Determine Theme

Ready-to-teach lesson

TUMBLETA · GRADE 3 · VERIFIED STANDARD EDITION

West Virginia Just like Josh Gibson - Determine Theme

ELA.3.13

Standard

Explain how specific aspects of illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story.

Why this lesson is a winner Students use the fence illustration as evidence and explain how it deepens the text's account of exclusion.

Decision: WINNER

Included only because the lesson teaches and assesses the claimed expectation. Partial or merely topical matches are excluded.

The standards page is additive. The approved TumbleTA skill lesson follows unchanged.

page, and only the first one has quotation marks round it. Somebody at the field said it. The second time nobody says it - it is the person telling us, repeating it, and that is where you can hear what she thinks of it.

Support and extension

Above: The child telling this story never describes herself and is only called me. Explain what the book gains by keeping her almost invisible.

Below: Sort the sentences into the three columns, then write whose voice ends the book.

Assessment

Look for:

Says a child is telling us the story.

Says the child is reporting what Grandmama said.

Uses the phrase Grandmama says as the evidence.

Says the story goes marks a tale nobody saw.

Says the last words are Grandmama's.

• 3.Outside The Fence

Full lesson

TIME

34 minutes

page 1

OBJECTIVE

Find the ways this book shows what Grandmama was kept out of, and what she carried with her anyway.

what she carried with her anyway.

STUDENT PRODUCT

Three findings with evidence, and what she remembers

FOCUS

A theme shown three ways and stated once

Essential question

Everybody says she is good. What is stopping her?

Materials

The book Pages 2, 3, 4 and 5, found before the lesson One finding sheet each

Text to mark before teaching Passage 2 — a bat propped beside a newborn Passage 3 — a fence, with a girl on one side and two players on the other Passage 4 — a girl in a catcher's chest protector, family watching from benches Passage 5 — lacing up borrowed baseball shoes beside a boy in a sling

Lesson sequence

1

Launch · 4 min

Focus:

A fence, doing the explaining

Teacher direction:

Show the fence picture without the words and ask what is happening. Then read the page. The picture has already said it.

Prepared text:

Passage 3

2

Teacher model · 7 min

Teacher model:

I read the praise and the sentence that follows it. Everybody agreed she could do the lot: hitting, throwing, running the bases - and then, too bad she's a girl. The compliment and the refusal arrive in the same breath from the same people. The rule is treated as ordinary, and that is what makes this moment worth stopping on.

page 2

Prepared text:

Passage 4

3 How the book shows the barrier · 13 min

Focus:

A fence, a rule, and a compliment

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 2, 3 and 4, write down the ways this book shows what Grandmama was kept out of.

Expected answer:

It shows it three ways rather than explaining it once. There is the flat rule - girls in the forties didn't play baseball, and were not supposed to take the field or even have batting dreams. There is the fence she stands outside, which the picture puts right between her and the boys in uniform.

And there is the praise that ends in too bad she's a girl, from the same people who have just said she could do it all. Against those is what she was given at the start: a papa who turned up on the day she was born with a bat and said his baby would make baseballs fly.

Student product:

Three findings, with the evidence for each

Prepared text:

Passage 2, Passage 3, Passage 4

4 What she keeps · 10 min

Focus:

What baseball has always been to her

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 5 and 2, write what Grandmama remembers as she goes to the plate, and why those things.

page 3

page 4

remembers as she goes to the plate, and why those things.

Expected answer:

On her way to the plate she remembers three things: the dew and the sunlight early in the morning, her papa throwing to her, and the fence she used to stand behind. The first two are from the beginning of the

book, when her papa threw balls to her as a baby girl in the dew. The third is the thing that was done to her and she counts it as part of what baseball has always been, not as something separate from it.

She goes to the plate carrying both the gift and the fence.

Prepared text:

Passage 2, Passage 5

Teacher guidance

Why this text works: The fence is the picture to project, because a class reads it before they read anything. The harder and better part of the lesson is the compliment on page four: she could do it all, and too bad she's a girl, from the same mouths in the same moment. The book presents the exclusion as an accepted rule rather than locating it in one cruel character. Finish on what she remembers at the plate, because the fence appears alongside the dew, the sunlight and her papa - part of the baseball history she carries with her.

Expected answer:

The book shows what Grandmama was kept out of three separate ways and never argues about it. There is the rule, stated as flatly as weather: girls in the forties did not play baseball, and were not supposed to go on the field with the boys, or even to have dreams about batting. There is the fence, which she stands outside to watch her cousin's team, and which the illustration puts squarely between her and two boys in uniform. And there is the praise - everybody saying she could hit, throw and fly round the bases - finished off with too bad she's a girl. Set against all of it is her papa, who arrived on the day she was born with a bat and a promise. When she finally walks to the plate she remembers the dew, her papa's throwing, and standing behind the fence, as though all three were the same thing.

Model: I notice that when she remembers what baseball has always been, the fence is on the list. Not as the bad part - just as part of it, next to the dew and the sunlight and her papa. She has kept the whole of it.

page 5

page 6

the sunlight and her papa. She has kept the whole of it.

Support and extension

Above: Nobody in this book is unkind to Grandmama and she still cannot play.

Explain how both of those can be true.

Below: Fill the three boxes, then write what she remembers at the plate.

Assessment

Look for:

Says girls were not supposed to play.

Uses the fence as evidence.

Says people praised her and then said too bad she's a girl.

Says her papa gave her a bat when she was born.

Says she remembered the fence as well as the good things.

Short version

TIME

18 minutes

OBJECTIVE

Find the ways this book shows what Grandmama was kept out of, and what she carried with her anyway.

STUDENT PRODUCT

Three findings with evidence, and what she remembers

FOCUS

A theme shown three ways and stated once

Essential question

Everybody says she is good. What is stopping her?

Materials

The book Pages 2, 3, 4 and 5, found before the lesson One finding sheet each

page 7

Text to mark before teaching Passage 2 — a bat propped beside a newborn Passage 3 — a fence, with a girl on one side and two players on the other Passage 4 — a girl in a catcher's chest protector, family watching from benches Passage 5 — lacing up borrowed baseball shoes beside a boy in a sling

Lesson sequence

1

Launch · 3 min

Focus:

A fence, doing the explaining

Teacher direction:

Show the fence picture without the words and ask what is happening. Then read the page. The picture has already said it.

Prepared text:

Passage 3

2

Teacher model · 5 min

Teacher model:

I read the praise and the sentence that follows it. Everybody agreed she could do the lot: hitting, throwing, running the bases - and then, too bad she's a girl. The compliment and the refusal arrive in the same breath from the same people. Nobody in the book is being cruel. That is what makes

from the same people. The rule is treated as ordinary. That is what makes it worth stopping on.

Prepared text:

Passage 4

3 How the book shows the barrier · 10 min

Focus:

A fence, a rule, and a compliment

Teacher direction:

Using Passages 2, 3 and 4, write down the ways this book shows what Grandmama was kept out of.

Expected answer:

It shows it three ways rather than explaining it once. There is the flat rule - girls in the forties didn't play baseball, and were not supposed to take the field or even have batting dreams. There is the fence she stands outside, which the picture puts right between her and the boys in uniform.

page 8

And there is the praise that ends in too bad she's a girl, from the same people who have just said she could do it all. Against those is what she was given at the start: a papa who turned up on the day she was born with a bat and said his baby would make baseballs fly.

Student product:

Three findings, with the evidence for each

Prepared text:

Passage 2, Passage 3, Passage 4

Teacher guidance

Why this text works: The fence is the picture to project, because a class reads it before they read anything. The harder and better part of the lesson is the compliment on page four: she could do it all, and too bad she's a girl, from the same mouths in the same moment. The book presents the exclusion as an accepted rule rather than locating it in one cruel character. Finish on what she remembers at the plate, because the fence appears alongside the dew, the sunlight and her papa - part of the baseball history she carries with her.

Expected answer:

The book shows what Grandmama was kept out of three separate ways and never argues about it. There is the rule, stated as flatly as weather: girls in the forties did not play baseball, and were not supposed to

page 9

page 10

weather: girls in the forties did not play baseball, and were not supposed to go on the field with the boys, or even to have dreams about batting. There is the fence, which she stands outside to watch her cousin's team, and which the illustration puts squarely between her and two boys in uniform. And there is the praise everybody saying she could hit, throw and fly round the bases - finished off with too bad she's a girl. Set against all of it is her papa, who arrived on the day she was born with a bat and a promise. When she finally walks to the plate she remembers the dew, her papa's throwing, and standing behind the fence, as though all three were the same thing.

Model: I notice that when she remembers what baseball has always been, the fence is on the list. Not as the bad part - just as part of it, next to the dew and the sunlight and her papa. She has kept the whole of it.

Support and extension

Above: Nobody in this book is unkind to Grandmama and she still cannot play.

Explain how both of those can be true.

Below: Fill the three boxes, then write what she remembers at the plate.

Assessment

Look for:

Says girls were not supposed to play.

Uses the fence as evidence.

Says people praised her and then said too bad she's a girl.

Says her papa gave her a bat when she was born.

Says she remembered the fence as well as the good things.

page 11