[Music playing] Readers think about all the things that are happening in the text, and they think about all the things in your schema or your background knowledge. They think about what s probably true about what they re reading. Readers bring as much information to the book or the text that they re reading as they take away, right? The information you bring is everything you know your schema, your background knowledge. And when you combine that with what the author s writing, you can really do some deep thinking about what s probably going on in the story. And last week when we met, you guys were showing me all the great thinking you ve been doing around theme, right, and showing me all the books you ve been reading and thinking about theme. And when read Knuffle Bunny, immediately you knew, right, what the author s message, what Mo Willems was trying to say to readers, and what some of those big ideas were. So today what we were thinking about is to try and take all that great thinking that you re doing around author s message, and sort of instead use that same thinking, but also really start thinking about the characters in the stories. And think a little bit about what type of person or people the characters are in a story, and to begin thinking about what s probably true about a character. Because just like theme or author s message, authors don t always tell us everything about a character, right? They don t always describe them and say exactly who they are, or exactly what they re gonna do, or exactly how they feel. They give us lots of clues in the text. I think we try and pick books that we think you re gonna connect to, right, so that you can come up with what s probably true, all right? So we re gonna try that today with the short piece that we ve picked today to read with you. It s called A Play by Eloise Greenfield. It s a short story about something that happened in someone s life. And what I want you to watch is how I infer and think about what s probably true with the character in this story, okay? All right. Now we ll push down a chart. On this side of the chart I m gonna come up with some of my thinking, and on this side, this is gonna be sort of the evidence in the text, okay? But we re gonna focus on here sound good? All right, here we go. A Play. When I was in fifth grade, I was famous for a whole day, and all because of a play. So already I m thinking that this person must ve been like the leading role in the play, right, the star of the play, cause it says here, the evidence is like she s famous for a
whole day, right? So I m thinking this is a person who really likes to be in a play, right? This is a person who might ve been the star of the play, and I m thinking someone who s the star of the play is usually someone, right, who kinda likes to be the center of attention, or confident, right; really talented, right, in doing those different pieces? So that s sort of my thinking already about this character. I m only one sentence into the story, but I can already get some thinking, right? So I think she s the star. [Voiceover] We talk a lot about observation notes, both in classrooms and with teachers; quite a bit with teachers. We model our own notes. Often teachers will ask us to see our notes when we re in classrooms, either observing them or watching the kids in our conference notes. We talk a lot about there s no right and there s no wrong on what you write, as long as you know what you wrote and why you wrote it. So I think over time, because we always hold people accountable to those notes, we always come back, we always make time for people to share out. [End voiceover] She s in fifth grade, right? So you think about someone being famous for a whole day based off the play in fifth grade. Again, I m gonna use this same line from the text as my evidence for that thought. The teacher had given me a big part, and I didn t want it. I d like to be in plays where I could be part of a group, like being one of the talking trees, or dancing, or singing in the glee club; but having to talk by myself uh-uh. So now I m thinking something different. I m thinking she s really confident and she s the star of the play, but here in the text it s saying she got a big part, but she didn t want it. Hmm. And she d prefer to be one of the group, right? One of the people who you re always with the group, but she didn t want to have to talk by herself, so now my thinking is really changing, right? It s really changing. So now I don t think she was the star. I m still not clear why she was famous, except someone made her do it. But if you wanna be part of the group, I m not I don t think you are someone who s probably necessarily confident, or want to be the center of attention. So she might be someone who s a little bit more shy, and she doesn t want to, right, be part of the whole group. She also = hmm. I m also
thinking here that, you know, I m gonna put a question mark here, cause I don t think, unless I get more evidence later, that she s confident. I also I m not sure whether she s the star or not, cause she s saying she didn t want it, but that she was. So I have to think a little bit about it more. Now I m thinking more that she s shy, or that maybe she doesn t like to be, right, someone who s the center of attention. And again, my evidence, right, is right here where she says, But having to talk by myself? Uh-uh. Right that line? Here s my evidence for this, and this one, that she likes to be part of the group. So now I have a lot of thinking about this character, right. She s famous, but she doesn t really wanna be part of the play. She really wants to be with someone else. She didn t has a big part, but she didn t really want it. So now I want to figure out what s happening. [Break in video] Clare Londrigan: I use a stay. So I had a lot of ideas about this character, right, at the beginning of the story, and they change, and now you ve heard the end. So I m gonna ask you to turn, talk to your partner about what type of person do you think she is, and how did she change throughout this piece? [Students in conversation] Clare Londrigan: Readers. So when I said turn and talk, whew, there was a lot of conversation that I heard you guys going into, and I was able to hear lots of little pieces of what groups were saying. Well, what were some of the thoughts that you talked about with your partner, in your partnership? Yeah. We think that she s like a follower. She doesn t really like to be the leader of stuff. And she because and the evidence is that she was, cause she wanted to be in a group with like one of the talking trees or whatever. So can you find which line in the text it started here and it went through, so this was the part about where the trees were. Do you see? Mm-hmm. So can you read the line in the text? I like being in plays where I could be a part of a group, like being in one of the talking trees, or dancing, or singing in the glee club.
So being in the trees, dancing. And why did that say that to you? What makes you someone who wants to be with the trees, the dancing, and the glee club what in your background knowledge helps you know that that s someone who doesn t wanna be a follower? Who wants to be a follower, not a leader sorry? Because leaders usually like to stand out and be like the person that everybody looks up to and is like, Whoa. They take charge. Right. Yeah, and they take charge and stuff. So what you think is probably true about this character is that she s a follower. She doesn t wanna be a leader, because if she wanted to be a leader, she wouldn t wanna be with the trees and the glee club, right, and the dancing part; all right, great. Yes? Like what I said is I don t think she was famous like in a good way, but it s like she probably said she was famous because it s like saying a famous person, like, Oh, there s So-and-so, and everybody was like, There s the girl that was talking. Right. So do you think she felt a little famous maybe not in a good way, but everybody was talking about her, and everybody knew who she was, because it didn t go well, right? So how might ve she what might she be feeling? Like she might ve been feeling like sad, cause everybody s talking about her. She might feel nervous. She might feel sad. You get up in front of the whole school, and you can t say your lines. Your voice doesn t come out, and everyone s pointing at you and talking about it. Probably doesn t feel very great; she probably feels a little nervous, a little sad, all of that. Yeah. I was kind of what Julie was saying, but You re gonna build on her idea? Yeah. Maybe she was a little happy like not happy that she didn t do well, but maybe she was happy because everyone like talked about her. So do you think she liked the way people were talking about her?
Maybe she got she felt more like famous? So should we reread that part, and let s see how we think she s feeling. Let s listen to that part again. Only nobody in the audience heard me. I couldn t make my voice come out loud. For the rest of the day, I was famous. Children passing by my classroom door, children on the playground at lunchtime, kept pointing at me, saying, That s the girl. That s the one who didn t talk loud enough. I felt so bad I wanted to go home. But one good thing came out of it. The teacher was so angry, so upset, she told me that as long as I was in that school, I d never have another chance to ruin one of her plays. And that was such good news I could stand being famous for a day. Okay, so how do you think she was feeling about the way kids were treating her? She wasn t happy about the way kids were teasing her. But when her teacher said that, she was kinda happy. Yeah. Cause she never has to do another play. Exactly, right? So she was I agree with you. I think she was a little happy in the end, right, because she s saying, Well, at least I one, I don t have to do that again, right? She s not gonna ever make me do that again, and it was probably a relief for her to sorta feel like at least that came out of it, right? Thanks for sticking with that and listening to the reread to find your evidence great job. Yes. I think she was a little bit embarrassed when everybody was like talking about her. So what line in the text helped you feel embarrassed? Like when she couldn t talk and nobody could hear her, and then everybody was talking and pointing at her. So that line, At lunchtime they kept pointing at me and saying, That s the girl, right? That she felt embarrassed cause that s a new word up here, right??so readers, you ve been doing so much thinking around inferring, and how readers think about what s probably true, and you ve done such work. I looked at your chart in the back of the room around themes and author s message and big ideas. I want you to still do that work, right? We still
want you thinking about why authors write books, and what themes and messages they re sending to kids. We also want you to start thinking deeply around your characters. So today, when you go off to independent reading, if your book has a character in it that you feel like you can really think deeply about, and begin to think about what s probably true how are they probably feeling? What type of person are they? How do they change throughout the book? You can begin to do that thinking, and when we come back together, if you had someone in your book that you felt like you could do that thinking about, we d love to hear about how you tried that today; how you tried inferring around a character. Okay? All right, any questions? So who can tell us, what s one thing you might think about today during independent reading? Yeah. A character and how he changes in the book. Okay. Does someone have a different idea of what you might think about today during independent reading? Yes. What you re inferring. You re gonna be thinking about what you re inferring in general? Okay, great. Finding evidence for inferring. So you re gonna really think about what line in the text is helping you have those thoughts? That s a great thing to be thinking about. Yes. The character s feelings and how they re feeling. So does your book lend itself to that the book that you re reading? Yeah. All right; great. [End of Audio]