Fourth Grade February: Unit 6 Biography Book Clubs Unit Objective: Students will be able to use story structure

to determine importance, to synthesize, and to analyze critically across long stretches of text ultimately growing theories about them. Students will be able to relate what they know about fictional stories to better understand the structure of biographies. Students will be able to form theories about the subject and time period that subject lived in and apply it to their own lives. Students will be able to identify the components of narrative nonfiction texts and identify overall themes. Part 1: Biography Readers Bring Forward All We Know About Reading Stories Strategy/Skill Text Structure Today I want to teach you that a biography is the story of one persons life. We can identify biographies through expository nonfiction text. Pg. 102/108 Teach the difference between narrative and expository text (one provides information like boxes and bullets, the other flows like a story). Readers need to decide what type of nonfiction it is before we can decide how to read it. RI4.10 RL4.10 Henrys Freedom Box by Ellen Lavine

Mentor Texts:

Literal Craft Story Structure Today I want to teach you that because biographies are stories, we can use all we know about reading fictional stories to read biographies. Pg. 102/108 Reteach the story arc Biographies have a central character called the subject. Use a T-chart graphic organizer to identify what the subject wants and whats getting in the way (what struggles or hardships is the subject facing).

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Strategy/Skill Building Theories Today I want to teach you that just as we did with fiction stories, readers go through biographies trying to understand and develop a theory about the main character /the subject. Pg. 102/109 Students will ask questions as they read: Who is this person? Who is in this persons life? How do those people impact this person? Pay attention to the decisions he/she makes to better understand the subjects specific traits. Identify if the subject has positive or negative relationships, how he/she tackles the relationships, and what that teaches us

Literal Craft Setting Today I want to teach you that biography readers learn a lot about history from studying the times and rules of the society in which the subject of a biography lived. Pg. 102103/109 Create a timeline, Venn Diagram, etc. to model paying attention to details of place, time, and peoples behavior to understand how the persons time differed from our own. Consider how time and place impacts the person/subject.

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Strategy/Skill Synthesis Today I want to teach you that as we read we constantly ask ourselves how does what is happening now connect with what came before? Pg. 103/109 Create a cause/effect anchor chart based on your read aloud to model how things that happened earlier in a persons life will influence the decisions he or she will make later. Book clubs will create their own chart. Question to ask: How does this event follow from a previous event or factor in this characters life? RI4.3 SL4.1

Fourth Grade February: Unit 6 Biography Book Clubs

about him/her as a person. RL4.1 RL4.3

Part 2: Biography Readers Not Only Follow a Life Story, We Also Learn to Grasp and Grow Ideas

Literal Craft Finding Details Today I want to teach you that biography readers ask what important achievement or qualities made this persons life important enough to be written about? Pg. 104/109 Model how to identify the important events from a persons life that made them significant enough to be written about. Students can use post its in their own texts. In book clubs, students should be able to speak off their post its and explain why their chosen events are significant. RI4.1 RI4.3

Strategy/Skill Identifying Character Traits Today I want to teach you that biography readers realize that they can take away big messages from the biography. We study the choices the person makes and try to pick the precise word to describe what makes this person unique (their trait). Pg. 104/109 Model by using a Tchart to describe what is the persons trait and what specific event(s) in the persons life illustrates that trait. RL4.3

Literal Craft Analyzing Time Period Today I want to teach you that biography readers note that studying a subjects life and situation provides us with a window into the time in society in which this person lived. Pg. 104/109 First, revisit the Venn Diagram/timeline from the lesson on setting in Part 1. Use this to model how to develop a better understand of the time period and society in which the subject lived in. Then, ask What group of people does this person represent? Last, use this information to draw

Strategy/Skill Interpreting Characters Today I want to teach you how to understand the decisions the subject has made by putting yourself in their shoes. Pg. 110 Make sure kids are judging the subject against the time circumstances he/she lived in rather than analyzing them based on the world we live in now. Have students act out an important scene from the biography that would illustrate how the subject would have reacted during that time period. Then have that student turn and talk about what they were

Literal Craft Life Lessons Today I want to teach you that biography readers are often inspired by a subjects life. We read asking, What is the life lesson I am learning from this text? Pg. 105/110 Students will construct a readers response answering the questions, What life lesson did I learn from this subject/person? and, How will I apply that lesson to my own life? Encourage students to think about how they wish the world was and how they will contribute to making that vision of the world come

Fourth Grade February: Unit 6 Biography Book Clubs

SL4.1

conclusion about the challenges that the entire group must have faced during this time. After modeled/guided practice, students will do this work within their book clubs. RI/RL4.1 SL4.1

feeling/thinking as that subject. Students will continue to act out scenes in their book clubs.

true. RL4.2 RL4.11

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Part 3: Readers Know that Biography Is But One Form of Narrative Nonfiction

Literal Craft Analyzing Text Structure Today I want to teach you that biography readers recognize other kinds of narrative nonfiction. Usually these are true stories about something that happened in history, something that happened recently, or a story of a person who is not easy to identify as a typical hero. Pg. 106,110 Narratives involve time, a first/then/after that/next/finally sequence of events. Create an anchor chart showing the

Literal Craft Text Structure Today I want to teach you that readers recognize that most narrative nonfiction stories are either tales of achievement or tales of disaster. We know that each of these kinds of stories have their own patterns and reasons for being written. Pg. 106-107,110 Teach readers that achievement and disaster stories follow a predictable pattern, and each provides its own lessons. Anchor chart/provide

Literal Craft Central Message/Theme Today I want to teach you that readers of narrative nonfiction know that stories are told for a reason. When we uncover this reason, we gain a better understanding of why the story was written. Pg. 107,110 Model asking and answering the following questions: Why is this story worth telling? Why should it never be forgotten? What lesson does it teach? What does it serve as

Literal Craft Central Message/Theme Today I want to teach you that another way of determining the overall theme of a narrative nonfiction text is by studying the choices a subject makes during a critical time. Readers of history pay attention to difficult choices that make a story worth telling. Pg. 107,110 Provide students with examples of overall themes such as: To raise a voice for the oppressed, to fight for a right, to take a risk by

Literal Craft Life Lesson Today I want to teach you that readers of narrative nonfiction read a story and think, How will I live differently knowing that this happened in my world? We use the true stories that we read to serve as personal inspiration to be braver, stronger people. Pg. 107, 110 Create a chart of prompts to guide students toward thinking about life lessons (see pg. 107 for prompts).

Fourth Grade February: Unit 6 Biography Book Clubs

characteristics of narrative nonfiction vs. fiction. Students will use the anchor chart to identify characteristics within their own texts (post its). Students can also sort their books into categories. RL/RI4.10

students with the definitions of achievement and disaster stories and provide examples (see pg. 106-107). Students will determine whether or not their book is an achievement or disaster story and provide evidence using the characteristics.

an example of? Have book clubs use these questions as talking points after independent reading

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following a dream, to challenge the government, etc. Students will use a story arc or timeline to identify the overall theme with their book clubs. Students will make a claim as to why they chose that overall theme.

Students will select a prompt and construct a readers response.

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Fourth Grade February: Unit 6 Biography Book Clubs