Once by Morris Gleitzman
Michelle Hildebrand & Alicia Mitrione
Learning Intention
Students will organise information to answer their question using a question web to expand and organise their thinking, answer questions, and deepen comprehension.
Success Criteria
- Students can identify an essential questions from the text
- Student's can identify relevant information in order to build answers to their question
- Students can organise their thinking by adding relevant information to their question web.
(Harvey & Goudvis, 2007)
Australian Curriculum: Level 4 English
Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view
- Sharing and discussing student's own and others' understanding
- Drawing comparisons between students' own experiences - asking questions such as 'What new idea does this bring to story?'
(ACARA, n.d.)
Reading Strategy - Questioning
According to Harvey & Goudvis (2007):
- Questions are the master key to understanding as they clarify confusion.
- Questions stimulate research
- They thrust us forward and deeper into our reading.
- By nature we are driven into finding answers and to make sense of things.
- Richard Feynman (as cited in Harvey & Goudvis) referred to questioning as his “puzzle drive”. As a Nobel prize winning physicist, he couldn’t NOT search for answers to his questions. Good teachers need to encourage this seeking of answers to questions.
- Good questions come from background knowledge.
- Good questions engages us and inspires us to continue reading.
Link to a Literacy Model - Four Roles of the Reader
Text Participant
- Students use "background knowledge to make meaning of the text" (MyRead, 2002)
- Uses meaning clues to make meaning of the text. (MyRead, 2002)
- Students make meaning of the text through interpretation, prior knowledge and questions, and how aspects of the story are relevant to their own lives
- Students question what might happen next and "what words or phrases give me [them] this idea" (Wing Jan, 2013, p. 6)
Teacher Directed Learning
- Discuss the purpose of questioning
- Model the questioning process and a question web by reading a non-related text - for example The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
Lathner students reading Once
Dear Anna,
Thank-you for picking such great novels for us to read next term. You know I have been reading and LOVING the whole Dragonkeeper series. Yes, I know I talk about these books ALL the time! Maybe I should have been born a dragon. I want to read something new. I’ve read the whole Deltora series so maybe I need another style.
I’d like to read Once. I want to read this novel because the book looks interesting. The cover made me want to know more. I read the blurb at the back and like you told us to I also read the first two pages and guess what? I got hooked!
Yours Truly,
Fiona Young
Dear Ms Jones,
I don’t know much about the second world war but I know a bit about Hitler and I think I’d like to know more about what happened to the Jewish people. And Edward thinks war books are interesting. So my idea to read Once may be a good one. What do you think?
From Koichi
Dear Teacher,
I told my mums boy friend the names of the books to pick and he said pick Once. I picked that one but I hope its not boring.Trying to remember how you told us you pick books.
From Grace
Dear Ms Jones,
The book I select is Once.The cover is interesting and the first few pages make me want more! I can’t wait to read it.
Please Ms Jones!!!
Zuban
Hi Anna,
I looked at all the books you put out for us. I also talk to Ahmet and Simon. They sade I would like Once. It’s not too thick and wont be to hard for me to read but I may need help.
Tanks Anna,
Robert(Semple, 2014).
Digital Teaching Tool for Student Centred Learning
- Students will view the Voicethread individually on iPads or Netbooks
- Students will develop their own essential question for the text Once
- Students will begin to add relevant information from the text to their question web while they continue to read Once in order to build an answer (Harvey & Goudvis, 2007).
- Students will discuss their question web during literacy rotations.
References
ACARA. (n.d.). English. Retrieved September 25th, 2014 from: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/Curriculum/F-10?layout=1
Gleitzman, M. (2005). Once. Penguin Group (Australia): Melbourne.
Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies That Work; Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement. Stenhouse Publishers: Portland, Maine.
Ludwig, C. & Holm, S. (2006). What’s Hot! Curriculum Corporation: Carlton South.
MyRead (2002) MyRead; Strategies for Teaching Reading in the Middle Years. Retrieved October 4th 2014 from: http://www.myread.org/index.htm
Semple, C. (2014). Booktalk group - students who are reading 'Once'. Retrieved September 25th, 2014 from https://lms.rmit.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_296857_1
Wing Jan, L. (2013). Write Ways: Modelling Writing Forms. Oxford University Press: South Melbourne.