Close Reading Presentation

Story Elements – Character Analysis

By: Whitney Paige BrownErycka Jones

EDLL 618

Charlotte’s Web by: E.B. White• When eight year old Fern convinces her

father not to kill the runt pig of the litter, she names him Wilbur and raises him with a bottle. Soon Wilbur goes to live in her Uncle Homer Zuckerman's barn down the road, where she visits him every day. But when she's not there, Wilbur is lonely -- the sheep, cows, geese, and even the rats don't want to play and be his friend. Then he meets Charlotte, a gray spider whose web is in a corner of the barn door, and they become good friends. But soon after, they learn that Wilbur is to be slaughtered next Christmas to make ham and bacon. So Charlotte hatches a plan to make the Zuckermans want to keep Wilbur around forever.

Why We Chose This Text• It is on the CCSS list of text exemplifiers for 3rd

grade Read Alouds. • It teaches students what it means to be a good

friend and they can apply it to the Imagine It! theme of Friendship.

• Both the story line and the characters are very engaging to students.

Quantitative and Qualitative Measures

• Quantitative – Lexile: 680– DRA 40– Flesch-Kincaid

Grade Level 4.4 – Flesch Reading

Ease - 90

• Qualitative- Classic story- Simple theme- Child-like view (3rd

person narrative)- Simple, straight

forward language

Reader and Task• Students must be able to have

schema on farm life. • Students need to be introduced

to the vocabulary in the text and the author’s use of language.

• Make connections to friendships.

Part of Chapter 1 “Before Breakfast”

• This passage was selected because it is a direct example from the CCSS Appendix B.

• It has a lot of clues about the character, Fern, and allows the students to think about the character’s emotions.

• It sets the students up for the following chapters to continue to analyze the character and how she changes as well as apply skills to new characters throughout the story.

• It is a good introduction to show Fern’s passion and love for the little piglet.

Pre-Reading StrategyBuilding Background Knowledge - PReP

• Build Background knowledge on farm life using the PReP strategy.

• The teacher will show the students a picture of a farm and ask them “What do you first think of when you see this picture?” “What have you seen before that this reminds you of?”

• Then the teacher will ask the students to reflect on their answers and why they said what they said and why other student’s have different responses.

• The teacher will guide the students by asking questions like “What do you think of your classmate’s ideas?” and “Do you have any new ideas on the topic of farms and farm animals?”

• The teacher will analyze the student’s responses to determine who needs additional support with background knowledge.

PReP Strategy

• What do you think of when you see this picture?

During Reading Strategy• The during reading strategy is

focusing on story elements -character analysis.

• The students will pick out important clues from the story that help them learn about the character.

• They will then use that information to create a Facebook page for the character including important information, feelings, and actions of the character.

First Read• Students will follow along and whisper read

while the teacher reads aloud.• The teacher will read the passage and lead

a discussion about the author’s language usage. The teacher will also point out important vocabulary words.

• The students will highlight and illustrate the important phrases and words

• The teacher will discuss the meaning of, “Do away with it”, “cream on the table”, “hoghouse”, “earth smelled of springtime”, “sopping”, “runt”, “injustice”

• The teacher will then discuss character traits to assist students with the second read of the story.

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.“Out to the hoghouse,” replied Mrs. Arable. “Some pigs were born last night.”“I don’t see why he needs an ax,” continued Fern, who was only eight. “Well,” said her mother, “one of the pigs is a runt. It’s very small and weak, and it will never amount to

anything. So your father has decided to do away with it.”“Do away with it?” shrieked Fern. “You mean kill it? Just because it’s smaller than the others?”Mrs. Arable put a pitcher of cream on the table. “Don’t yell, Fern!” she said. “Your father is right. The pig

would probably die anyway.”Fern pushed a chair out of the way and ran outdoors. The grass was wet and the earth smelled of

springtime. Fern’s sneakers were sopping by the time she caught up with her father.“Please don’t kill it!” she sobbed. “It’s unfair.” Mr. Arable stopped walking.“Fern,” he said gently, “you will have to learn to control yourself.”“Control myself?” yelled Fern. “This is a matter of life and death, and you talk about controlling myself.”Tears ran down her cheeks and she took hold of the ax and tried to pull it out of her father’s hand. “Fern,” said Mr. Arable, “I know more about raising a litter of pigs than you do. A weakling makes

trouble. Now run along!“But it’s unfair,” cried Fern. “The pig couldn’t help being born small, could it? If I had been very small at

birth, would you have killed me?”Mr. Arable smiled. “Certainly not,” he said, looking down at his daughter with love. “But this is different.

A little girl is one thing, a little runty pig is another.”“I see no difference,” replied Fern, still hanging onto the ax. “This is the most terrible case of injustice I

ever heard of.”

Anchor Chart

Second Read• The students will re-read the

passage with a partner. They will discuss the character traits of Fern and circle clues that show how Fern is feeling or what Fern is doing.

• They will together complete a graphic organizer of what Fern says, does, and feels.

• This will help the students get an idea about the character, Fern, so that they can further analyze the character later in the story.

Third Read• Students will read the text independently

for a third time.• They will use answer teacher provided

questions that are related to character analysis.

Post-Reading Strategy• The students will use their graphic

organizer from the 2nd read, the questions from the 3rd read, the text, and what they have already read earlier in the chapter to create a Facebook page for Fern.

• It should include her feelings, factual information, and applied information.

Assessment• The teacher will assess the students before reading by

observing and analyzing the student’s responses about their prior knowledge about farm life.

• The teacher can also use the graphic organizer as an assessment to see if the students were able to pull out the information for the text about what Fern says, does, and feels.

• The teacher will also use the Facebook page as a formative assessment to see if the students were able to display accurate information about the character.

• The teacher can use observation to see how the students are able to analyze the character.

• There will be further assessment by the student’s ability to add information about Fern to her Facebook page throughout the story.

Differentiation • The teacher can provide additional visuals for

students who need more background knowledge on farm life to help them understand the story. The teacher can even read a short non-fiction story about farms and farm animals with those students.

• The teacher can differentiate by working with a small group of children that might struggle during the independent read and the Facebook page creation.

• The teacher can also provide students with sentence frames during the independent read and questions to answer.

• Students who struggle with the Facebook page creation can be provided with a list of sample character traits.

Future Instruction • The students will continue to read the novel and be able to

add character traits to Fern’s Facebook page.• There are other main characters as the book progresses,

and the students can apply their ability to analyze a character to new characters that are presented.

• The students will be able to discuss how the characters change throughout the story.

• Using Scholastic Scrapbook students can create a printable scrapbook page with information about each character in the story, including the animals.

Strengths and WeaknessesStrengths

• Students are presented with a text that is intriguing to engages them.

• The text and activity focus on themes and emotions students can relate to.

• The students are asked to think critically and analyze characters.

Weaknesses• Some students might

struggle with the text reading level.

• The story was written and occurs in the past, the students might not understand the author’s references language use.