Common Themes in Fiction

Anchor charts for teaching theme in fiction:

This is a teacher's site, Beth Newington.  Once you follow the link, you will scroll down to Reading Workshop.  In that menu of choices click on Theme Study and Posters.

http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/

This is an example of the theme posters and how she uses them

If you have time to shop around, she has many other great ideas and resources.


Possible Test Questions:


One of  the 4th grade released sample questions:

Both the poem and the selection express the imortance of -
                a) thinking a out others
                b) making new friends
                c) being accepting of others
                d) overcoming challenges

One of the 3rd grade released sample questions:

What is the main message in the poem:
                a) It is important for owners to train their pets
                b) it is difficult to care for some pets
                c) dogs and people are very different
                d) pets and their owners can make each other happy

11 (D) Text Features

Reading/ Comprehension of Informational Text/ Non-Fiction Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about expository text and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding
K	1	2	3	4	5
10(D) use titles and illustrations to make predictions about text	14(D) use text features (e.g. table of contents, index, headings) to locate specific information in text		13(D) use text features (e.g. bold print, captions, key words, italics) to locate specific information and make predictions about contents of text	11(D) use multiple features (e.g. guide words, topic and concluding sentences) to gain an overview of the contents of text and to locate information	Use multiple text features and graphics to gain an overview of the contents of text and to locate information
use multiple features  (e.g. guide words, topic and concluding sentences) to gain an overview of the contents of text use multiple features  (e.g. guide words, topic and concluding sentences) to locate information

Activities:

Comprehension Toolkit Book 2- Lesson 4 Follow the Text Signpost

Linda Hoyt – RATT – Distinguishing Features of Nonfiction

Resources in Tweety =

Text Feature Posters
Text Feature Activities found in tweety....

Triple Text Features Match Up

Find the Text Features

Nonfiction Topic Log

Informational Book Scavenger Hunt

Feature Purpose T-Chart

Write Your Own Nonfiction Book with Text Features

Text Features Match Up



Here is a teacher's anchor chart for Inferring
















Anchor Activities:

Text Feature Activities found in tweety....

Possible Test Questions:

6(B) Character Interactions

Reading/ Comprehension of Literary Text/ Fiction Students understand, make inferences, draw conclusions about the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding
K	1	2	3	4	5
8(B)  describe main characters in the story and the reasons for their actions	9(B)  describe main characters in the story and the reasons for their actions and feelings	9(B)  describe main characters in works of fiction, including their traits, motivations, and feelings	Describe the interaction of characters including their relationships and the changes they undergo Third 8(B) Fourth 6(B)		Explain the roles and functions of characters in various plots, including relationships and conflicts
describe the interaction of characters describe the interaction of characters including their relationships describe the interaction of characters including the changes they undergo

Activities:

Here are a few ideas for demonstrating how to look at characters in a story.

• after reading, design a slide show that presents the characters (their feelings, traits and motivations) and add sentences (evidence) from the story
• reader's notebook:  t-chart showing the feelings/traits on one side and the evidence from the text on the other.  Keeping this running record of their feelings will help illustrate how their feelings change from the beginning to the end and also highlight the events that led to the change....see picture.
• Linda Hoyt RATT : Character Development lesson using the story Snowflake Bentley  
• Four window flip book : create a foldable (Dinah Zike) with 4 windows.  On the outside of the windows write...say, think, feel and do.  Under the window the students will add what they think the character would say, think, feel or do.  They could use text evidence as well...see picture
• Character Trait person : Using  paper plates, yarn and index cards make a  person.  The plate will be the head, the yarn will be the body and the index cards will be attached to  the string to show the character traits.....see picture
• What is your Heart like?  after reading, on paper cut out hearts list traits that describe what a character. 
• Discuss whether a trait is positive / negative as it ciomes up in reading.

Character Traits

• Google Character Traits and you will find endless lists of traits for you to reference. 
• Read Aloud Think Together
• Create a Bubble Map of a character's personality traits.  To encourage the students to begin supporting their conclusions with evidence you can.......write personality trait on the bubble and provide evidence from the text behind the bubble (see pictures)
• Provide a set of  traits that describe a few characters in the book.  Ask the students to sort those traits and tell which character they describe

FEELINGS/EMOTIONS:

• You can find the emotion cards in your First Class.   Curr. & Inst - Elementary Langusge Arts - Curriculum - Fluency Activities - Character Traits (some are traits but most are feelings)
• Create a Bubble Map (if a character experiences several feelings in one text) of a character's feelings.  To encourage the students to begin supporting their conclusions with evidence you can.......write feeling on the bubble and provide evidence from the text behind the bubble (see pictures)
• Create an ongoing Tree Map of feelings including 4 basic emotions ( see pictures).  As you read together and you discover new words add them to the chart.  You can also discuss the degree of the emotion. For example:   annoyed and furious fall under mad, but the degree of anger is very different.  This will help the students be more articulate with their writing, explanations and understand more in their reading.
• happy
• sad
• mad
• scared

 Anchor Activities:

• Character Trait person : Using  paper plates, yarn and index cards make a  person.  The plate will be the head, the yarn will be the body and the index cards will be attached to  the string to show the character traits.....see picture
• What is your Heart like?  after reading, on paper cut out hearts list traits that describe what a character. 
• Four window flip book : create a foldable (Dinah Zike) with 4 windows.  On the outside of the windows write...say, think, feel and do.  Under the window the students will add what they think the character would say, think, feel or do.  They could use text evidence as well...see picture

Possible Test Questions:

Figure 19(D) Inferencing

19(D)
K	1	2	3	4	5
Make inferences based on the cover, title, illustrations, and the plot	Make inferences using about text and use textual evidence to support understanding
Make inferences about the text Use textual evidence to support understanding

Activities:

• Linda Hoyt - Interactive Read Alouds - Infer page 41using The Gardner
• Comprehension Toolkit - Book 4 :Infer Meaning
• here are a few anchor charts that stem from the formula 

                                    text + background knowledge = inference

This anchor chart also include a sentence frame which is helpful for our sencond language learners.

• inferencing with characters - this lesson is from someone's blog - pretty high but good
•  http://christine-readingisthinking.blogspot.com/2011/04/inferring-characters-feelings.html
• inferencing
• http://emilykissner.blogspot.com/search?q=inferencing
• Using Schema to Make Inferences - power point for kids
• Making Inferences powerpoint for teachers that describes types of inferences
• inferecing text you could use
• http://emilykissner.blogspot.com/2011/04/text-set-for-making-inferences.html
• many inferences are made when studying character development.  Check out TEK   for more on inferencing with characters



Below are a few activities that can be done without using reading materials.  You can focus on the concept without bringing in the content just yet.

Character Quotes

• The character quotes activity utilizes student knowledge of well-known story characters. During the matching activity, students must infer phrases a character might say based on knowledge of the character.

  Teachers can print out the character names and quotes. For example, a teacher may print Dorothy from the "The Wizard of Oz" and "Where is my little dog lost during the tornado?" on a piece of paper, and then cut the two apart. One half of the students receive character names and the other half receive the character quotes. Students circulate around the room attempting to match quotes to characters.

Situation Match

• In the situation inference activity, students use printed cards to match a situation to something that might have happened. Teachers print actions on half of the cards and matching situations on the other half. Use index cards or an online card game maker to create the cards.

  Actions such as "He heard the siren and suddenly pulled the car off the side of the road" must be matched with situations such as "The police officer's radar caught the car driving 30 miles an hour over the speed limit." Two students take turns flipping all the cards upside down and then turn over two cards at a time to find matching actions and situations.

Mystery Box

• Items in a mystery box provide students with clues to help infer what activity someone might be doing. Teachers can use shoeboxes to create the mystery boxes. Students open the box to find such items as a straw hat, sunscreen, book, bucket, shovel and towel. After inferring and guessing what someone might be doing, students write guesses and place them in a container the teacher checks daily or weekly.

Receipt Inference

• Teachers can gather receipts from variety or discount stores that contain lists of 10 or more items. Students participate in partners or groups. Once given a receipt, students analyze the items to make inferences about the person who bought that particular list of items. For instance, a receipt containing newborn diapers, large diapers, frozen dinners and a teen pop star's CD might suggest that a father was shopping for the family. Students might infer the family had a new baby and toddler, based on the frozen dinners and diapers. The students might also say the family had a preteen or teenager because of the CD. Writing a story about the family adds creative writing to the activity.

Anchor Station Activities:


Possible Test Questions: