Visualization Movie
Magic!
Reading to Learn Lesson Design
Rationale: When
students read fluently, they can start reading to learn. In order to do this
though, they need to be taught strategies to help them better comprehend a text.
When students are able to visualize a text, they are able to better monitor
their reading which makes comprehension easier. Skilled readers visualize by
picturing the story in their head like a movie. In this lesson, students will
practice doing this by reading a poem and a chapter of a book and visualizing
what the words mean. They will also be listening to passages with
inconsistencies to check to see if they are visualizing.
Materials:
-"Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage
Out" by Shel Silverstein broken into four sections to be read by the teacher on
a slide in PowerPoint.
-Student copies of
The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis
-Art supplies for students (crayons, markers, colored
pencils, pencils)
-PowerPoint with vocabulary words and definitions
-1 Piece of white paper for each student's drawing
-Lined paper for each student's description of their
visualization
Procedures:
1. Say: Sometimes when we're reading, it's hard to
understand what's happening in a story. But if we use our imagination to paint a
picture of the story in our mind, it's easier to follow along with a story and
understand what it's about. This is called visualizing. Visualizing can help us
make the story seem more real, and can help us remember the story that we read.
Today we are going to be practicing visualizing. First I am going to show you
how I do it, and then I'm going to let you read with a partner and visualize the
story together.
2. Say: Ok, let me show you how I visualize when I read. What I am about to read
to you is my favorite poem. It is called "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not
Take the Garbage Out," and it is by Shel Silverstein. The poem is about a little
girl who does not take the garbage out, and it fills up her home. [Read first
section of text. After reading, close your eyes and explain to students what you
see.] I see a kitchen with a garbage can that has garbage piled up to the
ceiling, with all kinds of trash in it. I also see a little girl who is getting
in trouble with her dad for not taking out the garbage. [Read section two of the
poem, and then model visualization for the students] Now I'm adding some more
trash to the picture in my head. The trash is piling up everywhere, and there is
so much that it is breaking the house apart!
3. Say: Now let's do the next section together. I'm going
to read the next part to you, and I want you to listen to what I am reading, and
add you movie in your head of what is happening to Sarah. When I finish, I'm
going to ask for some volunteers to share, so listen carefully. Go ahead and
close your eyes so you can really see the story.
[Read section three of the text.] Now I want you to close your eyes and
add some more details to the picture that's in your head. What are some of the
things that you are seeing? Is there a movie playing in your head of what is
happing in Sarah's house? Would anyone like to share what they saw in their head
when I was reading? Great! That was awesome visualization!
5. Now I am going to read you a short description and I
want you to visualize what I am saying in your head to see if it makes sense.
You can close your eye is it helps you
to be able to picture it better. "The warm rain splattered onto the wet
pavement. Judy decided to leave her green umbrella inside and go out in her
black fur coat." Can you see this in your head? Does it make sense? Right! It
doesn't make sense. If there was warm rain falling, Judy would not need a winter
fur coat, she would need her umbrella and maybe even some rain boots. Great job!
4. Now that we have had a little practice with
visualization, we are almost ready to split into groups and try it on your own.
First, we need to go over a few vocabulary words that might make it easier for
you to understand the story.
-Nuisance- a nuisance is a person or a thing that is annoying, obnoxious,
or unpleasant. A nuisance wouldn't be someone or something that you liked, but
it would be something like an annoying bee that won't leave you alone, or a
younger sibling that keeps trying to steal the remote from you. Which one of
these is a nuisance? A loud ringing noise that wont stop, or the smell of a
delicious pie in your house? Finish this sentence: My brother was being a
nuisance because he. . . [review each vocabulary word in this manner after
introducing the definition]
-Ostentatious- Ostentatious means something that is flashy or showy that
doesn't have to be, like a large diamond ring or a car with lots of expensive
parts on it. [review the vocabulary word in the same manner as the first]
-Unbounded- Something that is unbounded does not have any limits. It goes
on forever, and never comes to an end. It is infinite. [review the vocabulary
word in the same manner as the first]
-Twopence- A twopence is the sum of two British pennies. [review the
vocabulary word in the same manner as the first]
-Solemn- This word means something that is very serious and dignified.
[review the vocabulary word in the same manner as the first]
[Go over each vocabulary word, and make sure to answer any
questions that the students may have about the meanings of them. Also, make sure
that students know they can refer back to the PowerPoint when they need to.]
5. Say: Now we are going to work in pairs to visualize some
of The Magician's Nephew. We are on
chapter nine of this book, and this chapter is a great place to practice
visualizing! When we left the story, Digory, Polly, and the rest of the gang had
just made it to the new land. They are watching the lion pacing back and forth,
singing his song that sis bringing the land to life. You and your partner are
going to work together to read the chapter. One partner will read a page, and
then the other partner will read the next page. You will alternate pages until
the end of the chapter. After each page, talk with your partner for about a
minute about what you're a visualizing to see if your movies are about the same.
They won't be exactly the same, but they should be similar since you are reading
the same story. If you get stuck on a part, try to talk it out or go back and
read it again to see if you missed any important information. Make sure you are
really thinking about what is going on, because when you and your partner are
done reading, you are going to pick your favorite section from the chapter to
draw a picture of.
6. Say: Now that you are done reading, I want you to think
back on the chapter. What is your favorite scene from the movie you were
visualizing? On the piece of paper that I'm giving you, I want you to draw this
scene. Include as much detail as you can remember from your reading. Try to make
your picture so that someone who had not read this chapter could understand what
it was about. After you are finished with your drawing, I want you to write a
paragraph explaining what the scene is in your picture. You can refer back to
your book if you need to, but try to remember as much as you can from what you
read. Make sure you take your time with both parts of this, because we are going
to hang these up so that other people can see what we are reading! [As the
students are working on their drawings and writings, walk around the room and
answer questions as needed. After all students are finished, have them share
their drawings, and see if the other students can guess what scene is depicted
just from looking. The drawings and descriptions should be used as an assessment
piece to see if students understand what they are reading, and to make sure they
are using their new strategy of visualization. The assessment is whether or not
the student connected the picture they drew to the text they read, and whether
their drawing makes sense and reflects their picture. Use the assessment
checklist to assess each student's drawing, and their comprehension.]
Assessment Checklist:
_________ Did student draw a picture?
_________ Does the picture relate to the chapter?
_________ Does the picture depict what was read in the
chapter?
_________ Did the student include a description paragraph?
_________ Does the paragraph show comprehension of the
chapter?
_________ Can student find inconsistency in the following
through visualization? "The bright summer sun was shining down on the hot sand
at Wavy Beach. Jen grabbed her orange raincoat and headed down the boardwalk to
the beach."
References:
Lights! Camera!
Imgination! By Elizabeth Bryant
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/bryanterl.htm
"Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out"
by Shel Silverstein taken from Where the
Sidewalk Ends, Harper and Row Publishers, 1974
The Magician's
Nephew by C. S. Lewis, HarperCollins Publishers, 1955
Pressley, Michael. "Strategies That Improve Children's Memory and Comprehension
of Text." The Elementary School Journal. Volume 90: 1. University of
Western Ontario, 1989.
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out
Section 1:
Sarah
Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not
take the garbage out!
She'd
scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the
yams and spice the hams,
And though
her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply
would not take the garbage out.
And so it
piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee
grounds, potato peelings,
Brown
bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of
sour cottage cheese.
Section 2:
It filled
the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked
the window and blocked the door
With bacon
rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy
ends of ice cream cones,
Prune
pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy
glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza
crusts and withered greens,
Soggy
beans and tangerines,
Crusts of
black burned buttered toast,
Gristly
bits of beefy roasts. . .
The
garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised
the roof, it broke the wall. . .
Section 3:
Greasy
napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of
gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane
from green baloney,
Rubbery
blubbery macaroni,
Peanut
butter, caked and dry,
Curdled
milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy
melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells
mixed with lemon custard,
Cold
french fried and rancid meat,
Yellow
lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last
the garbage reached so high
That it
finally touched the sky.
Section 4:
And all
the neighbors moved away,
And none
of her friends would come to play.
And
finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
"OK, I'll
take the garbage out!"
But then,
of course, it was too late. . .
The
garbage reached across the state,
From New
York to the Golden Gate.
And there,
in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah
met an awful fate,
That I
cannot now relate
Because
the hour is much too late.
But
children, remember Sarah Stout
And always
take the garbage out!
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