The Land of Stories: Predicting

Students are practicing making predictions in their reading. In our class, we made some predictions about what we thought was coming up next in our read-aloud book, The Land of Stories. Each student shared his or her ideas on an anchor chart. Many had similar ideas, but all were creative in their own specifics.

After finishing Chapter Four with a cliffhanger, students used their Writer's Workshop tools and predicting skills to write their own versions of Chapter Five. Some of them were so incredible, I felt like I was reading ahead in the book!

The Land of Stories: Characters, Setting and Plot

As we continue our read-aloud of The Land of Stories, we are practicing reading comprehension strategies, such as:

-making connections

-asking questions

-visualizing

-inferring

and

-predicting

We are also learning about Plot, Setting and Characters. We had a great class discussion where students recalled three details that they thought were important and added them to our anchor chart. They could share details about the characters in the story, the setting (both the where and the when) or the plot (which we started mapping on two separate plot lines - a real life and a fairy tale one)

Talking About "The Land of Stories"

On Monday, we continued our Read-Aloud of "The Land of Stories" by Chris Colfer. 

We started off with a great discussion about characters, setting and plot.

We talked about how characters are the people and animals in a story. The setting is the time and place where the story occurs. The plot is the action of the story and you can organize your thoughts about the plot in a timeline.

Then, each student had a few minutes to think about what they thought were important details about the story so far, and fill out two sticky notes with information. Everyone shared their ideas and we got into a surprising level of depth. The students in Room 209 are great listeners and thinkers!