Third graders have spent the winter researching pandas. They read many nonfiction books, explored the websites of conservation groups for pandas, watched videos about pandas and read articles. This spring, students are reading, discussing and writing about the fiction book The Year of the Panda by Miriam Schlein in small book groups.
Although it is certainly possible to read this book as purely a fiction book without having researched pandas, the knowledge base of the students as a result of their intensive research allows them to understand the nuances in the book. For example in the first chapter of the book, two government agents come to Lu Yi's village to talk with his father and the other adults about selling their farms to the government. At this point in the book, the characters don't know why the government wants their land. Our third grade readers know why though, the pandas that live in the mountains behind the farms of this village are endangered from their bamboo being depleted due to either a bamboo die back or the farms encroaching on their bamboo forests. The timing of this book was intentional, and we are seeing that the conversations and the writing of our students reflect the deep base of knowledge they have from their research about pandas.
No comments:
Post a Comment