Texts and Lesson Ideas for Teaching Multiple Points of View (Common Core Reading Literature Standard 6)

Point of View has always been one of my absolute favorite skills to teach.  Helping students to see events from multiple points of view is a vital skill to so many learning milestones: reading abstract plots, building empathy, understanding narrators, building a conceptual foundation to history, and my list could go on.

This summer I am doing some planning for next year for grades 5 and 7, so I decided to start searching for text and lesson ideas by standard.  Standard 6 of the Reading Literature standards focuses on point of view. As you look at the wording of the standard of each grade, you can see that the concept just builds a little each year. My goal is to work on some lesson units for my store with lesson ideas by standard for middle school.

Grade 5 RL 6 - Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.

Grade 6 RL 6 - Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

Grade 7 RL 6 - Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.

Grade 8 - Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.

Some great examples of picture books to use as a mentor text that include multiple points of view:

Voices in The Park - This is a simple story with four differ points of view on a walk in the park.

The Pain and the Great One - This is one of my favorite books to teach with because most students can relate to the idea of an annoying sibling. A brother and sister each describe one another and how they annoy each other.  This is also a great story to teach making connections.

The Day the Crayons Quit - This is a great humorous story told from the point of view of a box of crayons to explain why they have decided to quit.  I love following up this book with writing activities where students write from unique points of view.  I have a unit for this book in my TpT store for upper elementary.

Hey Little Ant - This story is told from alternating points of view between a little boy and an ant.

Teaching point of view by looking at unique points of view:

Teaching fractured fairy tales is always a fun way to teach about point of view and writing from unique perspectives. You can find many great examples of great fractured fairy tales if you search on Pinterest.

Two Bad Ants is a great book that gets kids thinking how life would be from the point of view of an ant. Getting students to write from different perspectives always produces some of my favorite writing pieces of the year.  Ask your students to write from an object's point of view or the antagonist.  Here is a lesson for using Two Bad Ants.

Some other lessons and resources from Read Write Think on point of view:

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/wolf-analyzing-point-view-23.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/activities-projects/explore-point-view-fairy-30148.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/spend-shoes-exploring-role-265.html

Some other links I found:

Suggestions of kids and young adult novels with multiple points of view: http://thestylinglibrarian.com/2013/05/27/styling-librarian-children-books-with-multiple-points-of-view/

Suggestions of kids books on point of view: http://www.teachingkidsbooks.com/3rd-4th-grade/point-of-view

Lessons on point of view from Read Write Think for middle school students:
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/teaching-voice-with-anthony-167.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/story-writing-from-object-30917.html

Resources of suggestions of short stories and lesson ideas for teaching standard 6 focusing on literary elements such as irony: 

My favorite short story from this list that I would use to teach irony and point of view is The Ransom of Red Chief. After having students read this story, we always put the kidnappers on trial to see if they were really guilty.

http://www.elacommoncorelessonplans.com/literature-reading-standards/exemplars-g-9-10/short-story-guides-lessons/teaching-irony.html
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/high-school-english-lessons/41476-short-stories-to-teach-point-of-view/
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/high-school-english-lessons/40339-short-stories-to-teach-irony/

Read Alouds in Middle School

As I was getting ready to move up from grades 4-5 to grades 7-8, I had to make some plans to adjust some of my teaching approaches to older students.  One aspect that I love about teaching Language Arts is reading aloud to kids.  Reading great books aloud to kids does so many wonderful things.  You get to model fluency, and it gives you room to discuss all of the elements of literature and reading strategies.

With elementary students, I usually used a mix of novels and picture books for read alouds.  As I was planning for middle school, I remembered a presenter from a workshop I went to years ago.  It was a workshop on balanced literacy.  The presenter was a middle school teacher who said she read the first part of a different novel to her students every week.  If they wanted to know what happened next, they had to pick up the book and read.

After thinking about it, I decided to try this for this year with my 7th and 8th graders.  Every week I will read the first couple chapters of a different book to them.  Occasionally, we may choose to read an entire novel all together.  Reading a couple chapters gives enough plot to discuss characters, plot, literary elements, good introductions to writing, etc.  It also is a fabulous way to introduce kids to different genres and hopefully get them excited about reading. I will have my students record different concepts in their language arts notebook as we read.  We will use some foldables and some just drawing different graphic organizers.

What we have read so far this year:

1. Wonder

The first week of school, we read Wonder by RJ Palacio.  We discussed what makes all of us unique an also how we want to be perceived by others.  I had them write their first essay of the year on how they wanted others to perceive them.

2. If I Stay

Then, we read the first couple chapters of If I Stay.  I won't always choose books that are movies, but I know a lot of times the kids are interested in the books that are movies.  For If I Stay, we discussed the differences between external and internal conflict.

3. The Maze Runner

When we started reading The Maze Runner, this is when I really saw my plan come to life.  The kids were so intrigued with the story from the first two chapters, they voted unanimously to have us read the entire book. I happened to have the audiobook on my iPad, so we are listening to the audio version of the book for about 30 minutes per day.  Of course, some of them went out and saw the movie.  I had a few rush out and buy the book and read it right away.  Some have started the second book.  Ultimately, it got many of them excited about reading.

During the first two chapters, I had my students write down descriptions of the setting and also listen for new words and guess their meanings using context clues.  The boys in the glade have a very interesting set of slang words, but it is a great demonstration of using context clues to determine meanings of words. As we are listening to the audio book, I will have them do some tasks in their notebooks, but most of the time we will listen just for pleasure. We will also probably do some writing assignments using the novel.

How do you use read alouds in middle school?

Literature Circles by Student Choice of Genre

We spent the last two week surveying the different fiction genres. The week before last they read three different stories from different genres.  For each genre, they completed one of Jen Runde's Genre Posters.  They worked out perfectly.

Last week for some variety, I put them in three groups.  Each group read one genre.  Then, they had to complete a project to teach us about the genre they read.  Two groups wrote skits they performed and one group made a short movie.  They presented their projects on Friday.



 Then, they had to vote for their top 3 preferences of genre to read.  I had explained that we would be doing a round of book clubs/literature circles based on genre.  I chose our books based on their votes.  Everyone had either Science Fiction or Fantasy as their first or second choice.


So, I chose a Science Fiction novel and a Fantasy novel.  The Science Fiction group is reading A Wrinkle in Time and the Fantasy group is reading Gregor the Overlander.

Today we started our novels.  I handed a blank calendar template out to each group with their novel.  They had to decide as a group how much they would read each day.  They had four weeks to read the week.  One group chose to read the book in three weeks, and the other decided they wanted to finish the book in a week. By giving them a calendar and making them decide, it holds them accountable and motivates them to read.  We will be doing some different writing assignments as we read. I am going to have them focus on writing and citing text, as opposed to just answering comprehension questions.



How do you organize literature circles in your classroom?

Now to catch you up on what I have been reading:

This week I finished:

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

This book is a really interesting story that is paired with photographs throughout.  The idea of a phototext - a fictional story with photographs - is something that really intrigues me and I would like to research more as a graduate student. The story is about a teenage boy that always thought his grandfather was crazy because he talked about his childhood spent with these peculiar children with special gifts.  If you look at the cover of the book and the photographs, the book almost seems like it will be creepy.  But it actually is really just a Fantasy story.  The photographs add a whole other layer though that tell their own story. This would be a fabulous story to do with a study involving graphic novels, where you could discuss what are the elements of a visual narrative. I am looking forward to starting the next book in the series.

The Madman's Daughter

This book was inspired by HG Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau.  It is from the point of view of Moreau's daughter.  This was a really interesting story.  It definitely could be used for a discussion of ethics.





















Grave Mercy

This book takes place in Brittany, a sub-region of France, that was once its own country during the 15th century.  It is about a girl that is supposedly sired by death and gets sent to a convent to train to be an assassin.  The book sounds dark, but was actually more about royal political intrigue. I didn't realize that when the Catholic church went into the Celtic areas that they adopted a lot of the pagan gods as saints to pacify and convert the Celtic groups. Most of the people and details in this book are based on real people, but the main character that is trained as an assassin was fictional.  It was a really interesting story, and I look forward to reading the second book.  Historical Fiction will always be my favorite!  Now, I want to go research more about France, England, and the Celtic regions. From Wikipedia, I learned Brittany was sometimes referred to as little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain), hence now I know the significance of the term Great Britain.

What have you been reading?

Resources to Teach Nonfiction Text Structure and the Olympics

My plan today was to share some resources I found to teach the Olympics.  I saw several people had some great posts about teaching nonfiction text structures, so I thought I would share on both.

We have been reading biographies and practicing nonfiction reading skills.  I now plan on covering Nonfiction Text Structures. In order to introduce Nonfiction Text Structures, I will first have my students watch this video from Learnzillion.  If you have not checked out Learnzillion, it is a great free website with Common Core aligned video lessons.

We will complete an overview lesson on all of the text structures, and then individual lessons from Erin's Interactive Informational Reading Notebook.  We have been focusing lately on compare and contrast, so we will start with this text structure.

She has great exemplar paragraphs in her writing notebook as well.  Teaching with a Mountain View had a great post on how she used Erin's resources.

Comprehension Connection had a great post today with mentor text suggestions for each text structure. I am excited to use the handout she mentions from Ms. Jordan Reads as a quick reference for my students.

Jivey had a great post today on using Text Structures.

I will also pull additional passages from www.readworks.org for additional practice with each text structure if need be. 

I had already decided that this week and next week we would talk about the Olympics.  We started on Friday by watching Time Warp Trip: My Big Fat Greek Olympics.  You can watch it in 3 parts on Youtube. Then, my students had to read about a country and an individual from that country. We had to cancel a field trip at the last minute, so I made this handout at the last minute. You can get a free copy here.  I also printed out different flags for them to color that I found online.

Today my students read "The Olympics: Then and Now" on www.raz-kids.com.  It is a multi-level reader, so it made for a perfect read since I had to take a sick day today. 

Teaching Star Students shared a list of website links for having students research the Olympics.

The resource I am the most excited about is Ashleigh's Olympic Close Reading pack.  It is one of the best resources I have EVER purchased.  She put so much time into it.  Every passage is written at three levels with three different question sets for 3 different close reads.  We will be using her pack to practice close reading, discuss the Olympics, and practice recognizing text structure. 

I also purchased Erin's Data Pack to practice map and graphic skills.

What resources are you using to cover the Olympics in your classroom?