I picked the lesson “A Bad Case of Bullying: Using Literature Response Groups” that is for grades 3-5 as this is a “hot” topic within those grades at my school. Bullying today has grown so much, and has advanced into the technology world as well with cyber bullying. As teachers, we are always looking for new ways to protect our students from bullying or a way to teach our students how to prevent bullying to happen, and what to do about it.
This lesson is focused around literature response groups that allow students to explore bullying issues. The students can make connections to their own bullying against them, or if they were a bully themselves. The conversations would need to be monitored to protect the students. The teacher should really take note on social interactions, and to carefully advice students when needed. The book that this author of the lesson picked to read was A Bad Case of Stripes. I liked how the author of this lesson provided questions to ask before reading, while reading, and after reading questions. This really helps the teacher with planning, and it also helps with key stopping points within the story to make a point on the topic you are covering. I thought her questions were very detailed and appropriate for grades 3-5, and correctly followed the state standards as well as the bullying theme. After discussing the questions, the students are to write their reflections on the story in their journals. I like how she suggests posting the class discussion questions on the board or charting paper so that students can refer back to the questions when they write in their journals. After writing in their journals, they will meet back in their literature response groups to discuss their reflections. The next activity focuses on how Camilla’s classmates in the story treated her when she arrived to school with a bad case of stripes. The students are to brainstorm with a partner all the emotion words they can think of to describe how Camilla might have felt. This is something I think that is quite neat as I haven’t thought about focusing on an emotion as an activity- but for this lesson it is perfect! Again, they discuss their responses with their literature response groups. The last activity requires using the internet. The first website allows them to be an alien and they answer several questions about dealing with bullying so they can “Beat the Bully.” The second website allows them to create a short comic strip that focus on emotions and short responses. They fill out character bubbles and can change the faces based on the response they write.
Overall, I think this is a great activity that connects a current rising issue to literature and enables them to make connections with one another as well as being able to reflect and talk about it. The reflection piece and the literature response groups are very appropriate for this activity as it is important to talk and discuss about these issues. Very well done!
-Amanda Solesbee