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Objectives & Outcomes

Students will be able to analyze fables, find the moral of the story, and identify the message or theme of the fable.

Materials Needed

The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse and The Owl and The Grasshopper (or you can use any two other fables)

white board

dry erase markers

Procedure

Opening to Lesson

To begin this lesson, explain to the students that they are going to be learning about fables. Fables originated long ago and were a form of oral storytelling.

To help students understand what oral storytelling is all about, play the Telephone Game. (Students sit in a circle. The teacher whispers one line into the ear of the student to her right. Each student will turn and repeat the line to the next person by whispering it in their ear. Once the last student hears the line, they say it out loud.) (CFU: Discuss: How did the story change? Why did the story change?)

Body of Lesson

Direct Teaching

Explain why it was so important for oral storytellers to write their tales down. "There was a man by the name of Aesop, and he wrote many of the fables that we know today. We are going to be reading two of his fables, but before we do that, let us look at what characteristics are common to most fables." Create an anchor chart on the board to review the characteristics of fables with the class. The students will then get their own copy for future guidance.

Guided Practice 1

Give each student a copy of the fable "The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse." I will read this fable aloud to the class. (CFU: Once the teacher has finished reading the story, the teacher will call on individual students and have them identify the elements of a fable found in this story, referring to the anchor chart and handout.)

Guided Practice 2

I will give each student a copy of the second fable, "The Owl and The Grasshopper." Students will read alone or in groups.

Independent Practice

Once students have finished reading, the students will share with their shoulder partner, the elements of a fable found in this story. (CFU: can monitor the student discussions at this time by walking around the room.)

Closing

Have students take turns going to the board and filing out the Venn Diagram to compare the elements of the two fables.

Assessment & Evaluation

Through guided questions, close monitoring and informal observation; the teacher will be able to assess student's ability and understanding of the subject being introduced. Through individually assessing during independent practice and reviewing during guided practice the teacher will be able to evaluate students.

Modification & Differentiation

To modify these exercises, students can read the passages with a peer, or listen to audio versions of the two fables to ensure better comprehension. While students must work together to understand the meanings of unfamiliar words, vocabulary words and meanings have been pre-recorded on flashcards, which will be given to each group at the start of each lesson. Students can tape their final fables before actually publishing them to help them organize their story ideas. Students can have a scribe for their final fable. Students can work in groups of three instead of two during the Guided Practice when they are sharing answers and discussion.

Related Lesson Plans

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What is a Fable? Lesson Plan | Teacher.org

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Students will be able to analyze fables, find the moral of the story, and identify the message or theme of the fable. The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse and The Owl and The Grasshopper (or you can use any two other fables) white board dry erase markers To begin this lesson, explain to the students that they are going to be learning about fables.

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Examples of accommodations, modifications and other strategies that could be found in IEPs for all aspects and areas of learning.

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Sample Lesson of class creating their own storybook. Discussion of central message and lesson learned.

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CCSS RL 3.2 Focus Lesson 1 ~ Recount Stories

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Guide to Accommodations and Modifications 

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Guide to Accommodations and Modifications 

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Comprehensive guide to creating adaptations to environment, curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices that will benefit all students

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Video discussion the central message of a story. The central message is the big idea, or moral, of the story. What does the story tell me? What does the story teach me?

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Ideas for Modifying Grade-Level Curriculum

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Ideas for Modifying Grade-Level Curriculum

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Variety of teaching strategies for ELL: word bank, graphic organizers, retelling center with props

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Folktales included fairy tales, fables, and legends. They were traditionally passed down by word of mouth. Folktales are great windows into the culture and values of the the group of people telling them. Fables have a lesson the the reader is meant to learn. Fairy tales and legends have more subtle lessons about good and evil. Cultures around the world often have their own version of a common folk tale. Here are some ideas for teaching about folktales to ELLs:

Compare and Contrast Different Versions of a Folktale

Comparing and contrasting different versions of folktales is a great opportunity to include versions from countries around the world. Many ELLs will be excited to read a story that takes place in a country that they or their family are from or includes a language that the speak.

Little Roja Riding Hood- This retelling of Little Red Riding Hood takes place in New Mexico. The characters code switch between English and Spanish throughout the book. There is a glossary of Spanish words included but there are also strong context clues to determine their meaning.

The Ghanaian Goldilocks- This retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears takes place in Ghana. It tells the story of a mischievous young boy and his adventures around town.

Here is an audio version of the story.

Compare and Contrast Characters from Different Folktales

There are many similarities between characters in folktales. Fairy tales often have a hero, mischief maker, and trouble maker. Looking for similarities and differences in a well known story is another way to practice this skill.

Provide Word Banks

Word banks are a helpful scaffold for ELLs. When students are comparing and contrasting different fairy tales a word bank can help ELLs by reminding them of key vocabulary terms to use. When students are retelling a folktale a word bank is also helpful to help them use the characters and important vocabulary from the story.

Set up a Retelling Center

Folktales are a great topic for a retelling center. There are many premade props that you can add or you can have students create the materials themselves. In a retelling center students can reenact the story, practice their speaking skills, and have fun playing.

Finger puppets are easy to story props.

This set of Wooden Finger Puppets is made of wood and cloth. It has the characters already dressed up as those from common fairy tales. This set of Finger Puppets has more generic characters with people and animals.

Use Pictures of Story Events for Speaking and Writing

Simple pictures are a helpful way for students to teach about folktales to ELLs. They are great for students to speak and write about. I have sets of premade retelling cards, graphic organizers, and writing pages available.

This set includes images from fairy tales and fables. Student can use them to sequence and retell the story. The pictures will help them remember story events and provide support for ELLs with low language levels.

Students take pictures and sequence into the order of the story events. Then they use the provided space in the graphic organizer to write down what happened in the story. The graphic organizer helps students to only write down the important details from the story.

Pictures are a helpful reminder on this writing page.

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Teaching About Folktales to ELLs - A World of Language Learners

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Folktales included fairy tales, fables, and legends. They were traditionally passed down by word of mouth. Folktales are great windows into the culture and values of the the group of people telling them. Fables have a lesson the the reader is meant to learn. Fairy tales and legends have more subtle lessons about good and evil.

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4 central characteristics of fables

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Common Core Standards Assessments and Worksheets for all 3rd grade Math and English standards.

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Comprehensive guide to teaching a unit of study on Fables. Includes downloadable supports, activities and differentiated teaching strategies.

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As mentioned, these pithy little tales convey morals to readers. Indeed, back in the days of togas and scrolls, the Greeks would use fables to teach their society how to live the virtuous life. Encourage close reading skills in your students by having them identify the moral of a variety of fables.

As many of these stories date back over 2,500 years old, copyright is unlikely to be an issue! You can find tons of free versions of Aesop's fables online. Print a selection off, organize your class into groups, give them copies of the tales, and set them the task of reading and identifying the moral of each one.

differentiated teaching strategies

This activity is easily differentiated by the language level of each version. There are numerous versions of Aesop's fables available for download online. Choose the version that best suits your class, group, or individual's needs.

For younger students, or students of lower ability, you may wish to provide the group with a list of morals from which they have to choose to match up with the appropriate fable.

3. SEQUENCING YOUR FABLE: teaching idea

Sequencing is very important in storytelling; in fact, it's very important in all writing genres. Having a firm grasp of the importance of good sequencing helps students organize their writing at the planning stage.

There are many possible variations of sequencing activities you can set your students. Very young students can be given a series of jumbled up pictures of scenes from a fable you have already read to them. They are tasked with putting the pictures in chronological order and sticking them onto a strip of paper. They can then use these as prompts to tell each other the story in their own words.

differentiated teaching strategies

This activity can easily be modified to challenge stronger students. For example, you may provide a set of corresponding captions that must be matched to the pictures before organizing chronologically. You can further differentiate by introducing non-conventional story structures such as In Media Res where a story starts in the middle. Students will likely have some awareness of this from its frequent use in the movies. Have them play with the sequence of events and try different starting points for effect. This can reap great creative rewards in their writing later.

4. READING FABLES WITH PURPOSE and creating story maps: teaching idea

Just as scientists can understand the inner workings of a frog by dissecting it, students can understand the inner workings of a story through the same process. Hopefully though, the magic of storytelling survives the process, unlike the poor frog!

Use a fable your students are very familiar with to teach the essential parts of a story: character, setting, problem, climax, and resolution. Discuss the characters in the story and have them identify the setting. Discuss the links between types of character and suitable settings. Broaden this idea out to other writing genres such as science fiction, westerns, and horror. What patterns can your students uncover about the relationships between characters and settings?

Now it's time to get scientific! In groups, have students draw a graph with time along the horizontal axis and action along the vertical axis. Have students plot the various parts of the story (introduction of the characters and setting, problem, climax, resolution) as points along the axis. The points should move from left to right as they occur chronologically in the story. The higher the point is, the more dramatic the action. This is a great way for students to see the physical shape of a narrative arc.

differentiated teaching strategies

A simple version of this activity may involve students simply plotting the points and labeling them introduction, problem etc. However, more advanced students can also write captions that describe the action at the different stages.

You may also wish to take the opportunity to make some cross curricular technology links here and have students construct their graphs digitally with a suitable software program.

5. MAKE YOUR FABLE TIMELESS - rewriting them for a modern audience: teaching idea

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Fables for Kids a complete guide - Literacy Ideas

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As mentioned, these pithy little tales convey morals to readers. Indeed, back in the days of togas and scrolls, the Greeks would use fables to teach their society how to live the virtuous life. Encourage close reading skills in your students by having them identify the moral of a variety of fables.

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App for further readings

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.

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Making your own fable with Graphic Organizer

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Making your own fable with Graphic Organizer

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Sample Lesson Ideas

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In reading and writing this week in 2nd grade, we were ALL about fables! They are kind of a big deal considering an entire Common Core Standard is dedicated to them.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson or moral.

Well, actually, I started last week when I was being observed. My lesson required students to identify a major event in the story where a character learned an important lesson. I taught this in small reading groups and the kids loved it so much, it spilled into this week. Here's a breakdown of what we did each day.

Day 1: I hadn't thought ahead too much (I do that sometimes) so I didn't have any fable books...yet. So I went with my go-to plan B and looked up fables on UnitedStreaming.com or Discovery Education-whichever you prefer. Does your school have a subscription? Not sure what I would do without it.

Discovery Ed. has a whole bunch of Magic School Bus Episodes which is kinda our thing on most Friday afternoons. My kids have a tendency to assume we are watching Magic School Bus anytime I start typing unitedstreaming.com into my browser. But no sir, it was not Magic School Bus today! Today I was going to do the teaching instead of Miss Frizzle.

Back to our fable lesson. We talked about the elements of a fable. I used a poster from Lessons in Literacy Fable Writing pack.

Then we watched 2 short fable videos and identified the elements focusing mostly on the lesson. And even though the stories came out and told us the lesson, we still needed to interpret into kid terms.

Next, we took a look at the fable writing planning page also from Lessons in Literacy. We chose some animal characters and identified which one would be the 'hero' and which one the 'villian'. Although, I like to just say "the one who makes good choices and the one who makes not-so-good choices" because I am not a huge fan of strong labels.

After we chose the characters and setting, I sent them off to work in partners on the fables. I decided to let them develop their own lesson or moral and the next day we would share them and try to guess what it is.

Day 2: Honestly, this day wasn't too magical because I had a meeting to go to during our reading/writing block. So the kids just finished up their fables and shared them with the class. I hope they tried to guess the morals but I really have no idea since my substitute was gone when I came back. (Don't worry, another 2nd grade teacher had my class.) When I returned to the room, half the fables were missing and the kids were all over the place so I kind of just gave up on reading those. #teachertruth

Day 3: This day we were back in action. I even went to the library before school to pick out some fable books. However, I have a reputation of not looking through books before I read them (I know, it is a horrible habit) and one of the books I picked out had a swear word in it-GASP! Like the word for donkey. I just skipped over those fables.

We referred to our anchor chart everyday to identify the elements of a fable. I read some fables and we discussed all the parts. A few were repeats from ones we had read in reading groups but they were slightly different so it was fun to discuss how they were the same and how they were not.

Finally, after we got a lot of ideas from reading fables, I sent them off to plan for writing their OWN fable this time. And I let them pick their characters from the character cards which, you guessed it, are found in Lessons in Literacy's Fable Writing pack (I am not getting paid for this, I just really liked this pack). Here's what they looked like:

Choosing their characters from the picture cards (in color!!) was just so much more special than drawing their own picture. It's the little things!

Day 4: Students wrote their fables using their planning page. As much as I tried to encourage them to write SHORT stories, I still had a few asking for more paper. You hate to discourage writing at this age so I just let it go. Even though we talked everyday about fables being short. #ohwell

Despite our mini-lesson on how fable titles usually just list the main characters, my darling below used that space for her name. #ohwellx2

Day 5: Whew! Here we are at day 5. I am exhausted just recapping the week despite sleeping 12 hours last night. But this was my favorite day. And not just because it was Friday. I decided to let my kids use our classroom laptops to listen to fables and record the fable elements on this graphic organizer which is free in my TpT store. (Fun fact: this was my first ever freeie on TpT)

At first, we used the website Speakaboos.com. I found it that morning and quickly signed up for a free 30 day trial. I was super excited about using the website since it looked kid-friendly. We listened to a fable and filled out the graphic organizer together first. Then I proudly sent them off in partners to finish the rest on their own using Speakaboos.com.

Oh, it was SO perfect. Collaboration and technology. I thought to myself "Why couldn't I be getting observed RIGHT NOW?!" Then all of a sudden, kids started yelling out my name. Many with a frantic tone in their voice. "The website isn't working, Mrs. Stahl!"

Little did I know, there is a limit to how many students can be logged onto Speakaboos.com. And we quickly hit that limit within 5 minutes. I threw my hands up in the air and said "Forget this!"

No, no, I didn't do that. Instead, I modeled what a good problem solver does. With the speed of lightening, I hopped on my computer and found some fables on YouTube.com. But, of course, I don't want my kids to see the ads and all that jazz on YouTube so I had to put them into SafeShare.tv and add them to our website we use called Symbaloo.com ( You can read how I use that here).

Moral of the story: Look before you leap into using a new website.

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In reading and writing this week in 2nd grade, we were ALL about fables! They are kind of a big deal considering an entire Common Core Standard is dedicated to them. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson or moral.

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Examples of fables to use in ESL classroom and reasoning for why the fables were chosen. Contains useful links for broadening instruction.

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by Susan Verner 47,517 views

Almost every culture of the world includes fables in its literature bank. These short stories using animals, forces of nature or plants and other inanimate objects are meant to teach us lessons that are universally applicable. Besides their moral value, fables can be useful in the ESL classroom because of their simplicity and their ability to draw the reader in regardless of culture. Here are some activities you can do with fables that will benefit your ESL students.

HOWTO: Using and Writing Fables in Your ESL Classroom

1. Animals in the Midst
One characteristic of a fable is that it uses animal characters to portray human characteristics. Each particular animal will act in a human way. For example, the fox will be a crafty or sly animal. The lion will be a brave individual. Before reading any fables in your classroom, take some time as a class to brainstorm a list of animals and the characteristic for which they are best known. Encourage your students to notice if these characteristics apply across cultures or whether each culture views a particular animal in a different way. You may also want to talk about specific animals which will appear in the fable or fables you plan to read with your class. Ask each of your students to choose one of these animals which he or she thinks is most representative of himself or herself as a person and write a description of himself as that animal.

2. A Moral to the Story
Since the point of a fable is to teach a moral or a lesson to the reader, have your students start this activity by talking about what it means to give advice. In groups of three or four students, have your class discuss the following questions. What are some situations in which you might want advice? What are some situations in which you would not want advice from another person? What would you do if you wanted to give advice to a friend but he or she did not want any advice? How can you communicate your opinions without giving advice?

Explain to your class that a moral is a general truth or piece of advice that is generally true. Ask your class to think of stories they have read or heard that have a moral or give advice. Make a list on the board of these stories. Have groups of students then work together to make a list of lessons that they have learned or lessons that they have been taught using the list of stories on the board for inspiration. This would also be a good opportunity to introduce the concept of a proverb to your class since they are often the moral of a fable.

3. A Classic Tale
One fable that many of your students may already know is the tale of the tortoise and the hare. In this story, the hare is so confident in his own abilities that he makes poor choices and ends up losing a footrace with the tortoise. Read this story to your class two times and then ask the following questions. Who are the characters in the story? What is the problem? How does the story end? What is the moral or lesson of the story? Now give your students a chance to retell the story. Have your class arrange their chairs in a circle. Start the story by telling one sentence in your own words. Have your students continue telling the story, one sentence and one person at a time, until you make it all the way around the circle. At logical points in the story, ask your students how the characters probably felt, and have your class make faces to show these feelings.

After your students have finished retelling the story, tell your students how stories or dramas were communicated in ancient Greece - through theater. Actors used masks of happy and sad faces to communicate the character's feelings to the audiences. Give your class a chance to make their own theater masks that they will use to retell the fable. Give each person two paper plates and two tongue depressors. Allow your students to decorate their masks - one happy and one sad - using whatever art supplies you have available and then tape a tongue depressor to each mask. Once all the masks are finished, get in your circle again and have your students retell the story. This time instead of making faces to show how the characters feel, let your students hold up the appropriate mask. If desired, you can have your students decorate their masks even further to represent either of the main characters of the story.

4. A Modern Perspective
Though the morals that fables teach are universal, the stories through which those morals are taught do not necessarily correspond with life in the modern world. In this activity, your students will take a universal moral and apply it to a modern situation. Start by dividing your class into groups of five students, and assign one fable to each group. You can find hundreds of fables free online. One site where you can find these stories is aesopfables.com which has over 650 fables, some in audio files as well as text files. Have each group read their fable and then discuss how the story can be modified to portray a more modern or contemporary story. Working together, your students should rewrite the story in a modern way. After the group rewrites the story, give them some class time to practice two dramatic presentations of the story, one the original version and one the rewritten version. Have each group then perform their skits: one as the traditional story and the second as their modernized version. After each presentation, ask your class what the moral of the story was and how it was communicated in each version. Have a short discussion on the similarities and differences between the two versions. Then take a vote as to whether the class liked the traditional or the modernized version better.

Because fables are short stories with universally applicable morals, they are a good way to include literature in the ESL classroom.

Your students can have fun learning, telling stories and acting out original tales that carry a deeper message. A bird in the hand may be worth two in the bush, but a fable in the classroom may be worth an entire volume in the library. Try one with your ESL class and you just might see how useful fables can be!

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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by Susan Verner 47,517 views Almost every culture of the world includes fables in its literature bank. These short stories using animals, forces of nature or plants and other inanimate objects are meant to teach us lessons that are universally applicable.

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Essential Strategies for Teaching English Learners

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Over 10 percent of students in the United States-more than 4.8 million kids-are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.

To learn about these needs-and best practices for addressing them-I interviewed a range of educators and observers, including Larry Ferlazzo, an educator and author of The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide; longtime teachers of English as a second language (ESL) Emily Francis and Tan Huynh; and the journalist Helen Thorpe, who spent a year observing a teacher who works with ELLs.

The group emphasized that the strategies listed here, which include both big-picture mindsets and nitty-gritty teaching tactics, can be incorporated into all classrooms, benefiting both native English speakers and ELLs.

1. Cultivate Relationships and Be Culturally Responsive

No surprise here. A successful classroom, our educators agreed, is one in which students feel known, appreciated, and comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks. That requires intentional planning and consistent messaging by the teacher.

Emily Francis, an ESL teacher in Concord, North Carolina, makes clear that she wants her students to "embrace their culture and their language as a foundation of who they are" and to consider their acquisition of a new culture and language "not as subtractive, but as additive." To help support students who may never have attended school before or may be coping with migration-based trauma, Francis emphasizes that little things make a big difference. "The first thing that I need to think about is, how is my student feeling in my classroom?" she says. "Are they sitting next to a buddy they can ask a question in their home language? Do they feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder if they have to go to the bathroom?"

But creating a supportive environment is also about cultivating an appreciation of diversity-it's critical that both the curriculum and the classroom environment honor and reflect the lives of the students. For instance, Francis makes certain that her classroom library is reflective of her students' diverse backgrounds and identities.

ESL teacher Katie Toppel, who teaches near Portland, Oregon, champions the value of home visits to get to know students' families and takes care to incorporate the particulars of students' lives, such as pets' names and favorite sports, into lessons. Students are most engaged when they feel a personal connection to a lesson or unit, a connection that's created in part by a teacher's investment in culturally competent relationships.

2. Teach Language Skills Across the Curriculum

English language learners should not be learning the fundamentals of English in isolation; they should be applying their developing language skills to rich academic content in all subjects.

"It is key that in mainstream classrooms, teachers understand their role as language teachers," says Valentina Gonzalez, a district leader in Katy, Texas, suggesting that all teachers should be aware of the specialized idiom they work within. "If we teach math, then we teach the language of mathematics. If we teach science, then we teach the language of science." Math teachers, in other words, should take the time to teach the unfamiliar vocabulary of mathematics- add, subtract, calculator, solve -concurrently with the teaching of math skills.

3. Emphasize Productive Language

The educators I interviewed agreed that productive language skills-hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency like speaking and writing-should be front and center from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.

Beginning ELLs often develop receptive language skills like listening and reading first. Educators who are unaware of the typical path to fluency may believe that students who can follow verbal or written directions will be able to produce oral or written language, but that's usually not the case.

To support reluctant speakers, Tan Huynh, an educator who blogs at Empowering ELLs, suggests using sentence frames. "For example, when a science teacher wants ELLs to produce a hypothesis, they might offer the sentence, 'If _____ was added, then _____ because _____.' This sentence frame provides clues that empower ELLs to sound and think like scientists," Huynh says.

Andrea Honigsfeld, a professor of education at Molloy College in Rockville, New York, suggests that all lessons touch on every letter of the acronym SWIRL, which stands for Speak, Write, Interact, Read, Listen. The approach intentionally privileges productive language skills "from the beginning," she says.

4. Speak Slowly-and Increase Your Wait Time

Easier said than done. Still, many of the teachers I spoke to said this simple change is vital. You can record yourself speaking in class to measure your cadence, and adjust.

"Adding in an extra three to five seconds after we pose a question offers all students time to think," explains Gonzalez. "However, for English learners, it also gives time to translate, process their thinking, translate back into English, and develop the courage to answer. If we call on students too quickly, many of our students will stop thinking about the answers-or trying to answer at all."

That means undoing some of our own habits, according to Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ESL teacher in Sacramento, California. "Researchers have found that typically most teachers give one to two seconds between asking a question and expecting a student response," he says. "The same researchers have shown that if you wait three to five seconds, the quality of responses is astronomically greater."

5. Differentiate-and Use Multiple Modalities

All kids learn better when they engage with material in multiple ways: Lessons that involve writing, speaking, drawing, and listening, for example, give students four opportunities to deepen their understanding of the work. For ELLs, those additional engagements also provide a little breathing room so they can work through the language barrier.

Helen Thorpe, a journalist who spent a year observing Eddie Williams's classroom in Denver in order to write a book about immigrants called The Newcomers, marveled at Williams's method of differentiation. "Eddie would enunciate very clearly in English multiple times, he would write it on the board, and he would go to the projector to give a visual. And, finally, he'd be asking the kids to verbalize aspects of the lesson themselves," she says, tracing Williams's efforts to move his students from receptive to productive language fluency.

Toppel uses a strategy called QSSSA to scaffold classroom discussions with ELLs. The letters stand for Question (the teacher poses a question, then gives ample think time); Signal (a designated motion like a thumbs-up, a finger on the nose-something that lets students indicate that they're ready to answer); Stem (the teacher provides a sentence starter for the question-for example, for "What is your favorite place to read a book?" the stem might be, "My favorite place to read a book is _____"); Share; and Assess.

6. Incorporate Students' Native Languages-and Don't Be Afraid of Technology

Bilingualism is the goal, of course, not replacement.

Ferlazzo uses a strategy called "preview, view, review," which leverages a student's native language skills as a foundation for learning the new language. He introduces a topic and encourages students to preview it in materials in their home language (often using multilingual videos and other online resources); he then teaches the topic in English, and then has students review the information in their home language.

Ferlazzo also encourages teachers to embrace technologies that students find helpful, like Google Translate. He stresses that the app can be a useful way for students to translate words quickly-but warns that it can quickly "become a dependency" if it's used as more than a handy dictionary.

Thorpe agrees that Translate can take pressure off teachers, who sometimes find that they "just stand at the front of the room and say things over and over. And if the kids didn't know what those words are, they're out of luck." Translation technology means you can say it once (or twice) and let the students use the technology to translate key words and phrases.

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6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

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We interviewed educators with decades of experience in teaching ELLs and tapped a network of experts and observers to find the strategies that work.

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Folktales End of Unit Assessments with student examples

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Unit Introduction

This year, I've challenged myself to rethink genre instruction so that students gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the three main types. In order to build stronger connections between reading and writing, I reworked my units so that they are completely intertwined. Just as with my non-fiction units, you'll find lessons focused mainly on reading skills in a unit called, "All About Fiction" while those centered around writing skills in a unit called, "Fictional Writing." In my classroom, both units were taught simultaneously over a nine-week period.

By the time students come to third grade, they've been exposed to several types of folktales. While I feel this is an important genre to study, I want to be sure that this unit extends what they already know and gives them a better understanding of the genre as a whole. Part of this understanding is gathered through questioning - asking critical questions of the text, of the author, and of the world. Throughout the unit, students practice skills they learned throughout the year including compare and contrast, summarizing, determining theme, and characterization.

These reading lessons all follow a similar routine: a mini-lesson where I demonstrate that day's skill, partner practice where students work together to do the work just modeled in a pre-selected text, and then independent work where students work alone in a self chosen text.

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After spending several days learning about important elements of plot, students use the evidence they've gathered to show what they know on a short quiz. Plan your 60-minute lesson in English / Language Arts or compare-and-contrast with helpful tips from Jennifer Martinez

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Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

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English Language Arts Standards " Reading: Literature " Grade 3 " 2 | Common Core State Standards Initiative

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Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

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CCSS 3.2 Standard and Lesson Breakdown Video

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CCSS 3.2 Standard and Lesson Breakdown Video

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This video demonstrates the what and why of the standard and how to address the standard during a lesson.

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RL 3 2 Final Retelling and Finding the central message

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Contains useful strategies, resources and texts for teaching the standard.

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The 2nd grade standard RL.2.2 and 3rd grade standard RL.3.2 both require students to learn how to recount stories from diverse cultures and determine their central message or moral. This standard puts a focus on fables and folktales from diverse cultures. Teaching this standard can be a lot of fun. In this post, I share my strategies for teaching this dynamic standard along with a few resources that I like to use. My process uses various texts and engages the entire classroom. I hope you find it helpful to you and your students.

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

So What is RL.2.2 & RL.3.2 All About?

This chart will help you unpack this standard. The key factor for this standard is for students to recall the events from the story and determine the message, moral, or lesson the reader is trying to convey. The standard is pretty dynamic because it requires a bit of explicit recall to recount the story and a bit of inferencing to determine the message, moral, or lesson in the story.

Week 1: Recount Folktales with Mentor Texts

During the lesson portion of this unit, I like to focus on folktales. There are so many wonderful folktales from other cultures that are available as picture books, and students really get engaged with these stories.

It's a good idea to begin by modeling with mentor texts. I recommend the following picture books, but you can use any of your favorites. I selected these because they represent folktales from a variety of cultures.

Lon PoPo from China

The Legend of the Bluebonnet a Comanche legend from Texas

Rumplestiltskin from Germany

Modeling the Standard:

Introduce the standard. Review the standard. Discuss the key vocabulary you will focus on during this unit.

Folktales: a story spread, usually by word of mouth, from generations in a particular culture

Recount: retell

Central message, lesson, or moral: what the author wants to teach the reader about life

Display the anchor chart. Show the anchor chart. Explain that when readers read any story, it is important to retell the story to ensure they understand the major events. Readers should then think about the message, lesson or moral that the author wanted to teach the reader.

1. What happens if I cannot retell the story? This tells me I am probably not comprehending the text, so I will reread the story or ask for help.

2. Model the Skill. Select a text to read aloud. Model retelling the story and determining the moral. Be sure to emphasize the culture that the story is coming from. It is helpful to show students the country location on a map or describe a little about the history of the culture.

If you would like the full lesson plans and sticky note questions for Lon PoPo by Ed Young, you can grab my Mentor Standards unit on recounting folktales here. While reading, be sure to model how you stop at various points to monitor comprehension and retell the story.

Guided Practice:

On day two, read a new folktale from a different culture.

1. Be diverse. It is important to expose students to many stories from different cultures while teaching this standard.

2. Partner Up. During the read-aloud, have partners practice turning and talking to each other to retell the story.

3. Open Discussion. In the end, have partner and class discussions about the lesson or moral of the story. If students are having difficulty determining the lesson, ask them some leading questions, like "What did the main character learn?" or "What do you think the author wants you to learn about life?"

On day three, read another folktale.

Work in Groups. Have partners or groups work together to do a writing activity to retell the story and determine the lesson or moral.

Independent Practice:

Once students have ample time to watch you model and practice in partners, have students practice retelling a story and determining the lesson or moral in their independent reading journals. They can use a graphic organizer to organize their thoughts, or sticky note forms I have in my unit
*Note: I recommend that independent reading is the largest block of time during reading workshop or centers. Students need this time to engage in literacy and work with text of their choice at their level. You can read more about why independent reading is so important in this .
Closing:

1. Each day after reader's workshop is over, have everyone gather in your meeting spot with their journals and bag of books. Select about two students to share their independent reading practice. For this skill, students should share the book they read and one of the key details they retold or the lesson or moral of their story. They can also share any problems they came across.

2. Towards the end of the week, when students have had ample time to practice retelling and determining the lesson, students rate how their independent reading work shows their mastery of the standard on a mini rubric in their journal. On the final day of the lesson, conduct very short conferences with each student to review their work and rubric and discuss next steps.

You can use the mini rubrics in my Mentor Standards unit on Folktales here, or if time allows, develop a rubric with your class.

Week 2: Passage Practice
During the second week of instruction, the focus of recounting stories becomes using text evidence in passages. If possible, I recommend you do passage and question practice immediately after week 2. It is important for students to see how the skills they learned the previous week transfer to passage reading; however, it is unrealistic to expect students to automatically translate the skills they learned without explicit instruction and guided practice.
Depending on your curriculum calendar, you can do these next lessons immediately after week 1, or you can revisit later in the year.

Model:

1. Review of Skills. Display the anchor chart about recounting folktales from the previous week. Review the description of a folktale or fable, keeping in mind the importance of cultural diversity. Discuss how recounting a story means to retell a story. Explain how to tell all of the important events from the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Then explain, to determine the lesson or moral, we ask ourselves, "What did the author want the reader to learn about life from this story?"

2. Model a Passage. Show students a one-page passage either blown up on chart paper or on a projector. For more details on how I make my passages into posters, check out this blog post.

3. Model Proper Reading Skills. Model how to close read the sample passage. Read it through one time, stopping to think aloud about the topic. Then model retelling the passage.

4. Model Proper Question Skills. Model how to read each question, then go back into the text to underline the text evidence directly in the passage. I like to model using different colored crayons, colored pencils, or markers and have students do the same. You can find more about using this method in my blog about 2nd& 3rdGrade Common Core Reading Passages.

Guided Practice: (Can be a different day)
Questions to Ask:
Have students help you answer the remainder of the questions. For some questions, use turn-and-talk or have students come up to underline text evidence on the poster.

"What key events happened in the beginning? In the middle? In the end?"

"What is the problem?"

"What is the solution?"

"Where is the text evidence for this question?"

If your students need more support before working independently, you can have partners work on passage and question sets together on the following day. During this time, I would also pull a small group with my students who are reading well below level and work with them on a text they can have success with. For many of my ESE, ESOL, or intervention students, I would use my first-grade passages.

Independent Practice:

1. Students work on fable and folktale passages independently. I recommend scaffolding the passage levels you use.

2. For more scaffolding and differentiation tips, see my Teaching Reading Passages blog post here.

3. Students continue to practice reading passages for RL.2.2/RL.3.2until most of the class is showing mastery.

Assessment:

1. On the final day (typically at the end of the week), I administer an assessment for answering questions RL.2.2/RL.3.2. You can find a certified Lexile leveled assessment to use in my Fables product here.

2. The day after administering the assessment, I go over it with students. For more tips on reviewing and correcting assessments, visit my Teaching Reading Passages blog post here.

Final Considerations:

After you have thoroughly taught recounting stories from diverse cultures, it is important to continue to model and expect students to apply their skills to all of their reading, including read-alouds, independent reading and guided reading. It is important that skills aren't only taught in isolation. We want students to apply these skills and strategies throughout their daily lives to become stronger readers and thinkers.

Looking for More??

I created a Folktales, Fables, and Fairytales sort to help students compare and contrast these literature styles - and it's free with email signup.

If you're looking for passages to use for these lessons, I have these units available in my store.

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RL.2.2 RL.3.2 | How to Teach Recounting Fables, Folktales & Tall Tales

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The 2nd grade standard RL.2.2 and 3rd grade standard RL.3.2 both require students to learn how to recount stories from diverse cultures and determine their central message or moral. This standard puts a focus on fables and folktales from diverse cultures. Teaching this standard can be a lot of fun.

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Excellent resource for Formative Assessments for Fables Unit. Provides assessments, modifications, analysis of results and additional resources.