Skill Cause and Central Message

Ready-to-teach lesson

SKILL LESSON · GRADE 1 · ISH

Cause and Central Message

Source lesson: The Word That Changed It

Full lesson

TIME

35 minutes

OBJECTIVE

Work out why Marisol's wall changes Ramon, and what the book is saying through it.

STUDENT PRODUCT

A written explanation, then the message with evidence

FOCUS

A central message with one clear cause behind it

ESSENTIAL

Months of trying did not help. Why does one wall?

QUESTION

Materials

• The book

• Pages 5, 7, 9 and 10, found before the lesson

• One writing frame each

Text to mark before teaching

• Passage 5 — alone at the table, papers on the floor

• Passage 7 — his sister, and how he speaks to her

• Passage 9 — her bedroom walls

• Passage 10 — one drawing, taped up and still creased

• Passage 17 — lying back on a rock in the stream, sketchbook shut

Lesson sequence

1 Launch · 5 min

Focus:

How he treats the person who helps him

page 1

Teacher model:

I put the picture of the wall up and count what is on it: drawing after drawing, taped up, still creased from being screwed into a ball. Every one of them is something Ramon threw away. Nobody has told him she was doing this. The book calls it a crumpled gallery, and gallery is the word you use for somewhere people go to look at art.

Prepared text:

Passage 9

3 Why the wall works · 13 min

Focus:

Somebody else was keeping them

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 5, 7 and 9, write why seeing Marisol's wall changes Ramon, when months of trying did not.

Expected answer:

For months Ramon has been trying to make his drawings look right, and failing, and screwing them up - so he has been judging every drawing against one question and getting one answer. He has just snapped at his sister and chased her up the hall to get a piece of rubbish back. Then he sees that she has been collecting the rubbish and putting it on her wall, taped up and still creased, where she can look at it. It changes him because it is not an opinion about his drawing, it is proof that somebody wanted the drawings he had already decided were worthless. He was about to yell and instead he goes silent.

Student product:

A short piece of writing: what changed, and why the wall did it

Prepared text:

Passage 5, Passage 7, Passage 9

4 What the book is saying · 10 min

page 2

Focus:

Say it, then prove it from a page

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 10 and 17, write what you think this book is saying, and give the evidence.

Expected answer:

A fair answer is that a thing does not have to come out right to be worth making, and that once you stop needing it to be right you can make far more of it. The evidence is that Marisol's word does not claim the drawing is a vase - she agrees it is not - and Ramon starts working again the moment he stops asking that question. And by the end he goes further than the book's own idea: he has a feeling that even ish words and ish drawings cannot capture, and instead of forcing it he decides not to capture it and simply enjoys it.

Prepared text:

Passage 10, Passage 17

Teacher guidance

Why this text works: The whole lesson turns on one illustration, so give it time on the screen and ask what is on the wall before you ask what it means. Children notice the creases, which is the detail that matters: the drawings have been screwed up and smoothed out again by somebody who wanted them. Read the page where Ramon snaps at Marisol first, because the contrast makes the wall land harder - he is unkind to her on the page before she rescues him, and she does it anyway. Do not accept never give up as the message; send them back for a page.

Expected answer:

For months Ramon judges every drawing by whether it looks right, and every answer is no, so the floor fills with crumpled paper and he stops. He is not kind about it either - when Marisol watches him he snaps at her, and when she picks up one of his rejects he chases her up the hall to get it back. Then he sees her walls. Every drawing he threw away is taped up there, still creased, and the book calls it a crumpled gallery. That is what changes him, because it is not somebody's opinion of his drawing - it is proof that somebody wanted the ones he had already thrown out. Then she gives him the word, and the word lets him stop asking the question that had been beating him.

Model: I notice that Ramon is unpleasant to his sister on the page immediately before she saves him.

He snaps at her, tells her to go away, and chases her for a piece of paper he had thrown on the floor.

She does not stop keeping his drawings because of it.

page 3

Support and extension

Above: Marisol never tells Ramon he is a good artist. Explain why the wall says more than the compliment would have.

Below: Write what changed and why the wall did it, then the message with your evidence.

Assessment

Look for:

• Says Ramon kept trying to make his drawings look right.

• Says he threw the failed drawings away.

• Says Marisol had kept them and put them on her wall.

• Says the drawings were still crumpled.

• Gives a message and points at a page for it.

Short version

TIME

20 minutes

OBJECTIVE

Work out why Marisol's wall changes Ramon, and what the book is saying through it.

STUDENT PRODUCT

A written explanation, then the message with evidence

FOCUS

A central message with one clear cause behind it

ESSENTIAL

Months of trying did not help. Why does one wall?

QUESTION

Materials

• The book

• Pages 5, 7, 9 and 10, found before the lesson

• One writing frame each

Text to mark before teaching

• Passage 5 — alone at the table, papers on the floor

• Passage 7 — his sister, and how he speaks to her

• Passage 9 — her bedroom walls

• Passage 10 — one drawing, taped up and still creased

page 4

• Passage 17 — lying back on a rock in the stream, sketchbook shut

Lesson sequence

1 Launch · 3 min

Teacher model:

I put the picture of the wall up and count what is on it: drawing after drawing, taped up, still creased from being screwed into a ball. Every one of them is something Ramon threw away. Nobody has told him she was doing this. The book calls it a crumpled gallery, and gallery is the word you use for somewhere people go to look at art.

Prepared text:

Passage 9

3 Why the wall works · 7 min

Focus:

Somebody else was keeping them

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 5, 7 and 9, write why seeing Marisol's wall changes Ramon, when months of trying did not.

Expected answer:

For months Ramon has been trying to make his drawings look right, and failing, and screwing them up - so he has been judging every drawing against one question and getting one answer. He has just snapped at his sister and chased her up the hall to get a piece of rubbish back. Then he sees that she has been collecting the rubbish and putting it on her wall, taped up and still creased, where she can look at it. It changes him because it is not an opinion about his drawing, it is proof that somebody wanted the drawings he had already decided were worthless. He was about to yell and instead he goes silent.

page 5

Student product:

A short piece of writing: what changed, and why the wall did it

Prepared text:

Passage 5, Passage 7, Passage 9

4 What the book is saying · 6 min

Focus:

Say it, then prove it from a page

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 10 and 17, write what you think this book is saying, and give the evidence.

Expected answer:

A fair answer is that a thing does not have to come out right to be worth making, and that once you stop needing it to be right you can make far more of it. The evidence is that Marisol's word does not claim the drawing is a vase - she agrees it is not - and Ramon starts working again the moment he stops asking that question. And by the end he goes further than the book's own idea: he has a feeling that even ish words and ish drawings cannot capture, and instead of forcing it he decides not to capture it and simply enjoys it.

Prepared text:

Passage 10, Passage 17

Teacher guidance

Why this text works: The whole lesson turns on one illustration, so give it time on the screen and ask what is on the wall before you ask what it means. Children notice the creases, which is the detail that matters: the drawings have been screwed up and smoothed out again by somebody who wanted them. Read the page where Ramon snaps at Marisol first, because the contrast makes the wall land harder - he is unkind to her on the page before she rescues him, and she does it anyway. Do not accept never give up as the message; send them back for a page.

page 6

Expected answer:

For months Ramon judges every drawing by whether it looks right, and every answer is no, so the floor fills with crumpled paper and he stops. He is not kind about it either - when Marisol watches him he snaps at her, and when she picks up one of his rejects he chases her up the hall to get it back. Then he sees her walls. Every drawing he threw away is taped up there, still creased, and the book calls it a crumpled gallery. That is what changes him, because it is not somebody's opinion of his drawing - it is proof that somebody wanted the ones he had already thrown out. Then she gives him the word, and the word lets him stop asking the question that had been beating him.

Model: I notice that Ramon is unpleasant to his sister on the page immediately before she saves him.

He snaps at her, tells her to go away, and chases her for a piece of paper he had thrown on the floor.

She does not stop keeping his drawings because of it.

Support and extension

Above: Marisol never tells Ramon he is a good artist. Explain why the wall says more than the compliment would have.

Below: Write what changed and why the wall did it, then the message with your evidence.

Assessment

Look for:

• Says Ramon kept trying to make his drawings look right.

• Says he threw the failed drawings away.

• Says Marisol had kept them and put them on her wall.

• Says the drawings were still crumpled.

• Gives a message and points at a page for it.

page 7