Grade: 3

Subject: Language Arts

Length of Lesson: 30 minutes

Topic/Theme: Fairy Tales

Purpose:

• to develop narrative discourse knowledge (by predicting outcomes, reading, and proving)
• to be exposed to multi cultural literature and diversity (by reading a story set in Africa)
• to respond to literature from an aesthetic stance (by putting oneself in the place of the character and writing what that character thinks or says)

Materials :

Background Knowledge:

Fairy tales

Characters - royalty

Location - castle or kingdom

Time - long ago

Content - magical or fantastic actions with animals talking, witches casting spells, etc.

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters is an African folk tale similar to the story of Cinderella. It tells of two sisters, one greedy and one kind, who were both invited to appear before the King who will choose one to be his Queen.

Body of Lesson:

Outline:

• Introduce the name and author of the book
• Discuss the Cinderella story
• Predict - ask students to make predictions based on looking at the pictures of the book. Write these predictions down on chart paper
• Read - story
• Prove - Compare predictions with what really happened
• Discuss how the story is the same as Cinderella and how it is different (if they are not too restless)
• Discuss thought and speech bubbles
• Writing task - ask students to draw a character in the book and write what he or she is thinking or saying in a thought or speech bubble
• Share responses - have the students show their project (writing task) with the rest of the class
• Expand response into a larger writing project - write a story about their character

I will ask the students to sit in a circle for the read-aloud session. I will introduce the name and author of the book that I will be reading for the day. I will then explain that this is a Cinderella story. I will ask the students if they have ever seen the movie or read the book Cinderella. I will then ask the students the following questions to start a discussion on Cinderella: “What is Cinderella about?”, “Who is the main character?”, “Who are the other characters?”, “Where does the story take place?”, “What problems does Cinderella face?”, “What happens at the end?”.

Then I will flip through the pages of the book asking the students to look at the pictures. I’ll then ask them to make some predictions or guess what will happen in the story. I will write these predictions on the board or on chart paper. After reading the story aloud, I will ask the class to tell me what happened in the story. I will write what actually happened beside the predictions. I will then discuss with the class what predictions were right and what were wrong. If the students aren’t too restless, I’ll ask them how the tale is similar to Cinderella and how it is different.

Since the children will have been sitting on the floor for awhile, at this point, I will ask them to return to their seats. I will ask the students if they know what a thought bubble was. I will put an overhead up that shows a cartoon with a thought bubble and one with a speech bubble. I will explain the difference between the two. Then I will give them their writing task for their response journals. They probably won’t have enough time to finish their assignment in class, so they can finish it for homework. What I will ask the students to do is to draw a character in the book and write what that character might be thinking or saying in a thought or speech bubble. I will assign different people different characters so that when we meet again to share our responses, everyone will hear a different perspective of the different characters. The best way to divide up the class would be by rows. I will ask one row to do Nyasha, one to do Manyara, one to do the starving boy, one to do the king, and one to do Mufaro. When the class meets again the next day, we will share our responses of the book so that everyone learns the characters of the book better. Then, as an extended activity, I will ask the students to write a story about their character.