Rowan of Rin #7

We finished reading the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. In the last couple of weeks we did a number of activities to compile our thoughts about the book. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4
Chapters 5 and 6
Chapters 7 and 8
Chapters 9 and 10
Chapters 11 to 13

Activities after reading the book

Adventure Story
Students consider the things they learnt about crafting a narrative and apply these to writing their own adventure narrative where the characters face their fears. The photo below came from my Smart Board lesson for this activity.
Tying up the loose ends
We reviewed the last chapter to consider how Emily Rodda tied together all the loose ends. We considered which information was necessary early in the story to make the ending believable. We discussed the imagery used to provide a sense of desperation during the climax. We also discussed Emily Rodda's use of stars to break up the chapter and provide details about other characters elsewhere in the story. This lesson was a really important session that helped students to focus more on the importance of story endings.

One Pager
This was an idea that I found in another book. Students created a 'one-pager' about Rowan of Rin. There were a number of ideas provided about what the 'one-pager' could be, but it needed to be a page about the book, with some added colour. Many students created a new cover for the book. Some chose to write about their feelings about Rowan's character development, and still others illustrated a scene from the book.

Book Chat
This was the first chance I had to play with our new Snowball Microphone. I set the microphone up on a stool so that six students could gather around it. Together we created a basic outline for a book chat with sentence starters and key topics to discuss. While other students were working silently on their 'one-pager's, I selected a group at a time to conduct their book chat. It worked really well and we even had time to listen to a couple at the end.


My Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed doing this unit of work with my students and would feel confident doing it again with a new group. Students learnt a lot from their involvement with this novel and the language stretched some of them more than the books that they prefer to read in their free time. It was an engaging text that proved useful for teaching a number of reading and writing skills. I hope you find it useful too.

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin #6

We are working through the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Last week we read the last three chapters and began discussing the book as a whole. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4
Chapters 5 and 6
Chapters 7 and 8
Chapters 9 and 10

Summary - Chapters 11-13
Rowan, Marlie and Strong Jonn come to two tunnels and must decide which one to follow. They decide to check them both out. The one on the right gets very tight, so they try the one on the left. But the one on the left ends in a steep slide down an underground cliff. They take the tunnel on the right, but first eat and leave their packs behind, as with them, they cannot crawl through the tunnel. Having filled their pockets with the things they will need, Marlie leads the way. However, Marlie is terrified of enclosed spaces and seconds after entering she is pulled screaming from the tunnel. Marlie decides to turn back and catch up with Allun. Strong Jonn suggests that Rowan should also return, but Rowan insists that he will stay.

Rowan and Strong Jonn squeeze their way through the tunnel, occupying their minds with other thoughts to avoid the fear and anxiety building within them. They are relieved to finally make their way out of the tunnel and take a moment to recover at the top. Unfortunately, Strong Jonn is struggling for his life. The tunnel has scratched his body badly and he fears that he cannot go on. He urges Rowan to hurry home to his mother and abandon the journey. Rowan, however, decides to stay with Strong Jonn. He builds a shelter and fire and the two drift off to sleep.

The next morning Rowan and Strong Jonn continue the journey up the mountain. They meet the dragon who traps Strong Jonn against the wall with its tail. Rowan realises that it's all up to him. He also realises that the dragon is in pain. He speaks to it in the tone he uses with the bukshah when they are in pain. He determines that there is a bone lodged in the dragon's mouth and he reaches in to gently remove the bone for the dragon. The bone is removed and the pain subsides. While grateful to Rowan for his help, the dragon is now hungry and turns to Strong Jonn. Rowan remembers the final part of Sheba's verse and throws the compass at the sore part of the dragon's neck. The dragon yelps in pain and releases his tail just long enough for Rowan and Strong Jonn to escape.

A burst of fire blasts from the dragon's mouth, melting the ice around Strong Jonn and Rowan. The ice turns to water and suddenly they are caught up in an underground stream tunneling through the mountain. This is the stream that had stopped flowing in Rin. They ride the stream all the way back through to Rin where Star greets them and carries them the remainder of the way. The village is pleased to see them and surprised to hear how the "skinny rabbit" persisted with the journey and faced the dragon. The stream flows again and Rin is safe.

Activities

Code Breaker

• Find examples of possessive pronouns in the text.

Text Participant

• In groups of three, students act out Rowan and his conscience in determining whether to face the dragon. One plays the role of Rowan, one is his fear and one is his bravery. The person playing fear tries to convince him to leave the mountain and go home. The person playing his bravery tries to convince him to face the dragon and save the people of Rin. (This can work with groups of 5 as well. We then repeated the activity as a whole class with each person putting forth an argument. It was great to see what each person added to the argument. One group was particularly creative with their role play and asked to share it with the class. The fear and bravery actors jumped up into the scene with a "POOF". I recorded it, but to protect identities can't publish it here.)
• Students also create the final interview video for their character. This time they choose their own interview questions and answers.
  

Text User

• Students create a plot profile of the book - writing a one line description of each chapter and graphing each chapter for level of excitement (1 being calm, 10 being exciting). They compare and discuss their profile with others and see that others perceived the text differently so there is no 'right' answer.
  
• Students use their plot profile to assist them as they write a Newspaper Report of the journey. They consider the most important and exciting parts to mention.

Text Analyst

• Reread and discuss Strong Jonn's comments to Rowan about his bravery. How does this tie in with students' own ideas of what it means to be brave?

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin #5

We are working through the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Last week we read chapters 9 and 10 and focused on our perceptions of fear. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4
Chapters 5 and 6
Chapters 7 and 8

Summary - Chapters 9 and 10
Rowan begins to realise that the people in the traveling party do actually care about him and can be trusted. Together they relax around the fire while they eat - chatting and joking. Rowan thinks of home and the members of their group who should be arriving home at this time. He thinks of his mother, his sister and the bukshah. Another rhyme appears on the map to give them some advice for the journey ahead. The party begins to despair when they see a steep cliff ahead of them - blocking their way. Marlie encourages everyone to go on and they are pleased, on arrival, to find a cave in the wall of rock. They are greeted by the terrifying shrieks of bats flying at their heads. Boldly they continue after the attacks have subsided. As they continue onwards and upwards they see the rhyme coming into play before their eyes. Unfortunately, they come to a body of water that they must swim through in order to go on. Allun, having not grown up in Rin, was not taught to swim and must stay behind at this point. The other three brave the cold water and continue their journey. The party now consists of Rowan, Marlie and Strong Jonn.


Activities

Code Breaker:

• Students find and practise reading descriptive passages fluently.

Text Participant:

• Students determine interview questions and answers about the events of chapters 9 and 10, then create videos of character responses to these questions.

Text User:

• Students consider the role of adjectives in creating a description and write a descriptive piece about a season or a photograph.

Text Analyst:

• Students reflect on the fears of characters in the book.
• Students have 5 minutes to brainstorm a list of fears/phobias.
• Students write a paragraph about one of their fears including the reason for it and the way they deal with it.
• Use students' lists to create a class word cloud of fears with Wordle.
• Discuss when fear is good/bad and how it can be used to your advantage.
  

Here is the word cloud that we created with Wordle. You can also see it by clicking here.

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin #4

We are working through the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Last week we read chapters 7 and 8 and focused on plot development. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4
Chapters 5 and 6

Chapters 7 and 8 Summary
Val makes it through the spiders but with a heavy heart, as already she misses Ellis (her brother) terribly. As they continue the journey, a second message appears on the map. After reading the verse, Bronden is chosen to lead the party as they head through a misty swamp. The mist has ways of fooling the members of the party. They think they see their loved ones and hear them calling to them for help. This draws people off the path into the muddy sludge that pulls them down. One after another they are fooled by these voices and need rescuing. Bronden's courage is broken when she is fooled by the voices, so she and Val return to Rin. The remaining party tie themselves together with rope and feel their way through the swamp with a wooden pole. The party is now down to only four: Strong Jonn, Marlie, Allun and Rowan.

Activities
Code Breaker:

• Look at sentence length and punctuation with particular attention to the use of commas. Discuss how this changes in high energy action scenes.
• Practice fluent reading of chapter 8 with greater expression in high energy scenes.

Text Participant:

• Again, in their groups, students make videos of character responses to the events of chapters 7 and 8. The Ellis group creates their own story for Ellis' journey back to Rin and create interview questions that allow Ellis to share his feelings of this experience.

Text User

• Explore plot development in a narrative and the use of a high energy scene followed by recovery scene. Look at the features of each.

(Please Note: This week I have provided fewer activities as we had many disruptions to our classroom routines and could not fit in the full literacy program.)

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin #3

We are working through the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Last week we read chapters 5 and 6 and focused on dialogue and feelings. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use these links:
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 3 and 4

Chapters 5 and 6 - Summary
The party of Rin's strongest heroes (and Rowan) begin their journey. The journey is filled with challenges to test the depth of each traveller's courage. The steep climb exhausts Rowan who consequently faints - leading the others to grumble at his weakness. Rowan recovers quickly and, upon checking the map, discovers that a verse has appeared which seems to give warning about the forest they are about to encounter. With this new information, the party continues on. Deep in the forest they encounter a mass of spiders which they must pass through in order to continue their journey. Ellis, who has a paralysing fear of spiders, cannot bear the task and flees back the way they had come. With a sense of urgency, the others work out a solution to passing through the spiders and continue their journey.

Activities

Code Breaker

• Look at punctuation and format for dialogue
• Consider the alternatives used for 'said'
• Students work in pairs to practise reading the sections of dialogue using appropriate expression

Text Participant

• In their groups from last week, students consider how the characters were feeling during the events of chapters 5 and 6 and produce a news interview on video. (It is worth mentioning here that after watching the first set of videos, students had many ideas for how to improve them. We made these adjustments to the second set of recordings: costumes, fake microphone, interviewer and interviewee both in shot, filmed outside, use of tripod, introductions to characters.)

Text User

• Discuss how an author provides insight into a character's thoughts and feelings by showing, not telling.
• Students find examples of how different characters are feeling and the words that show these feelings. For example, when Ellis is terrified, Emily Rodda describes the sweat on Ellis' face rather than writing "Ellis was terrified".

Text Analyst

• Explore how authors shape a story to win sympathy for the protagonist. Discuss why this is important and how it has been used in other stories ie. Cinderella, Snow White.

Bring it all together

• Students write a short story using the things they've learnt during the week. They choose a conflict eg. A girl wants to go to the movies with her friends, but she needs to convince her parents to let her go. As they write they need to gain the reader's sympathy, show feelings without telling and use correct punctuation for dialogue including words other than said. (This was a much bigger task than I could have imagined, so I was lucky to have such a capable group. I was particularly impressed with one student who did a really brilliant job of bringing all these aspects together in his story.)

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin #2

We are working through the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. Last week we read chapters 3 and 4 and focused on characterisation in a novel. For an overview of activities in earlier chapters please use this link: Chapters 1 and 2.

Chapters 3 and 4 - Summary
The people of Rin decide that despite the lack of help from Sheba, a party must be formed to head up the mountain and get the stream flowing again. The strongest and bravest volunteer and all head home for the night to make preparations and get a good night's sleep. Rowan, however, is haunted by nightmares and awakes to discover that the stick thrown at him by Sheba, is in fact a map of the mountain. He rushes to show the villagers so that the party may take it on their journey. But, to everyone's dismay, the map can only be seen when in the hands of Rowan. Reluctantly the people agree that Rowan must join the party on the journey.

Activities

Code Breaker

• Look for possessive nouns in the text and explore the punctuation used with them.
• Look at proper nouns with particular attention to the different names used for the characters eg. Strong Jonn and Jonn of the Orchard.

Text Participant

• Create a sociogram that shows all the people of Rin, the role they play in the community and their connections to one another. (We made this one with Kidspiration. We changed the colour of the bubbles of the people going up the mountain. Students scanned through the book to find the details we needed.)

Text User

• Discuss how we make judgements of each others' character in real-life using appearance, conversation and actions.
• Discuss how this translates to a book and examine characterisation in terms of description, dialogue, actions and thoughts.

Text Analyst

• Group students to represent the members of the party going up the mountain.
• Groups scan through the book to find out what Emily Rodda revealed about their character. They create a wordle and a picture of their character.
• They make a short video interview - one person pretends to be the character, another the interviewer, and a third the camera person. The interviewer asks questions about how the character is feeling about the impending journey.

Update 2014: This year, as an alternative to the video, students wrote a diary entry from the perspective of their character outlining their feelings about the journey. We also wrote descriptions of the characters, including one or more sentences about who the character is, five or more sentences about the characteristics of that character, and closing with an evaluative statement about the character.

Here is the complete Rowan of Rin unit.

Literacy Unit - Rowan of Rin

This week we began a novel study on the book Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. This is an adventure story that usually appeals to boys aged 9-12 and can be that motivator that hooks them into reading. Emily Rodda is brilliant at crafting stories that appeal to reluctant readers. Another of hers that I love is Finders Keepers.
I'm going to keep a record here of the activities we do with each chapter. I have been using the Four Roles of the Reader to develop these activities. Feel free to use and/or modify these ideas with your students.

For the complete Rowan of Rin unit (in reverse order!) click here.

Chapters 1 and 2 - Summary
In these chapters we meet the characters and find out that the village Rin is in trouble. The stream from the mountain has stopped running and the bukshah have no water. The bukshah provide dairy, wool and transport to the people of Rin. Without the bukshah, Rin will die. The town meets to develop a plan. It is decided that someone needs to go up the mountain to find out what is blocking the stream. Strong Jonn, Marlie and Rowan consult Sheba (the village's Wise Woman) to get advice about the best way to approach the mountain. Sheba tells them a riddle that they don't understand and throws a stick at Rowan.

Activities
Code Breaker

• Work on developing reading fluency with the first three paragraphs.
• Highlight nouns in this passage. Convert singular nouns to plural eg. morning - mornings

Text Participant

• Create a diary entry from the viewpoint of Rowan
• Create a newspaper article about the first chapter. Edit and publish. Insert text into this newspaper generator to create a newspaper clipping.
• Create a cause and effect diagram for the first chapter. (We used Kidspiration.)

Text User

• Discuss features of a first chapter in a Narrative. It needs to create interest and capture the reader. It introduces the problem that the characters need to solve. (To aid discussion we watched snippets from The Simpsons episode 8 of 18, where Homer gets hooked into a "Harry Potter" parody).

Text Analyst

• Take a closer look at ideas about witches and debate whether Sheba is a witch or just a crabby old woman. We used the following PowerPoint slideshow to guide the discussion. Students had 2 minutes to individually brainstorm a list of adjectives to describe witches. We then made a class list on the PowerPoint presentation. After discussion about where these ideas came from, we read the scene with Sheba and considered her witchiness. Students discussed their opinion and then we did "Lay it on the Line". Students who thought Sheba was a witch stood at one end of the line. Students who thought she was just a crabby old woman stood at the opposite end. Students who thought something in the middle lined up accordingly. We then got a couple of spokespeople to share the logic behind their thinking. There were some really well formed arguments based on examples from the text.

2014 Update: Having just taught this section of the book again, I added a Padlet page for students to share their thoughts about whether or not Sheba is a witch. Feel free to have students contribute responsibly.

Witches

View more presentations from pennyryder. (tags: rowan_of_rin critical_literacy)

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip: Using Technology for Thinking and Planning.
According to the new curriculum framework in my state, students need to be provided with opportunities to recognise ICT as a creative tool for recording their planning, thinking and learning. This is one area of ICT that I seem to have neglected so far in my teaching. Because of this, it is an area that I have been looking into a little more in recent weeks.

Kidspiration
I have been using Kidspiration with my class to create graphic organisers to structure our thinking. Last week we used it to brainstorm writing ideas for a book we read as a class. This week we used it to create a cause and effect diagram based on the beginning chapter of Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda. I am still becoming familiar with this program for myself, so my students are getting to see me problem solve out loud. (Hopefully they are learning from this!) Something I really like about Kidspiration is its flexibility. You create the mind map to suit the information you're trying to map. While it might be nice to have a straight-forward, sequential cause and effect diagram, it may not really suit the situation. Sometimes an idea will have multiple off-shoots that may reconnect further on (as we found with Rowan of Rin). Kidspiration allows for non-conventional thinking and planning.
Unfortunately, Kidspiration is not free and the price gets pretty hefty with multiple licences. The same goes for its older sibling, Inspiration. Recently Webspiration was added to the family for use with online thinking and planning. Webspiration is in its beta phase and is currently being offered free.

I found some other more prescriptive online thinking tools at ReadWriteThink and printable PDF graphic organisers at Tools for Reading Writing & Thinking. For a huge list of other Web 2.0 Graphic Organiser Tools, see Cool Tools For Schools. I look forward to working my way through these tools in the next year.

And now to you. What have you found useful for helping students to "recognise ICT as a creative tool for recording their planning, thinking and learning"?

The Year To Come - 2009

I am excited at the prospect of a new year and have already been busy thinking, dreaming and planning what 2009 will hold.

At school I will be teaching year 4 with a male teacher who I've worked well with in the past. Our Integrated Inquiry units will include the topics:

Personal Relationships - including a novel study of "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda, nature conservation at a local ridge, and hopefully the development of a class blog. Through this unit students will learn about building and maintaining positive relationships; and roles and responsibilities within a community.

Australian History - including a focus on Aboriginal history prior to British colonisation and then the different challenges faced by settlers up until the time of federation. Through this unit I would like to see students developing timelines with Dipity and trying out video casts to explain Australian history.

Textiles and Design - looking at fabrics and their uses, exploring different techniques with textiles, and creating their own designs to suit a particular purpose. I would like to see children working in team project groups to liaise with others, determine needs and wants, and produce products to meet communicated needs eg. costumes for school dance performance, craft items for school fete and commemorative t-shirt for year co-hort.

The Solar System - including an understanding of apparent size/distance, gravitational pull, current information from space exploration and the causes of changes to the surface of the Earth or atmosphere. There are numerous interesting and useful websites to support this unit of work.

At school I will also be working on our Student Enrichment Policy - trying to link up, document and promote all the great things the school does to enrich student learning and growth. I am excited by this prospect because I really do feel the school does this so well.
I've also expressed an interest in helping the school find and purchase a class set of laptop computers. Given that we now have wireless internet access, I can't wait to get the students started on laptops!

In my 'computer world', I hope to connect more with my personal learning network - testing out my webcam and exploring "Flash Meetings". I want to do some more podcasting, for Link 4 Learning, but also consider its future direction. I've recently taken on a Blog Carnival, so hopefully will be able to maintain this throughout the year (the first edition will be out on Jan 7). I'm keen to get my Delicious accounts working for me even more than they are currently. And, I'm sure I'll be surprised by a number of other opportunities that will pop up.

On the home front, there will probably be renovations, and hopefully a 30th Birthday overseas trip for my husband. He wants to see the Northern Lights and also drive on the German Autobahn. With all of this, it will come down to how much we can save up and what we decide to prioritize! Speaking of prioritizing, I'd like to get back into my running - probably early morning, or home from work in the afternoons.

All in all, it's looking like a great year.