Our class
started out the new school year with an author study of Seymour Simon.
Mr. Simon writes non-fiction and fiction books based on science themes.
Through reading the works of Mr. Simon, students will learn
his technique in crafting books which will help them when developing their
pieces of work; some students might even emulate his style in their own writing.
As students find out why the author wrote specific topics/themes, they
may begin to generate ideas and reasons for topics they would like to write
about.
• www.seymoursimon.com/meet.htm
Informational Texts
During the
first quarter, we will also strengthen our knowledge and skills using text
features and understanding the characteristics of fiction and informational
text. We will review how to
transition from oral summaries to writing summaries of fiction and informational
text.
Students should
already be familiar with the common text features of labels, headings, bold
print, captions, and tables of contents, indexes, and diagrams.
Reading strategies, using text features, and writing summaries require a higher level of thinking skills. Students will be provided with many opportunities to discuss and write about informational text that has been read aloud, read in guided reading groups, or read independently.
Historical Fiction
The fourth
grade students will read historical fiction to learn about how people lived in
the past. This will build their background knowledge in order to comprehend
texts. Historical fiction gives the
students an opportunity to relive the past vicariously.
The students will use the strategy of making connections so they can put
themselves in the stories along side of historical characters and events.
Through comparing, analyzing, and discussing historical fiction, the
students can learn that there are universal themes joining the past with the
present. Some of these themes
include loyalty, courage, prejudice, freedom, friendship, and survival.
When reading historical fiction books, the fourth grade students will
differentiate between history and fiction.
History will be used as a backdrop to fictional stories. Setting will be the most obvious story element to distinguish
historical fiction from realistic fiction.
The students will discover how authors of historical fiction use food,
clothing, housing, and transportation to depict the past.
Vocabulary will also be a clear signal that a story may have taken place
in another time period. Parlors, iceboxes, kerosene lamps, and quill pens are some of
the artifacts from the past that appear on the pages of historical fiction.
Students may also identify cultural references that are historically
accurate in some of the stories.