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The Magic of Themes and Symbols
The Magic of Themes and Symbols
During the final unit of fifth grade, you’ll find an emphasis on developing students’ knowledge of literary traditions, encouraging students to read with more maturity and independence. The unit reflects an acute awareness that students will be going on in middle school and the rest of their lives as truly independent readers. We need to ensure students are ready to make their own way through longer and more complicated books, to form their own study groups around reading, and to work through hard parts with a toolkit of strategies and a sense of resiliency.
Constructing and Navigating other Worlds
Constructing and Navigating other Worlds
Session 1
Researching the setting
Making sure essentials are in place
Taking into account the complexity of the setting
Considering who has power in these places
Session 2
Learning alongside the main character
Setting up reading notebooks and/or writing about reading to engage deeply
Inferring ahead of the main character
Fifth-graders need to set their own agendas for clubs
Session 3
Keeping track of problems that multiply
Weighing and evaluating problems for their significance to the character, plot, and theme - and using argumentation skills to develop new thinking
Using flash debates to defend positions
A gallery walk of some notebooks pages
Session 4
Suspending judgement: Characters (and places) are not always what they seem
Weighing, evaluating, and ranking evidence
Reconsidering places as not always what they seem
Relating new evidence to new possible themes
Session 5
Reflecting on learning and raising the level of book clubs
More than Dwarves: Metaphors, Life Lessons, Quests, and Thematic Patterns
More than Dwarves: Metaphors, Life Lessons, Quests, and Thematic Patterns
Session 6
Here be dragons: Thinking metaphorically
Looking for the subtle theories, and ground them in specific text details
Characters' perspectives can limit their understanding
When you club has so much to talk about and think about, how do you bring it together?
Session 7
Readers learn real life-lessons from fantastical characters
Weighing and evaluating themes and life lessons with different lenses
Readers learn from mistakes, characters make, not just their achievements
Reflecting on textual lineages - the books that have mattered to us and why
Session 8
Quests can be internal as well as external
Managing the social and intellectual work of clubs independently
Noticing that other structures in stories often give readers crucial information
Understanding how quests change characters: Linking structure to them
Session 9
Comparing themes in fantasy and history
Bringing story schema to the study of narrative nonfiction, and historical lenses to the study of novels
Creating records of our thinking so other readers can borrow it
Considering how characters' perspectives might shape the themes they end up demonstrating
Session 10
Self-assessing using reading progressions
When Fact and Fantasy Collide
When Fact and Fantasy Collide
Session 11
Using information to better understand fantasy stories
Supporting students to find appropriate nonfiction texts
Fantasy creatures and words can appear in more than one book, by different authors
Students share their favorite fact-fantasy finds
Session 12
Using vocabulary strategies to figure out unfamiliar words
Using the language of the literature when having club conversations
Remind students to carry what they have learned from other books as they read new books
Making checklists part of reading workshop
Session 13
Fantasy characters are complex
Session 14
Investigating symbolism
Settings can play a special, symbolic role in fantasy stories
Special objects in fantasy deserve special attention
Toggling between the small and the large: Small details and big ideas
Session 15
Interpreting allegories in fantasy stories
Teach students to assume that in fantasy, everything has a deeper meaning
Checking on goals based on the learning progressions
Strengthening club members' work
Literary Traditions: Connecting Fantasy to Other Genres
Literary Traditions: Connecting Fantasy to Other Genres
Session 16
Paying attention to how cultures are portrayed in stories
Using text features to help readers build background knowledge
Reminding students to use information from nonfiction texts to better understand fantasy
Gleaning historical insights from references in fantasy books
Session 17
Identifying archetypes
Fantasy readers go beyond archetype scavenger hunts by looking across texts
Thinking about unexpected archetypes
Using checklists to raise the level of writing about reading
Session 18
Reading across texts with critical lenses
Looking for characters who "break the mold"
Comparing and contrasting with a critical lens
Celebrating the revisions students make in their thinking
Session 19
The lessons we learn from reading fantasy can lift our reading of everything
Wrapping up: Final discussions, flash essays, copliments
Not taking fantasy reading skills for granted
Helping students set their own reading course
Session 20
Happily ever after: Celebrating fantasy and our quest to be ever stronger readers
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