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Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

Unit 2/Week 3
Title: Woodsong
Suggested Time: 5 days (45 minutes per day)
Common Core ELA Standards: RI.5.1, RI.5.2, RI.5.3, RI.5.4; RF.5.3, RF.5.4 ; W.5.2, W.5.4, W.5.9 ;
SL.5.1, L.5.1, L.5.2

Teacher Instructions
Refer to the Introduction for further details.
Before Teaching
1. Read the Big Ideas and Key Understandings and the Synopsis. Please do not read this to the students. This is a description for
teachers, about the big ideas and key understanding that students should take away after completing this task.
Big Ideas and Key Understandings
Humans can learn life lessons not only from relationships with other humans, but through experiences and special
relationships with animals as well.
Synopsis
In this narrative, Gary Paulsen describes the relationship, which develops between himself and a dog named “Storm,” the
lead dog for his sled team. Storm displays unusual leadership characteristics which are detailed in this reading selection.
Storm teaches Gary several lessons about life during the course of their relationship.
2. Read entire main selection text, keeping in mind the Big Ideas and Key Understandings.
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

3. Re-read the main selection text while noting the stopping points for the Text Dependent Questions and teaching Vocabulary.
During Teaching
1. Students read the entire main selection text independently.
2. Teacher reads the main selection text aloud with students following along. (Depending on how complex the text is and the
amount of support needed by students, the teacher may choose to reverse the order of steps 1 and 2.)
3. Students and teacher re-read the text while stopping to respond to and discuss the questions and returning to the text. A variety
of methods can be used to structure the reading and discussion (i.e.: whole class discussion, think-pair-share, independent
written response, group work, etc.)

Text Dependent Questions

Text-dependent Questions Evidence-based Answers


Reread the first page and the description that Gary Paulsen Varying shades of brown (brindle), strong and stout (mighty
gives of Storm. Describe Storm in terms of his physical dog, built like a machine; built like a truck); happy, loyal,
appearance and character traits. (Pg. 206) peaceful, has a sense of humor (even physically resembling
George Burns).
On page 207, what is meant by the sentence, “Fonzie once Fonzie bit the narrator. Since a dog cannot use a hammer and
nailed me through the wrist”? Why does the author tell about nail. The author tells about this to explain why Fonzie almost
this story while he is talking about Storm? bit Storm’s head off after Storm surprised him.
On page 207, Paulsen infers that Storm is happy and joyful and Storm snorts wind into the ear of the dog next to him and he
has a sense of humor by describing tricks Storm plays on the chuckles when the dogs jump and shake their heads
other dogs while running. What does Storm do?
Give an example of how Storm is playful and clever. (Pg. 207) Storm waits until the author is fixing the harness to hide the hat
so that he cannot see him. He hid the hat so that the snow was
not disturbed.
On pages 207 and 208, Gary Paulsen describes the tricks that Storm hides the bootie, a small ladle use for watering the dogs,
Storm plays on him. What does Storm do to the author to a cloth glove liner, a roll of tape, and finally a hat which he
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

show his sense of humor? buried deep in the snow.


A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a comparison is made Storm had the ability to look at a load and determine whether
between two unlike things that actually have something in or not the sled team could pull that weight. The author is
common. On page 208, Gary Paulsen writes a metaphor when comparing Storm’s eyes to scales used for weighing things.
he says, “Storm had scale eyes.” What does this comparison
suggest?
Reread Storm’s reaction to seeing the parlor stove on page 211. (A)Storm raises his head, does a double-take, opens his eyes
Why did he have this reaction? How was his reaction different wide, turns around to face the sled (opposite the direction they
from the other dogs? had to travel). (B)He recognizes that the load is too heavy for
the team to pull (his “scale eyes”), because he observed the
difficulties the men had loading the stove. The dogs were tired
anyway because they had just travelled a long and difficult
journey, only stopping an hour to rest. (C) While Storm was
alert and concerned, the other dogs lay sleeping.
On page 211, Storm reacts to the stove differently than the All the other dogs were slamming against the tugs, trying to get
other dogs. How does he react? the sled to move, but Storm sat and stared at the stove;
growled and snorted twice; bared his teeth. Storm
understands that the stove makes the sled too heavy, while the
other dogs just want to go.
On pages 212 – 214, Gary Paulsen describes how Storm starts The stick begins as a cure for Storm’s boredom, then becomes a
picking up a stick while he is running. How does the stick toy as he would pick it up and run with it. Later, Storm would
evolve as a tool to develop the relationship between Storm and pick a stick and bring it to the author for approval. The author
the author? later realized that Storm was using the stick as a
communication tool.
Reread page 214. Provide an example of how Storm explicitly During the pre-Iditarod race, while the author is trying to push
uses the stick to communicate his displeasure to the author and the dogs too much, the author walked over to Storm and the
teach him a lesson. dog pointedly dropped the stick. When the author tries to put
it against his mouth, Storm refuses to take it. It made Gary
Paulsen realize that he was doing something wrong and after
he stopped and fed and rested the team for about four hours,
Storm picked up the stick again, which was to tell Gary that he
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

was doing the right thing.

Vocabulary
KEY WORDS ESSENTIAL TO UNDERSTANDING WORDS WORTH KNOWING
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

General teaching suggestions are provided in the Introduction


not enough contextual clues provided in
TEACHER PROVIDES DEFINITION

206 - brindle, comical 206 - resembled, George Burns, peak


the text

211 - nickel, grade 207 - gangline


212 - Iditarod 208 - snowhook
211 - parlor
STUDENTS FIGURE OUT THE MEANING
sufficient context clues are provided in

206 - retired
207 - nailed, harness, shrugged
207 - puller, chuckling, bootie, ladle
208 - scale 208 - disengaged, exploded, regain
the text

211 - bulk, double-take, bared 211 - “break trail”, tugs


212 - pointedly 212 - trapline, emit, gratified

Culminating Activity
 Re-Read, Think, Discuss, Write
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

 Use the text to trace the development of communication between the narrator and Storm. What life lessons does Storm teach
Gary Paulson? How is he [Storm] about to do this?
Answer: Storm played jokes on the other dogs and on the narrator in order to communicate his boredom. For example, he
snorted into other dogs’ ears and hid things. Storm had “scale eyes” and let his disapproval be known if there was too much
weight on the led. Storm could look at the narrator’s shoulders and know how he was feeling. Storm’s pace changed in
response to what was required for the job at hand--work team, trapline team, Iditarod team. Finally, Storm used a stick to
communicate the extent of his approval regarding the way the narrator worked the sled team.

Additional Tasks
 In the beginning of the story, the author describes Storm as “First dog.” How does the author develop the meaning of this title
throughout the story?
Answer: The author references several leadership qualities throughout the story: physical strength, observance, intelligence,
cleverness, sense of humor, loyalty, hard work, persistence, perceptiveness, and the development of his relationship with the
other dogs and the author.
 Describe the setting and why it is important to the story.
Answer: While the narrator does not explicitly refer to a specific setting, students can infer that this story takes place in a
climate where there is a significant amount of snow for the bulk of the year. The story is about a sled dog team, and this
requires snow. Further, with a bit of research, students may realize that the Iditarod takes place in Alaska. The setting is
important to the story in that the story would not be possible or make sense in a warmer climate. Students may also observe
that a sled dog team is a way in which people use snow to their advantage to accomplish work rather than by being
overwhelmed by the snow.
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

 Gary Paulsen uses several sentence fragments in this selection such as, the one found on page 206, “First dog.” What is the effect
of this and other sentence fragments found throughout the story?
Answer: Paulsen’s use of sentence fragments clarifies meaning and is used to show emphasis, such as, “Just one dog.” and
“Storm.” With this, he is making it clear that Storm is not only the lead dog, but also the special dog which helped teach
Paulsen valuable life lessons. The sentence fragments also help to emphasize Storm’s character, such as, “Small jokes. Gentle
jokes.” where he is telling about how Storm would sometimes play. “First dog.” also attests to Storm’s status as a leader.
“Eight, ten, perhaps twelve thousand miles.” and, “Into the night.” allows the reader to “feel” how long and grueling the trip
really was for Paulsen and his dog sled team.

Note to Teacher
 The vocabulary used in this texts adds unusual difficulty. It may be necessary to provide additional vocabulary-building activities
in order for students to successfully interact with the text.

Supports for English Language Learners (ELLs)


to use with Basal Alignment Project Lessons
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

When teaching any lesson, it is important to make sure you are including supports to help all students. We have prepared some examples of
different types of supports that you can use in conjunction with our Basal Alignment Project Lessons to help support your ELLs. They are
grouped by when they would best fit in a lesson. While these supports reflect research in how to support ELLs, these activities can help ALL
students engage more deeply with these lessons. Note that some strategies should be used at multiple points within a lesson; we’ll point these
out. It is also important to understand that these scaffolds represent options for teachers to select based on students’ needs; it is not the
intention that teachers should do all of these things at every lesson.

Before the reading:


 Read passages, sing songs, watch videos, view photographs, discuss topics (e.g., using the four corners strategy), or research topics that
help provide context for what your students will be reading. This is especially true if the setting (e.g., 18 th Century England) or topic (e.g.,
boats) is one that is unfamiliar to the students.

 Provide instruction, using multiple modalities, on selected vocabulary words that are central to understanding the text. When looking at
the lesson plan, you should note the Tier 2 words, particularly those words with high conceptual complexity (i.e., they are difficult to
visualize, learn from context clues, or are abstract), and consider introducing them ahead of reading. For more information on selecting
such words, go here. You should plan to continue to reinforce these words, and additional vocabulary, in the context of reading and
working with the text. (See additional activities in the During Reading and After Reading sections.)

Examples of Activities:
o Provide students with the definition of the words and then have students work together to create Frayer models or other kinds
of word maps for the words.
o When a word contains a prefix or suffix that has been introduced before, highlight how the word part can be used to help
determine word meaning.
o Keep a word wall or word bank where these new words can be added and that students can access later.
o Have students create visual glossaries for whenever they encounter new words. Then have your students add these words to
their visual glossaries.
o Create pictures using the word. These can even be added to your word wall!
o Create lists of synonyms and antonyms for the word.
o Have students practice using the words in conversation. For newcomers, consider providing them with sentence frames to
ensure they can participate in the conversation.
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

o Practice spelling the words using different spelling practice strategies and decoding strategies. Students could take turns spelling
with a partner.

 Use graphic organizers to help introduce content.

Examples of Activities:
o Have students fill in a KWL chart about what they will be reading about.
o Have students research setting or topic using a pre-approved website and fill in a chart about it. You could even have students
work in groups where each group is assigned part of the topic.
o Have students fill in a bubble map where they write down anything that they find interesting about the topic while watching a
video or reading a short passage about the topic. Then students can discuss why they picked the information.

During reading:

 Read the text aloud first so that ELLs can hear the passage read by a fluent reader before working with the text themselves.

 Allow ELLs to collaborate in their home languages to process content before participating in whole class discussions in English. Consider
giving them the discussion questions to look over in advance (perhaps during the first read) and having them work with a partner to
prepare.

 Encourage students to create sketch-notes or to storyboard the passage when they are reading it individually or with a partner. This will
help show if they understand what they are reading as they are reading it.

 Ask questions related to the who, what, when, why, and how of the passage. For students that may need a little more help, provide
them with sentence stems.

 Continue to draw attention to and discuss the words that you introduced before the reading.
Examples of Activities:
o Have students include the example from the text in their glossary that they created.
o Create or find pictures that represent how the word was used in the passage.
o Practice creating sentences using the word in the way it was using in the passage.
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

o Have students discuss the author’s word choice.

 Use graphic organizers to help organize content and thinking.


Examples of Activities:
o Have students fill in a chart to keep track of their 5ws while they read to help them summarize later and figure out the central
idea of a passage.
o It may again be beneficial to have somewhere for students to store new words that they encounter while reading the text.
Students could use a chart to keep track of these new words and their meanings as they read.
o If you had students fill in a KWL, have them fill in the “L” section as they read the passage.
 Utilize any illustrations or text features that come with the story or passage to better understand the reading.
 Compare/contrast the passage with what the illustrations convey about the passage. Have students consider if the illustrations look the
way they visualized the passage in their own minds or if the passage matches their predictions based on the illustrations.
 Identify any text features such as captions and discuss how they contribute to meaning.

After reading:
 Present directions for any post-reading assignments orally and visually; repeat often; and ask English Language Learners to rephrase.

 Allow ELLs to use English language that is still under development. Students should not be scored lower because of incorrect spelling or
grammar (unless the goal of the assignment is to assess spelling or grammar skills specifically). When grading, be sure to focus on scoring
your students only for the objective(s) that were shared with students.

 Scaffold questions for discussions so that questioning sequences include a mix of factual and inferential questions and a mix of shorter
and more extended responses. Questions should build on each other and toward inferential and higher-order-thinking questions. There
are not many factual questions already listed in the lesson instructions, so you will need to build some in as you see fit. More
information on this strategy can be found here.

 Reinforce new vocabulary using multiple modalities

Examples of activities:
o Using the words that you had students work with before reading, have students write sentences in reference to the passage that
you just finished reading.
Woodsong/Gary Paulsen/Created by Recovery School District

o Require students to include the words introduced before reading in the culminating writing task.
o For newcomers, print out pictures that represent the words that you focused on and have students match the words to the
pictures.
o Based on different features of the words, have the students sort them into different categories and explain their choices. For
example, the students could sort the words by prefixes, suffixes, connotation, etc.

 After reading the passage, continue to examine important sentences (1–2) in the text that contribute to the overall meaning of the text.
Guide students to break apart these sentences, analyze different elements, and determine meaning. More information on how to do
this, including models of sentence deconstruction, can be found here.

 Provide differentiated scaffolds for writing assignments based on students’ English language proficiency levels.

Examples of Activities:
o For all students, go over the prompt in detail, making sure to break down what the prompt means before having the students
get to work. Then have the students explain the directions back to you.
o Have students create an evidence tracking chart during reading, then direct them to look back over their evidence chart and
work with a group to see if their evidence matches what the rest of the class wrote down. If some of the chart does not match,
students should have a discussion about why.
o For students who need more support, model the proper writing format for your students and provide them with a properly
formatted example for reference.
o For newcomers, you may consider creating sentence or paragraph frames to help them to write out their ideas.
 To further discussion about the passage, have students create their own who, what, when, where, why, and how questions related to
the passage to ask each other and have students pair up and practice asking each other the questions. If available, pair students of the
same home language to support the use of language still under development.

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