Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy Tale

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Reading Curricular Calendar, Second Grade, 2012-20138As kids talk, call out little tips: “What is the wolf feeling right now?” “What does his face looklike?” “What about his body?” Encourage children to refer to the text if they aren’t sure; can theyfind little hints in the pictures and words that suggest how a character might be feeling or acting?If one child disagrees with another, encourage both to find evidence in the text that supports theirbeliefs.Of course, as you convey to readers that identifying a character’s feelings is a great start, you willalso want to suggest that ultimately readers, as directors, want to also understand those feelings.This involves asking a provocative question: Why? Of course, readers may just shrug and say, “Idon’t know.” And it is often the case that we do not know why a character feels as he does,anymore than we know why we feel as we do, but we develop conjectures, we surmise. To dothis, we reread, we look for clues, we pose theories, we try out different possible interpretations.Your children will do very few of these things unless you help them see the power of inquiry.Remember that kids will be studying persuasive language in writing workshop as well. Theability to apply a particular strategy across disciplines is key to moving up the levels of Webb’sDepth of Knowledge. Again, encourage kids to cite evidence for the conclusions they draw aboutcharacters. Coach them to give reasons for why a character should be dramatized one way versusanother.As you progress through this part of the unit, you’ll also be lifting the level of children’senvisionings and enactments. One way to do this is to remind children that readers, like directors,pay attention not only to what and why a character does things but also to how the character doesthese things. Does the text give any clues about the character’s gestures? About the way acharacter walks or sits or closes the door? If the text says that a character slumps in the chair,then we need to ask, “Why does she sit like that? Is she tired? Bored? What’s going on?” Wealso pay attention to the way characters talk; the words they choose, their tone of voice, and theemotional cues the author implies with dialogue. All of these give hints about what kind ofpeople live in the world of a story. Sometimes the author offers a window into a character’smind; passages may be about a character’s thinking or an explanation of a character’s motives.Characters, like real people, have reasons behind what they do. They are motivated by feelings,situations, and relationships. Some predictable motivations that people and characters have arejealousy, revenge, and fear, to name a few. Children may point out that the text doesn’t alwayssay how a character does an action. You’ll want to help them understand that to be a directormeans that you are always filling in the gaps of a story as you read by drawing on all you learnfrom this book, from other books, and from your life.As this part of the unit unfurls, you’ll reach a point when you want to teach readers that we willnot all understand characters in the same way. We will have different ideas about why acharacter feels one way or another or how that character acts. When readers see a patternthroughout the book in the way a character acts, they have probably identified a trait of thatcharacter. You will want to teach children the difference between a feeling and a trait. Maybeeven have a feeling chart and a few trait charts. A character doesn’t feel kind but acts in waysthat show he is kind. Because we’re often trying to persuade others to see the character as we do,readers need to become accustomed to providing evidence for theories. For instance, “I think inthis part she is really sad because she was left behind, no one is with her, and she’s also gettingscared that she’ll be deserted. So I think this part would sound like this.” With your help, in timeUnit Six – Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy TalesReading and Writing Project, 2012 ©DRAFT
Reading Curricular Calendar, Second Grade, 2012-20139the listening club mate will be able to talk back to the first reader, saying something like, “Yousaid she was getting scared, but you gotta make her voice sound that way,” and then will read theexcerpt aloud to demonstrate. Club mates will hold each other accountable to the text as well asto what they are trying to show in their enactments. The speaking and listening section of theCommon Core State Standards expects partners to be able to work on clarification with oneanother, during both reading and writing work. Bear in mind that your goal for this unit is notonly character work but also reading with fluency, prosody, and phrasing; research has shownthat reader’s theatre and repetitive reading make the world of difference.Bend Three – As Readers Get to Know Characters Better, We Discover Predictable Roles TheyPlay: Understanding the Villain, the Hero, and Everyone in BetweenIn this third bend of the unit, you’ll move from teaching children to step into the shoes of aparticular character to helping children think more categorically about characters. You’ll teachthem that just as there are different personality types in the world, there are different charactertypes in stories. You’ll want to teach children that authors sometimes make deliberate choicesabout which characters in their book will take on which role. One character might be the goodguy—the hero—while another is the bad guy—the villain. And then, of course, there’s thesidekick, the wise adviser, and the trickster, just to name just a few.While it’s true that most second graders won’t yet be reading books with a large number ofcharacters—and character types—or much complexity, even simpler books contain identifiablecharacter types. Pairs of friends—Pinky and Rex, Ramona and Howie, Amber and Justin—arecommon in books for this age, with one friend often being a bit more mischievous or daring. Thewise adviser will often be a teacher or a parent, though this role might be played by someonewho does, in fact, resemble the stereotypical quirky sage or fairy godmother—Mrs. PiggleWiggle, for example, or Mary Poppins. After introducing children to a few archetypes, let themidentify others on their own or with their partner. Children will have fun noticing that many oftheir books contain similar character types and coming up with a list of the different roles theircharacters play. Meanwhile, this is sophisticated work, as it involves thinking across bookscategorically (CCSS RL 2.9) and analytically (DOK Level 4).Of course, you won’t just want children to make—and tick off—a list of character types as theyread. You’ll want them to also think about what it means to be one kind of character or another.Are there typical patterns of behavior they observe in one type or another? They might, forexample, notice that the main character’s sidekick is sometimes funny—that that person’s role isto crack jokes. Or maybe the sidekick (or one of a pair of friends) tends to get the main characterinto trouble over and over—he is a troublemaker. Earlier in the year, your children will havelearned that characters go on journeys and encounter trouble along the way. Now they mightnotice that friends sometimes contribute to that trouble. Alternatively, the person who createsobstacles for the main character may be someone with a deliberate villainous intent—the classbully, for example, or the mean kid next door. As children think about how these roles play outin their books, club mates can act out scenes in their books that spotlight the bully or the sidekickor the quirky adviser.As they pay attention to the characters in their books, remind children that they can consider therole a character plays in order to predict what’s going to happen. Is the character good or bad?Unit Six – Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy TalesReading and Writing Project, 2012 ©DRAFT
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Reading and Role Playing: Fiction, Folktales, and Fairy Tale

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