Examining Social Issues
Through Book Clubs:
A Literacy Unit for 3rd Grade
Rachel Lund
Erica Silverstein
May 2, 2007
Description1. / Introduction: Rationale, Purposes, Read Aloud, / Collaborative*
2. / Assessment / *
3. / Rubric & Record Keeping System / *
4. / Session 1-2 / *
5. / Mini Lesson 3: Readers Ask Themselves, “What am I Learning About the Social Issue?” and Post –It in Their Discoveries as They Read in Their Book Club / Rachel Lund
6. / Mini Lesson 4: Readers are on the Hunt for Stereotypes / Rachel Lund
7. / Session 5 / *
8. / Mini Lesson 6: Readers Push Their Book Club Ideas by Considering Other Perspectives About the Social Issues in the Text / Erica Silverstein
9. / Session 7-9 / *
10. / Mini Lesson 10: Readers Make Predictions About If and How The Characters Conflict Might be Resolved by Thinking About What We’ve Seen in Life and in Other Books Concerning This Social Issue / Erica Silverstein
11. / Mini Lesson 11: Readers Aren’t Afraid to Ask Hard Questions About What is Really Puzzling Them In Order to Gain Deeper Insights About Character Relationships and the Social Issues Presented Within a Text / Rachel Lund
12. / Mini Lesson 12: Club Members Carry Over Ideas About Social Issues From Past Texts By Comparing and Contrasting Them to New Texts / Erica Silverstein
13. / Mini Lesson 13: Readers Better Understand Social Issues in Text by Connecting Them to Social Issues in Their Own Lives / Erica Silverstein
14. / Session 14-16 / *
15. / Mini Lesson 17: Readers Take Social Action / Rachel Lund
16. / Session 18-21 / *
17. / Small Group Work (Session 6 &8) / *
18. / Small Group Instruction for Struggling Readers (Session 8 &16) / *
19. / Appendix & Bibliography / *
Rachel Lund & Erica Silverstein
C&T 4139
Professor Calkins
Unit of Study
Examining Social Issues Through Book Clubs
Grades 3-5
This unit is designed to help our students take a deeper look into the social issues present in texts as they continue to read with their book clubs. These plans were informed by the work of Katherine and Randy Bomer in their book, For a Better World, Reading and Writing for Social Action and the work of Stephanie Jones in her book, Girls, Social Class and Literacy: What Teachers can do to Make a Difference. Students will learn and develop skills of questioning, empathizing and interpreting texts. This unit assumes that students have already completed a unit on books clubs and are comfortable facilitating them. Students have also already discussed a plethora of social issues and are familiar with what constitutes a social issue. In addition to this students also know how to study characters within texts.
Purposes:
q For students to learn that to revisit old texts with new lenses can make us aware of issues we initially overlooked.
q For students to think about and question issues in the world and to read to become more informed about them
q For students to create and recreate theories about characters, social issues, etc. (make and revise predictions and perspectives)
q For students to think about the issues within the text and then think globally about how they can learn and change from what they know about the issue.
q For students to better understand their own personal experiences by looking at the social issues characters face in the text.
q For students to debate and work towards solutions for problems in their classroom, community and world
q For students to take social action by planning authentic projects that make a difference in their lives and the lives of others
Some Issues that Clubs May Study:
q Bullying
q Fitting In/Being New
q Friendship Issues
q Growing Up
q Homelessness
q Poverty
q Divorce/Family Issues
q Racism/Discrimination
q Peer Pressure
q Death/Dying
q Building Community
Read Aloud:
A few days prior to beginning this unit, the teacher starts a new whole-class read aloud text that has a clear and high interest ‘Social Issue’ inside of it for students to discuss. We recommend starting with a picture book such as Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting, Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen, Ruby the Copycat by Peggy Rathmann, Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth, or Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and then moving to some shorter chapter books such as Sidewalk Story by Sharon Bell Mathis, and the Junie B. Jones and Beverly Cleary series. These texts are just a few examples, however, it is important to find books that best address the levels and needs of readers in the class. The unit focuses talking about and between texts and so the teacher will want to facilitate his/her students in turn-and-talk partnership conversations in response to the read aloud, as well as whole class conversations about those books. We will be referring to a few of these read alouds throughout this unit within our minilessons.
Accountable talk is an important conversation skill to emphasize and utilize in this unit. Some suggestions of accountable talk prompts that we will share with students are:
Accountable Talk Prompts (Student are familiar with) / Social Issue Accountable Talk Prompts-“I want to add on to what (student’s name) was saying….
-“Another example of the same thing is…”
-“I see what you’re saying…”
-“I agree/disagree…”
-“This situation reminds me of a time when I ….”
-“This situation reminds me of _____ that happened in (another book) because...” / -“I think this isn’t fair because…”
-“What you’re saying is making me change my initial ideas because now I am realizing….”
-“But couldn’t you read this differently and say….”
-“At first I thought____, now I realize ___.”
At the beginning of the study, students will interpret texts and identify the social issues that lie within them. For example, in Fly Away Home, by Eve Bunting, we will identify the social issues in text (i.e.: homelessness, family, etc.). We will also help students see how there are often multiple social issues within one text. For instance, in Something Beautiful we can explore other issues like poverty, homelessness and vandalism. As the study progresses, we will help our students see how they can connect and apply what they are learning about the social issues in the books to what really happens in the world outside of the classroom. Student will empathize with the social issues in texts by relating their issues to character’s conflicts. Students will also question the social issues in the text and think about why these issues take place.
Book clubs will be based on students reading levels as well as the social issues they are interested in. We will think about choosing social issues before selecting texts so that students are passionate about the issue they discuss – allowing them opportunities to become mini-experts.
We may interpret texts differently, highlighting one social issue or another. These texts can be organized in various ways according to the classroom library. There can be a section of the classroom library roped off for social issue texts, making the current “V.I.P” books being studied easily accessible for students.
Assessment
We will assess students at a few points throughout the unit. Therefore, we get a sense of whether or not they are grasping the concepts that have been taught. This will also help us track the progression of their ideas. After the mini lessons seven and sixteen, students should be displaying empathizing, interpreting and questioning skills. We will be taking note of the post its in order to evaluate if these skills are being presented. This is something that can be done at many points throughout the school day. We can easily see this by reading over what students have written down on their post its. If students understand the strategies taught in the mini lessons, they will have taken note of questions that they had regarding the social issues in the text as well as pushing themselves to see different sides of the social issue. They will also be making note of social issues that continue to pop up within and across texts. As we assess which students are and are not understanding, they can make three different groups: completely understanding, some confusion, and needing more instruction. Follow up action will depend on the number of students who are confused and needing more instruction. If half or more of the class is confused or not understanding, we will reinvent the mini lesson for the whole class. If about a third of students are confused or not understanding, we will pull small groups and create strategy lessons for these students. If a few individual children are confused or not understanding, the teacher can focus on this during individual conferences or pull a small group with these few children.
Rubric & Record Keeping System:
It is suggested that teachers keep a notebook with a section labeled for each student. The teacher can keep files to assess the growth of each student through conferencing, reading groups and during book clubs. This rubric will be applied to the post-its we collect in order to see if they understand the strategies we have taught and are displaying the skills that this unit is geared towards.
Understands / Confused / Needs Further InstructionEmpathy / Frequently takes into consideration various points of views including ones that they might not agree with.
Student shows progression in the stance they take and the feelings they have towards certain social issues. / Students sometimes list the points of views of the characters in texts. They sometimes take their perspectives and other perspectives about social issues into consideration. / Students seldom take various points of view into consideration.
Questioning / Frequently asks questions about the social issues they are reading about in regards to texts and the world around them. / Students rarely ask questions regarding the social issues they are reading about. Students’ questions have no correlation to the social issue. / Students rarely ask any questions, including questions about the social issues in regards to texts and world around them.
Interpreting / Student makes connections between social issues and their lives as well as social issues between texts. / Students sometimes make connections between events that take place in the book but not in regards to the social issue. / Students seldom make connections between social issues and their lives as well as social issues between texts.
Students frequently report retellings of events rather than big ideas.
Month Long Teaching Plan and Mini Lessons
Readers Explore Social Issues in Text:
Session 1: Readers reread texts on the hunt for social issues.
For this first teaching point it is important to highlight that people face social issues everyday, which is why they are also so common in texts. Readers can revisit books that they have read before but this time they are on the lookout to identify social issues within the texts. Urge them to look past what the literal translation of the book is and instead ask them what issue the story is really talking about. For instance, the book Something Beautiful, by Sharon Dennis Wyeth, tells the story of a girl who is looking for something beautiful in her life. Through a social issues lens, however, the book introduces issues such as poverty, vandalism and homelessness.
Session 2: Book Clubs read to identify social issues that take place in the text.
For this teaching point students will know the social issue that they will be reading about in their books. They will be keeping this in mind as they read and start to get a feel for the characters, setting, plot, and more. These students can also share their prior knowledge on social issues with their clubs prior to reading the book to set the stage for the next two teaching points.
Session 3: Readers Ask Themselves, “What am I Learning About the Social Issue?” and Post-it in Their Discoveries as They Read in Their Book Clubs.
“Readers, you have already learned that you can read old text and begin looking at social issues in from a new lens and you’ve learned how to identify the social issues that exist in certain texts. For the next month, I want to continue to teach you about things that come up in book clubs that deal with social issues. Good readers learn that there are different ways to read different genres of text. While we continue to learn about social issues in texts we will learn that when readers read they constantly ask themselves questions and remind themselves to think about what they are learning about the issue being addressed.
You already know you can think about the issues in the story from a new lens; today I want to teach you that you can also think about lots of other things when you read books with social issues. Sometimes you will come to a part in the book where you will ask yourself “what am I learning about the social issue?” and so it helps to write these ideas down on post-its so that you save your thoughts and then can talk about them later in your book clubs.”
“Sometimes when I’m reading on the train, I often put the book down and say to myself, ‘Wait a minute! What am I really learning about what is going on…’ I bet you guys do the very same thing. Most of the time, there isn’t someone I know sitting next to me on the train so I can’t talk it through with anyone. That very same thing happens sometimes in school. I know it would be really disruptive if I stopped class to have a discussion to recap what I was learning about an issue. So instead of talking to someone next to me on the train or disrupting class as I read, I can use post-its. We can all use post-its. Post-its are perfect to hold the place of where we left off and remind us of what we have learned once we get into book clubs.”