Have you ever heard of the book "Bad Apple" by: Edward Hemingway? I hadn't. It's a wonderful tale of friendship! I fell in the love with it right away and knew it would be making a grand appearance in my classroom this year. Naturally, I created a literacy unit to go along with it.
I use my literacy units as a part of my whole group reading lessons. I plan to implement Cafe in with the comprehension strategies that I introduce to my students this year (and years after). I use the same book all week long (or more if I need to).
Here is a look at what the literacy unit looks like!
Each day focuses on a different comprehension concept. I organized them in a way that builds on top of the next. Each day has a simple to follow lesson plan, anchor charts and on this day, differentiated graphic organizers!
On Day 1, students will focus on predicting!
On day two, I wanted to introduce new words to the kids. It is SO important that students know the vocabulary from the text in order to gain a full understanding of the story. It also helps expand their vocabulary. (Hello, Cafe strategy!!)
On day three, the kids will learn about setting. I know that I will probably use this book towards the beginning of the year, and setting will be something that we'll need to get a good grip on!
To provide extra setting practice, I'll be using these cards in my guided reading groups, or independent stations for the kids who could complete this independently.
Students will focus on analyzing each image to identify WHERE and WHEN the setting took place.
Next up! It's all about getting to know our main character! We'll identify the character and also have partner discussions about him.
The graphic organizers are also differentiated here!
After we have learned many important elements, we will work on retelling the BME!!
I broke this lesson into two days, because I want the kids to learn to THINK about retelling first and what needs to be included!
On the first day, the kids will answer questions about the story. This will help the kiddos think through the story.
Then, afterwards students will get to complete this simple, yet cute retelling booklet!!
This book lends itself to EASILY talk about the moral of the story! There is a great lesson about friendship embedded in this text. This is a lesson you could easily do at any point of the story. It may even come up naturally.
This lesson helps the kids think even deeper about the message given.
After all this fun is over with, you may want to assess students understanding of the story.
I love end of the week comprehension checks. It's a great way to see who 'got it' and who still needs some help with comprehension.
I like to take a grade on these and keep track of how students do each week. Great data tracker! ;-)
If you are interested in this unit, then just click the image below!!
Stay tuned for many, many more of these literature units this year!
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