Focus on Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr (Day 1 of 5)

I meet with my students on the rug for almost all my mini lessons. Proximity is a wonderful classroom management technique, and I can monitor their understanding, instead of needing to assess whether they are engaged!

This is the introductory lesson (Day 1 of 5) to begin an exploration of biography and authors’ purpose. The purpose of this lesson is to explore the characteristics of biography and to practice asking and answering who, what, when, why, where and how questions to find out the author's purpose.

I begin by reading David Adler’s Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. This book is about a 3.8 GE difficulty, so it would be beyond many of my students’ independent reading level if they read it on their own without my support. I read the story twice to foster understanding of the rigorous text. I often read stories more than once – rereading is encouraged for comprehension throughout the CCSS – and I try hard to model the comprehension techniques I encourage my students to use. Besides, I don’t want chatter to get between the author and his “listener-readers.” The author/reader connection is powerful, and I think we sometimes overwork literature, snuffing that connection!

So on the first read, I ask my students to just listen. I also don’t give them any note taking materials, because seven year olds will often be distracted by anything in their hands. So they just listen.

After the first reading, I spend a small amount of time allowing discussion about the concepts presented and asking if they need clarification of any unknown words. If there are questions about vocab, I answer the question with a simple definition.

When we have completed the entire book, I tell the students that they have really delved deeply into the author’s work, and that asking and answering the question “What does the author want us to know?” is a powerful reading strategy that will work with any reading.  By asking questions like that, we develop our relationship with the author. And we learn.  

• Our next step is to summarize.  I tell the student summarizing is a way to pack the learning into a small space. We can unpack all the information at any time, but we want to remember the gist of what the book was about without every detail.  So they have a job now of writing a summary of the book.
• I project the page of notes I took while the students delved into the book.  I ask them to decide if some of the sentences go together – if they are somewhat alike.  (Family, childhood, unfairness, what he did to protest, how did some people act towards him…)

I group my students into teams heterogeneously. The teams consist of usually 4 students who are above, at and below grade level readers.  I appoint a team leader whose job is to solicit input from each member. We practice having the leader say, “What do you think, ____?” to each member. We also practice active listening skills and consensus for group share out.  Today their task is to write a summary of the book.  I ask that they write 4 to 6 sentences that describe the book, and I write the summary stem for the students to copy as a starting point: “A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. by David A. Adler, is …."

• The guidelines for the task are that the leader of the team is in charge of passing the pencil and soliciting all members for ideas about what each sentence must say. Each team member must write at least one sentence in the summary.  Each sentence should explain one of the big ideas in the book (the grouped sentences.) The team should come to consensus about a sentence for each subtopic.   I dismiss the teams to tables to work together. After 20 minutes, I ask the students to return to the carpet.