Flying High in Our Imaginations
Rationale:
One
of the most important values of reading is comprehension.
Without comprehension, readers are not able
to understand and follow the sequence of events in stories. This lesson will help students learn how to
visualize the text as they read by painting a picture in their head.
Visualization makes the story come alive and helps the reader to
remember the
sequence of events. By teaching
visualization techniques, the readers will learn how to visualize while
reading, thus comprehending.
Materials:
-
class set of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by
J.K. Rowling
-
white paper
-
coloring materials (crayons, color pencils, markers)
Procedure:
1. “Good
morning, class! Everyone this morning is
going to be a bird, so I need you to close your eyes and think of a
bird in
your head that you want to be. You can
be a robin sitting on her nest of eggs in a family’s back yard, a
seagull
flying over the beach, a big black crow sitting in a pumpkin patch, or
even a
beautiful swan with big white wings. You
can be any bird you want, just use your imagination!
Now that everyone has the type of bird they
want to be, imagine that you are flying over a forest high up in the
sky. What is the weather like? Is it bright and sunny or raining? Hot or cold?
What type of trees are you flying over?
Are they big and filled with leaves or twiggy and bare? Create your surroundings.
You’re looking down at the beautiful land;
maybe you see mountains, trees, possibly a lake, when all of a sudden,
BAM!!! Oh no, you flew into
something!! What did you fly into? Now open your eyes. You
are no longer birds; you are students
back in the classroom.”
2. Call 3 students to the front of the room and have them briefly share what type of bird they were, the surroundings they created for their bird, and the object they visualized flying into.
3.
“Class, did you notice that these 3 student’s visualizations are
all
different? That is the neat thing about
visualizing because we can let our imaginations paint pictures in our
heads,
and everyone’s ‘brain painting’ is unique and different.”
4.
“Even though many times we all visualize
things different, visualizing can help us to see the same thing when
the information
given is more specific like in a story.
Sometimes visualizations can help us find things and solve
problems. For example, if I asked one of
you to go to the grocery store and buy General Mill’s Honey Nut
Cheerios in the
brown-gold box in the smallest size on aisle 8, you would visualize
that in
your head while I am describing the cereal to you.
When you get to the store, you would look for
exactly what you had visualized.”
5.
“So far we’ve talked about how important
visualization is and how much fun it can be when painting ‘brain
pictures’ and
trying to solve problems. Probably one
of the most important ways to apply your visualizing technique is when
you are
reading because it is a great way to become a better reader! Now that you are getting older and
becoming better readers you have started to read longer books with more
words
and less pictures. Just because a book doesn’t have a lot of pictures
doesn’t
mean it isn’t a good book it just means that it’s up to us as the
readers to
visualize as we read.”
6. “How do you think that visualization might help us to read stories better?” Allow a few students to give their answers. “That’s right, when we read a sentence we can pick up on descriptions and paint ‘brain pictures.’ When might visualizing be very important in a story? That’s right, when we are learning about the characters and setting.”
7.
“Today we are going to start reading the book Harry Potter
and the
Sorcerer’s Stone. There are so many
fascinating creatures, characters, and settings in this book, so let
your mind
run wild while you are reading and visualize everything you read in
your head.”
8.
“I want you to read the first chapter in Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and when you are finished, you
will draw
your most memorable ‘brain picture’ that you visualized while reading. You can let me know
about the characters or the setting or a specific scene through your
drawing,
but use as much detail as you can. I should be able to look at your
picture and
visualize the section of the chapter you had drawn.”
Assessment:
Allow students
enough time to read
the story and draw their pictures. They will turn in the pictures that
were
drawn. The pictures should be graded using the following guidelines as
a
checklist
-
Did the student draw a picture?
- Does the picture relate to
the first chapter?
- Does the picture relate to
characters or setting?
- Is the picture
interpretable?
- Does the picture display
detail?
- Does the picture portray
comprehension of the first chapter?
Reference:
- Tidwell, Casey. “The Adventure of Visualization.”
- Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Bloomsbury Children's Books, 1997.