TCH 621
Literacy In The Intermediate Grades
Instructor – Ms. Lu Winckler
Mike Kissinger
11/28/11
Literacy Focus Unit
Hatchet, By Gary Paulsen
Themes
The most pronounced themes in the novel “Hatchet” are that of survival, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. There are several other themes that can be taken and taught from within this story, some of which are: perseverance, courage, patience, betrayal, loyalty, respect, resiliency, determination, despair, adventure, depression, tenacity, loneliness, attitude, ingenuity, adaptability, hate, humility, love, overcoming obstacles or challenges, suicide, and inner struggle over divorce or coping strategies. Of the themes listed, some are more prominent than others, but can be substantial to all in different ways based on our own personal history and the connections we ascribe to them.
Goals/Objectives
1. Learning to read and grow from the enjoyment of the task.
2. The ability to infer from the authors’ or others point of view.
3. Teaching the ideas of survival and overcoming challenges through the concepts of attitude, perseverance, respect, humility, and how we connect and adapt within our lives, to move forward and progress toward our personal goals and expectations.
4. The ability to learn and apply in meaningful ways, new and unique vocabulary from different genres, so they can become an integral part of the student’s everyday life.
Background Knowledge
Teachers need to have a firm grasp of their student’s abilities in reading, writing, inferring, assessing, and concluding, from observations within the classroom and from other environments that may affect their ability to understand and connect with the story. The type of preparation needed prior to the introduction of the story will be determined by the demographic situation of the students participating. A brief question and answer session initiated by the teacher, an introduction of the characters, time period, and setting, will pique student’s interest and will allow them to maximize their overall comprehension of the story and the themes within.
Vocabulary
Rivulets – small streams
Ruefully – mournfully, regretful
Asset – advantage, resource, item of value, something useful
Hummocks – a rounded knoll or hill
Wrenching – to move or pull with a violent twisting
Pulverized – to reduce by crushing, beating or grinding, to very small particles
Altimeter – an instrument for measuring altitude, (vertical elevation above land)
Abating – to reduce in degree, amount or intensity, make less especially by way of relief
Rectify – to set right, to correct by removing errors
Incessant – continuing or following without interruption
Tapered – a gradual decrease of thickness, diameter, or width in an elongated object
Wallow – to become or remain helpless, to roll about in a lazy or relaxed manner
Infuriating – to make angry, mad, or furious
Turbulence – irregular atmospheric motion especially by up-and-down wind currents
Tinder – a very flammable substance adaptable for use as kindling
Tendrils – a leaf stipule or stem modified into a slender spirally coiling sensitive organ serving to attach a climbing plant to its support
Eeled – to move, crawl, or wiggle like an eel or snake
Chipper – in lively spirits, cheerful
Stymied – to hinder or thwart, a situation of obstruction
Exulted – to triumph, to be joyful or jubilant especially because of triumph or success
Strategies for teaching vocabulary:
1. Complete a crossword puzzle or puzzles, with different vocabulary words.
2. Pick one or two words from each chapter or section and instruct students to write sentences in correct story context.
3. Pair-up students or create small heterogeneous groups, to create a short skit demonstrating the correct meaning and usage of vocabulary words from the story. You assign the words.
Comprehension Strategies
1. Preparational Strategies (predicting), Chapter 1
The reason I will teach this strategy right away, is because the students continually will want to know what’s going to happen next in this book and it will help them to focus on what has already occurred, what’s occurring presently, and how these occurrences could affect Brian and the rest of the story.
2. Organizational Strategies (determining important details), Chapter 2
In this book there are so many important details hidden right in front of us, but to truly understand what’s important is the key. How we read and interpret meaning from the text will help determine what’s really important to the continuation or structure of the story, and what’s not.
3. Elaboration Strategies (generating questions or making inferences), Chapter 4
The very beginning of this chapter is a bit puzzling and requires the reader to question and infer from the text, what is happening and what has already happened. This short break from the present, helps explain some of the feelings that Brian struggles with and how he slowly begins to cope with his feelings and his new environment. He seems to be in a state of perpetual newness or change.
Graphic Organizers
Venn diagram and semantic map/web on the next two pages.
Discussion Questions
20 questions/statements based on Bloom’s Taxonomy
1. Knowledge:
A. Identify the type of plane Brian was flying.
B. Spell the word in the first paragraph of Ch. 14, that means to correct a mistake.
C. Make a list of all the assets that Brian had after the plane crash.
D. Locate when Brian knew what was happening to the pilot.
2. Comprehension:
A. Describe the feeling Brian experienced when the plane ran out of fuel.
B. Explain how Brian learned how to create fire.
C. Translate the thoughts Brian had when he realized the pilot had a heart attack.
D. Restate what it meant when Brian was “stymied”, in Ch. 17.
3. Application:
A. Draw a picture of what Brian’s shelter looked like.
B. Give an example of how you would feel if all alone, you were confronted by a wild animal in similar circumstances.
C. How would you make a raft that could float a mouse, out of materials from the forest.
4. Analysis:
A. Categorize the 5 most important assets Brian had available to him immediately after the plane crash.
B. Compare and contrast Brian’s attitude from before the crash to right before he was rescued.
C. Diagram Brian’s setting or surroundings in the forest.
5. Synthesis:
A. Invent a tool or device that Brian could manufacture to help him survive in the wild.
B. Visualize what it would be like to confront a wolf in the wild.
C. Predict how Brian would adapt and survive if he wasn’t rescued until the spring.
6. Evaluation:
A. Rank Brian’s most important assets just before he was rescued.
B. Evaluate Brian’s feelings about the divorce after spending 54 days in the Canadian wilderness.
C. In your opinion, is this a realistic story of survival for a 13 year old boy? Justify your reasons for why or why not.
Other Related/Similar Books
1) Brian’s Winter, by Gary Paulsen
2) The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare
3) Island of the Blue Dolphin, by Scott O’Dell
4) On the Far Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
5) Wilderness Journey, by William O’Steele
6) Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls
7) Stranded, by Matt Christopher
8) Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
9) Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink
10) The Cay, by Theodore Taylor
11) Mr. Tucket, by Gary Paulsen
12) Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
13) Buffalo Song, by Joseph Bruchac
14) Streams to the River, River to the Sea, by Scott O’Dell
15) Into the Trap, by Craig Moodie
Reading and Writing Activities
1. Write about the betrayal and loyalty that Brian felt for both of his parents and why he may have felt a sense of both these feelings towards each parent.
2. Pretend your stranded alone somewhere (jungle, desert, tropical island, forest, etc.) and create your own short story of survival. Make sure you give it an appropriate title.
3. In a small group, read through chapter 8 and discuss with your group what Brian meant when he thought to himself, “so fast things change”. What did Brian learn about self-pity after he had cried until he was cried out? How did his dream about his father help him to create a better attitude and situation for himself?
4. Once again Brian reflects upon the “mistakes” he has made and how he now respects and learns from them. Reread chapter 14 and with a partner discuss the mistakes Brian made and what important lessons he is beginning to learn. List them on a sheet of paper to discuss with the class.
Poetry
Some One
Some one came knocking
At my we, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I’m sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I look to left and right,
But naught there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The Screech-owl’s call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, all.
By Walter de la Mare
www.squidoo.com/classicpoemsforkids
What is Hope
Hope is a bright shining light which keeps darkness at the bay
Hope is gentle cold breeze on a hot summer day
Hope is to remain positive when going gets tough
Hope is seeking more when others think u had enough
What hope means
Hope is dreaming of tomorrow
Hope is simmering under sorrow
Hope is sparkles when tears in our eyes
Hope is a beautiful thing and beautiful things never dies
What hope means
Hope is as light as a feather
Hope keeps all of us together
Hope is ubiquitous and free of cost
hope is the last thing ever lost…..
By Vineet Bansal
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-is-hope-2/
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely hands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
By Lord Alfred Tennyson
Poetry for Guys…Who Thought They Hated Poetry
Compiled and with commentary by Kathleen Grizzard Schmook
Willow Creek Press
Differentiated Instruction
Some ideas for differentiated instruction of this novel are already provided through the other facets of this literacy focus unit. Providing a library of books that can be read by students at all different levels of fluency and comprehension, would be the first and most utilized area of differentiated instruction. Allowing students to create their own art in the form of pictures, poems, inventions, and skits, would allow them to express themselves, their understanding, and their perspectives in alternative and original ways. Providing audio/visual resources to watch and listen to, will also help involve all students in successfully reading and interpreting the themes within the story. If available, another resource would be to take a field trip to a frontier or old settlement community, to see how people lived, adapted, and overcame obstacles that we take for granted today. These types of activities and field trips can provide lasting memories and meaningful experiences that connect students to classmates and to learning at a whole new level.
Assessment Activities
Exit ticket, Comparison/Contrast writing
A. Providing an exit ticket for the students to complete at the end of a lesson would be an informal assessment that can given daily if you choose.
For example: Where was Brian going and why was he going there?
B. Crossword Puzzle http://www.classhelper.org/crosword_puzzles.shtml?puzzles_action=show_puzzle&puzzzles_puzzle_id=1570908#
C. Write two letters to Brian’s mom or dad about the divorce. What’s most important to Brian before the plane crash? After living in the wilderness, what’s most important to Brian now?
D. Create a journal of Brian’s success’s and failures throughout your reading. Write about what he learned from them. Do you think he learned more from success or failure and why?
E. Hatchet Final Test, courtesy of Rothschild Elementary
1. Why is the book titled Hatchet?
2. How are Brian’s mosquito bites much worse than the one’s we get around here?
3. Why did Brian “waste” that $20 bill, or did he? Why?
4. How did he keep the fire from going out in Chapter 10?
5. Why do you think he was so upset when the plane turned and went away for the first time?
6. In chapter 13, he gives up on being rescued, but is encouraged by his new knowledge. Please explain this.
7. In chapter 14, according to Brian, what is “everything” in the forest?
8. Why is it so important for him to get inside the plane underneath the water?
9. We face challenges everyday. In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge Brian faced throughout the whole book?
10. Describe FIRST MEAT in detail?
11. What were the two disasters Brian suffered in chapter 16 and what good came from the disasters?
12. What was the best part of the book?
F. Complete a Compare/Contrast T-Chart
Compare and contrast one of your most challenging situations to that of the character from Hatchet.