After completing "Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid" by Thor Hanson, students were tasked with taking a concept from the book and using it to create a children's story appropriate for an elementary school student. The book is about species' interactions with climate change and the book is full of stories about various plants and animals as they cope with a changing world. The stories we saw created were a testament to the unique and interesting tales told in this non-fiction book.
Students were given about a week of classroom work time to create their story and illustrate their book. Despite the limited work time, students succeeded in creating a book engaging to their elementary school partners.
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In the above video clip we are at the end of our project. Students should have an almost complete version of the book they will be reading to their partner class. This lesson is a chance to practice reading to younger students and get a feel for reading their work out loud. They are given the opportunity to rate their fellow students and offer <Kind, Specific and Helpful> feedback to their peers.
I have shown them a video of my own son reading to me while playing teacher. I had the student discuss what my son did while reading, and asked if there was anything he did that they would like to incorporate into their own readings, and if there was anything they would do differently.
Students started this project by writing their own criteria they wanted their books to be assessed against. These criteria were displayed on the board while the students read their books. They also got a chance to read that criteria before they began reading their books. Their peers had an assessment sheet to rate each other based on the criteria students wrote. In the linked documents I have included the criteria worksheet students used.