Does anyone else feel that crunch at the end of the year? As in OMG I have SO much left to teach and NO time to do it? Yeah...me too. That's when you have to get SUPER creative and start tying in subjects together. (Have I mentioned it's 80 degrees and sunny here? AND we have no air conditioning in our school, so you can imagine how fun it has been for us!)
So...creative we must be, right?
This week, we covered 5.RL.7, which reads: Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, or poem). ***[Note: The first time I read this, I was like, "ummm, what?!"]
Like...seriously?! Thank the heavens I put in the extra work to make these teaching notes because these standards STILL confuse me at times!
I had planned to read my students this fabulous poetry book about Paul Revere already for social studies...
...and I could use it to introduce this standard for ELA. Jackpot!
So, for a quick and easy lesson, I posted the standard on our anchor chart during social studies.
We did a quick lesson on the tone, mood, and beauty of a text. (side note: a great thing to say when teaching tone is to say, "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a happy tone, and "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a sarcastic tone. So simple and those two quick phrases spurred the lightbulbs and the oohhhh, I get it!!!)
As we read The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, students kept track of words, phrases and/or picture clues that contributed to the text's tone and mood.
We then shared together all of the elements we found and I posted them to our anchor chart:
We practiced throughout the week using our own reading books and started talking about how multimedia elements (videos) use visual and sound elements to create a mood and tone as well. It was so fun hearing all of the wonderful conversations about such a high level concept in my student's book clubs!
Finally, at the completion of the unit, I decided to assess my students by comparing a specific text to a multimedia presentation (video), and pictures. I wanted the video and pictures to go with the text in order for my students to understand how authors use visual elements to add tone, mood, and meaning. Many of the examples that were out there were of these videos that were hours long and I had such a hard time locating a matching text, that I decided to just create my own!
I assessed my students as a whole group by playing the video on our projector.
Here a few excerpts of my student's assessments comparing a text to pictures and a video representation of the text:
All of the above assessments, video links, photos, teaching notes AND MORE can be found HERE in my 5th Grade ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes!
And HERE for my 4th Grade ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes:
I would love to hear your ideas for teaching RL.7! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Grab a copy of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere below!