Analyze a Spider's Point of View

Ready-to-teach lesson

Analyze a Spider's Point of View

Diary of a Spider - Grade 3 - Short lesson

TIME

OBJECTIVE

PRODUCT

18 minutes Work out how the diary is shaped by who is writing it, and how the Two lists side by side, and three same thing looks from the other end. spider-only sentences Essential question: The same creature is on both of his lists. How?

Materials

Text to mark

• The book

• Passage 5 - a human basketball game, seen from inside the net

• One list sheet each

• Passage 20 - Fly's mother, twice the size of anybody

• Prepared passages: Passage 5, Passage 20, Passage 21

Lesson sequence

1 Launch - 3 min

• Passage 21 - a shadow thrown on a wall

Focus:

Two things happening in one room

Teacher direction:

Show the gym-class page without reading it and ask what is going on. The class will see a basketball game. Then read the words, which are about learning to catch the wind.

Prepared text:

Passage 5 2 Teacher model - 5 min 3 Two lists, one word each way - 10 min

Focus:

Scaring, and being scared

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 20 and 21, write what is on each of the spider's two lists and what the pictures add.

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Expected answer:

On the list of things he scares, the first is Fly's mom - and the picture has her looming over everybody while Fly says it was not his fault. On the list of things that scare him, the first is Daddy Longlegs, and the picture is not the creature at all but a huge shadow thrown up a wall. So the pictures give the size rather than the animal: what frightens you looks enormous, and you look enormous to whatever you frighten. Neither list is about how big anything really is.

Student product:

Two lists, side by side, with what the picture shows

Prepared text:

Passage 20, Passage 21

Support & extension

Above: The spider frightens Fly's mother and is frightened of Daddy Longlegs. Write what Daddy Longlegs might have on his own two lists.

Below: Fill the two columns, then write three things only a spider would say.

Assessment

• Says Fly's mom is on the list of things he scares

• Says Daddy Longlegs is on the list of things that scare him

• Says the pictures show how big things feel

• Names one lesson only a spider would need

• Says molting is something only a spider does

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