 |
| http://thinkingofteaching.blogspot.com/search/label/Drama |
- how the character feels about him/herself
- how the character feels about other people
- what other people think about the character
- his/her likes and dislikes
- his/her history
- his/her dreams or regrets
Last year I used this strategy as a pre-reading strategy with my grade 4s. We drew the outline of a Grade 4 student and did some brainstorming. We discussed how this person would feel on the first day of school and wrote down all their feelings on the inside of the body outline (nervous because they are at a new school, excited to see their friends again, sad that summer was over, etc). On the outside of the character we wrote down all things that influence how students feel on the first day (new school, new grade, new teacher, friend moved away, etc). Once we had done this we read "First Day Jitters" by Julie Danneberg.
It was great! The students were really excited that story had a twist at the end and we added new ideas to our chart. We then discussed how we can choose how we handle new situations and our excitement about school, etc!
Thinking about how I might use this strategy in the future I came up with the following ideas:
- character education- reading and discussing picture books related to the month's focus trait
i.e. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein- have the children brainstorm how the tree felt and what was causing the tree to feel that way
- cause and effect in a novel
- debates
- point of view
