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| Wiles, Deborah. FREEDOM SUMMER. illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue. Aladdin. 2005. |
Flex Schedule is so funny, once one teacher comes to me with an idea, a lot of the teachers want in on the lesson too. So, I ended up teaching this lesson with all 3rd and 4th grade classes.
With 3rd grade, I started out reviewing inferences, and how we use the author's clues and our schema together to make an inference. The author does not always tell the reader everything, the reader has to dig deeper into the text to infer what is happening. This makes it more fun for the reader!! While reading the story, I stopped at certain parts of the story, and students told me their schema, then made an inference. While I read, the teacher filled out the anchor chart with the students' responses.
After reading the story, pairs took a Chromebook to a table, and opened up the padlet I created before class. Pairs discussed what they thought the theme of the story was using our inferences as a basis.
4th grade teachers wanted to focus more on theme, character change, and emotions. One of the 4th grade teachers came up with a note-taking sheet students filled out while I read the book. The plan was to have the students answer the questions making a video using the app, RECAP. However, it wasn't working that day, so students made their notes in preparation to make their video.
If you have not read FREEDOM SUMMER to your students, I highly recommend it! I read the book 8 times last week, and still teared up at the end each time. One class clapped at the end of the story, it was very moving, and it created GREAT conversation with the students. Especially our GT and academically advanced students that we have here.
All these lessons in the library made for a super busy week, but it was worth every busy minute!
