might feel important to highlight, inlude: the sidekik, the onsort, the hero, the sapegoat, the mother figure and so on. On this day, lubs might lay out eah of the texts they ve read so far, alongside the anhor texts. They an then ompare haraters with this lens, analyzing how different authors develop ertain arhetypes, inluding when haraters are not totally onsistent. You might also want to entertain a mid-workshop inquiry for students who are partiularly fasinated by the onept of arhetypial haraters: why would an author use them? What work does it do for the story and the genre when they are used? Bend III, Session Two: Analyzing quest strutures - internal quests as well as external Fantasy and dystopian readers are espeially alert to quest strutures, and they study both the external quests haraters are on and their internal ones. To do this work, readers pay attention to detail, and to struture. It s often helpful, for instane, to make timelines of the internal and external Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

18 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, quests of haraters. Today I want to teah you that fantasy readers are alert to the internal as well as the external quests haraters are on. They notie and aumulate the small details and the overall strutures that reveal harater s quests. Most fantasy stories follow a quest narrative struture. This means that the hero is given a quest, whih means he or she must journey to ahieve something. Sometimes the quest involves resuing a aptive or a sared objet, as with Shrek or Sinbad. Other times the quest may require the hero to destroy a villain or a dangerous objet, as with The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. A third ommon quest narrative is one in whih the hero has entered another world or plae, and must now find a way out; the quest is the journey out of there, as with Alie in Wonderland. Bend III, Session Three: Considering how authors play with arhetypes Readers an start to onsider how authors have reated similar haraters but developed them in different ways and what those hoies mean for how themes are onveyed. How is Pery as a hero different than Harry? How is Voldemort in the Harry Potter series as a villain different than Saint Dane in the Pendragon series? What hoies have authors made about how to develop these arhetypal haraters? What does that show us about the way they approah themes? It is this analyti work that will move students to the highest level of thinking of about their fantasies. Readers look for how authors play with arhetypes. To do this work, readers ompare and ontrast haraters aross novels, noting the ways they are similar and different, and how they fulfill or break with arhetypes. Bend III, Session Four: Comparing themes aross texts Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 18 of 24 Finally, you might want to enourage your readers to re-examine the themes in their books, thinking aross texts. One ommon aspet of fantasy stories is that they are almost always about the epi struggle between good and evil, and in fantasy, by the end, good triumphs. In this way, fantasy stories are moral triumphs. They preah that people are inherently good. They demonstrate that the struggle against injustie is worth it, no matter how arduous the journey. A ommon theme in these fantasy novels, though, is that the harater has to overome internal struggles and embrae his or her essential goodness in order for good to triumph for all. Selfsarifie, thus, is one of the most important themes in fantasy. The hero must put him or herself in danger s way. That s one reason these stories are so inspiring. Your readers will begin to see why these stories are so stirring, as they begin to reognize reurring themes and literary traditions. Teah your readers to ask whih themes appear in more than one text - and then to investigate the small differenes in how these themes play out. To further support your readers, you might begin a bank of themes whih seem ommon aross multiple fantasies and visually display these themes so that readers have the language to disuss what they are seeing in their own books and an build a repertoire of themes. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

19 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Some ommon themes in fantasies *Those who have been hurt an be the most dangerous *We all have the potential for goodness and evil in us and an hoose whih side to be on *There is more power inside of us than we realize *Sometimes in life we hold ourselves bak from our fullest potentials *Sometimes in life when one betrays a friend, one needs to pay for that betrayal *Sometimes innoent haraters sarifie themselves to save others And as all fantasies have similarities, they also have differenes. Today I want to teah you that while the same sorts of themes and haraters run aross many fantasies, eah author has made very speifi hoies and approahed these themes differently. We an hold up two similar haraters or two similar plot patterns up and ask, What hoies has eah author made to develop these differently? Readers an push themselves to onsider how even similar themes are approahed differently by different authors. Harry Potter and Pery both learn to aept things they annot hange, but Pery speifially learns that he must aept his father despite the fat that he is not present in his life and Harry learns that he must aept that though his parents are gone, they will always be with him in heart. Both these stories teah that it is wrong to think of yourself before you think of others. Here you will likely want to be sure students are drawing on different ways of onsidering how authors are approahing themes. You will likely want to bring some of the harts bak from previous units, suh as this one from historial fition: Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 19 of 24 We Can Analyze How Different Authors Approah Themes by Comparing and Contrasting moments of hoie times when harater(s) respond to trouble moments when haraters feel onfliting emotions perspetives authors have hosen physial and psyhologial settings parts where images, objets, et. seem to resurfae parts where minor, seemingly unimportant haraters resurfae hoies of language (e.g. names of titles, haraters, plaes) and how this language might onnet to the themes of the story) how life lessons are taught (some are taught through haraters themselves realizing lessons while others are taught through readers seeing haraters mistakes/flaws) And Asking: What an I learn from these moments? What does eah author seem to be trying to really say? How is eah author approahing a theme in his/her own way? Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

20 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Bend III, Session Five: Reading with ritial lenses There is one more lens that you might want to teah your readers to put on as they move forward with fantasy reading. That is to read with ritial lenses. You might want to begin by showing images of Disney haraters, suh as the Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and so forth. It doesn t take long to see that all these haraters get to be brave and strong, but they all also have to be beautiful. Only beautiful girls get to be heroines in Disney. Then, teah your students that one way readers analyze stories is with ritial lenses, being alert to stereotypes and gender norms. You might look at how Eria, the ross-dressing-underover-female-dragon-slayer in Dragon Slayer Aademy, breaks out of girl stereotypes suh as wanting to wear dresses and play with dolls. You might reall Annabeth from The Lightning Thief and her fiereness. You might disuss the ompliated ways that females are portrayed in Frozen. You may teah your readers that we an analyze a harater by his or her appearane and his or her ations. Readers ask ourselves: "Does this harater fit with ommon stereotypes?" This is another time when reminding students of their work in Soial Issues Book Clubs will pay off. Perhaps you ll even bring out harts from that unit as reminders, and invite students to think about whih parts of the hart are still relevant as is and whih parts would need revision to apply to fantasy novels. Readers, today I want to teah you that one way readers analyze a story is to read with ritial lenses for stereotypes and gender norms, or rules. One way to do this work is to onsider haraters ations and appearanes. Bend III, Session Six: Deepening reading of all genres Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 20 of 24 Finally, you ll want to be sure to make time at the end of the unit for readers to reflet on what reading praties they ve honed in reading fantasy that they an use in other genres. Hopefully your readers have ome to love series, they ve learned to seek books avidly, they ve pratied preparing for book lub onversations, they ve learned to investigate ompliated haraters and trak multiple plotlines, and they ve developed themati understandings aross texts. All of this reading work will pay off in other genres! Lots of haraters in realisti fition, for instane, have "dragons." Many fae more than one problem. Charaters in realisti and historial fition often go on quests, fae obstales, learn how to be strong, and turn out to be relutant heroes. So teah your readers that we make opportunities to reflet on our work and make plans for how to inorporate and extend it. Readers, today I want to teah you readers onsider how they an bring what they ve learned from studying one genre, to deepen their analytial reader of other genres. You will want to wrap up the unit having students looking bak aross their logs, reading notebooks and other artifats from their reading lives in sixth grade to see what goals they have met and what they have yet to ahieve. You might teah that when readers find suess they build upon that suess to make goals. Teah students how to reate their own book lists and then how to gather the books to go with them. Be sure to onnet students with fantasy series and authors who tend to Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

21 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, write additive books and books that tend to be on levels that stay onsistent throughout the series. You might have your students help you to reate a lass reommendation book list or bulletin board to help make the transfer from beloved fantasy novels to other genres or authors. If you liked The Lion, The With and The Wardrobe, you might like Bridge to Terabithia. If you liked The Dark is Rising you might like The Giver, your students book tips might read. Finally, you might deide to have an end of the unit elebration. Students might find it interesting to reflet on what they learned about fantasy as readers and as people. This might be partiularly true for students who are nervous about leaving sixth grade and moving up to seventh. For many students, the metaphori nature of fantasy might be exatly what they need to talk through their fears and exitement about traveling from their now familiar world to this strange new land. Appendix See the following pages for an example of how instrution and lub work might go for Bends I and II. Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 21 of 24 Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om

22 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Fantasy Book Clubs 22 Bend One: Fantasy Book Clubs Anhor Text: Exerpts from Thief of Always or Lightning Thief Session/Minilesson Conferring and Small Group Mid-Workshop Teahing Share 1 Introdution to genre and read aloud of a first hapter. Fantasy readers know to read losely at the start of a book, asking, What kind of plae is this? Fantasy readers look for lues about the setting and the magial elements, in partiular. Readers start to add the details together, beginning to make inferenes about the setting, the rules of magi, and the haraters. Club disusses what this story is starting to suggest about the setting, the rules of magi, and the haraters. Dupliate with permission only Please ontat permissions@readingandwritingprojet.om Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein (CLowenstein@shools.ny.gov) Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 22 of 24 2 Fantasy readers onsider the setting not only as a physial setting but also as a psyhologial one. They analyze the mood, asking how the author develops the setting. 3 Fantasy readers investigate power in their novels, asking who has power, and analyzing the visible signs of power in its different forms 4 Readers see the moments when haraters learn new information or have new experienes as opportunities not only for the haraters to learn but for them to learn hand in hand with the main haraters. 5 Fantasy novels inorporate hallenging voabulary that readers an make sense of by envisioning to make sense of hard words. 1. Notiing authors raft as a window to tone. 2. Empathy work asking How would I feel here? 3. Notiing when setting hanges in a book and notiing the differene in tone. 1. Plaes to look for power = soiety, family, friendships 2. Thinking about harater traits for kids who are not ready for power. 3. Power in fantasy is good and bad we an look at eah ex. and analyze 1. How is the harater hanging = what they are learning. 2. Internal vs. External hange it s the internal we an learn from. 3. Finding onnetions to our own life. 1. Substitute the word. 2. Find the part of the word you know. 3. Latin/Greek roots lesson. 6 CENTERS (Optional) Inquiry into the elements of fantasy using video lip (HP) Readers examine when power is dangerous, and when it is useful, aording to the books they are reading. Readers ask - what values or beliefs are honored in this story? What is right and wrong? Paying attention to the new, worldspeifi words the author is teahing us. Talk to lub omparing their ideas. Club ompares tones in different settings in the book. Clubs disuss when power is dangerous, and when it is useful, aording to the books they are reading. Club disusses what values are embedded in the story so far and whether they agree with those beliefs. Clubs makes a list of new worldspeifi words the author is teahing them, and notes the hallenging voab they grappled with that day.

23 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Fantasy Book Clubs 23 Dupliate with permission only Please ontat Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 23 of 24 Bend Two: Fantasy Book Clubs Anhor Text: More Exerpts or The Dragon s Tooth, by Brue Colville or The Third Wish, by Joan Aiken Session/Minilesson Conferring and Small Group Mid-Workshop Teahing Share 1 Read Aloud of a story Powerful fantasy readers learn to think metaphorially and symbolially about fantasy. Charaters fae dragons- not just literal dragons, but also metaphori dragons, whih are the onflits inside haraters souls that haunt them. 2 In fantasy, the plot is the vehile for teahing about ideas. Insightful readers onsider how the author develops themes aross a narrative, inluding by onneting senes. 3 Often, in fantasy novels, a dominant theme emerges of a struggle between good and evil. Knowledgeable readers often analyze how that theme plays out in their partiular novels. 4 Fantasy readers are alert to the inner as well as the outer struggles of haraters. They pay attention, for example, to the small details that demonstrate a harater s flaws. 1. How to unover a theme. 2. Traking a theme through a text. 3. Comparing books with similar themes. 1. What qualities or ations are good in this story and whih are evil? 2. What lessons the harater learning? 3. What are we supposed to learn about staying good or turning evil? 1. Inner struggles often live in the hoies a harater makes. 2. Often the flaw is also the key to the hero saving the world. Seeing how that works in a book an help to predit and learn. Clubs disuss the metaphors they are notiing in their books by asking these questions: *How do the different haraters respond to trouble? *What lessons does the harater seem to learn? How? *What lessons an we learn from how the harater responds? *What do the haraters struggles say about the larger meanings? How senes along a similar theme might onnet: * add info or ideas * Make theme more urgent * Show omplexity Connet to power lesson in bend one. Often good and evil both want power lub asks what is the differene between good power and bad power in this text? Usually a harater s flaws are onneted to their strength. Students make a reading plan: What will they be on the lookout for during the next few days of reading? What is the lub on about? Clubs disusses emerging themes and ranks them. Students make a reading plan: What will they be on the lookout for during the next few days of reading? What is the lub on about? Clubs disusses the hero s main flaws how they are onneted to their strength, how their friends and mentor help them, what they are learning beause of their flaws.

24 Reading Curriular Calendar, Sixth Grade, Fantasy Book Clubs 24 Dupliate with permission only Please ontat Prepared for: Claire Lowenstein Copyright 2018 Reading and Writing Projet. Page 24 of 24 5 Often the narrator s point of view influenes how events are desribed in a novel. Experiened readers analyze the narrator s point of view, inluding how it is shown, and how it affets the story. 6 In stories with multiple plotlines the main haraters will have more than one problem and problems will arise for other haraters. Often readers find it helpful to use harts, timelines and other graphi organizers to trak the problems that arise in a story in order to follow the multiple plot lines. 1. Naming the pov of the story, and what the narrator knows and does not know. 2. Considering how muh we an trust the narrator. 3. Looking at how different harater feel about one sene. 1. Helping students trak various plots with a hart. 2. Helping student who want to trak various problems and how haraters deal with them. 3. Helping students design their own fous of omplexity and the tools to help them trak it. Compare narrator s point of view with another harater s. Choose a way to trak your thinking. 7 CENTERS (Optional) Club disusses how book would be different if written from a different harater s point of view: what would the themes be then? Set up your notes for homework/the next few days work.