I absolutely love it when I can combine something I HAVE to teach with something I WANT to teach. For example, Thanksgiving is coming up and while I HAVE to teach irony and character development through close reading, I WANT to teach something that relates to Thanksgiving. So what did I do? I found this great short story: "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen" by O. Henry.
It's perfect for both of the things I HAVE to teach and we'll still get to focus on the season of Thanksgiving!
I broke the story down into five chunks and made interactive notebook foldables to go with each chunk for vocabulary, the story events and irony.
>>I've recently made each piece digital too!<<
Vocabulary
The vocabulary in this story can be a bit challenging, so it was really necessary to over this before each day's reading so my students didn't miss important things.
Story Events
We read one chunk of the story each day. Then, after the first read, students summarize that chunk. After the second read, they answer a specific question. So I made two separate foldables to accomplish these two goals.
Plus, I also added in some activities where I wanted students to analyze the two gentlemen's character development by focusing on what the text said about them. Then I asked the students to draw each man based on that text evidence.
Irony
Next, we all know O. Henry is famous for irony. This story is no exception. I don't want to ruin it for you if you haven't read it, so I'll just say that the irony really drives home the theme. :)
I even made a ZAP game to play to identify the kinds of irony in the story!
Vocabulary
The vocabulary in this story can be a bit challenging, so it was really necessary to over this before each day's reading so my students didn't miss important things.
Words like Saleratus, Seneschals, and Accord will be recorded here before we read the chunk of text from which they come.
Story Events
We read one chunk of the story each day. Then, after the first read, students summarize that chunk. After the second read, they answer a specific question. So I made two separate foldables to accomplish these two goals.
Plus, I also added in some activities where I wanted students to analyze the two gentlemen's character development by focusing on what the text said about them. Then I asked the students to draw each man based on that text evidence.
Irony
Next, we all know O. Henry is famous for irony. This story is no exception. I don't want to ruin it for you if you haven't read it, so I'll just say that the irony really drives home the theme. :)
I even made a ZAP game to play to identify the kinds of irony in the story!
Wrapping it up with a Paragraph
The last thing we'll do after working with this story, is to write a paragraph related to the theme. I've made a nice planning sheet to help the students put of of their thoughts together from this unit.
There's also a pre-writing sheet and a rubric to help students write a great paragraph for this unit. Bonus - you can use this as an assessment!
Students really enjoyed this story and we had some great discussions about what Thanksgiving is really all about. It took us about two weeks to complete, but when we were done, we had learned about vocabulary, close reading, plot sequence, irony, evidence, and paragraph writing! It was a great way to learn and feel connected to the season all at the same time.
Want to try this in your own classroom? It's ready to go right here!
If you’re not quite ready for these November reading and writing activities, then pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can come back when you are:
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