I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Legacies

Essential Question:

What gift is given when you share someone’s secret place?

Bridge:

Secret Place Sketches

Content:

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: To provide students with a common experience that synthesizes the nature of secret places all have shared.

Activity: Students listen to YOUR OWN BEST SECRET PLACE. Read the story as if it were an imaginary experience for each child. Focus on the special attributes of a secret place.

Assessment: Student attention.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: To analyze the nature of and importance of secret places.

Activity: Discussion. Questions, such as: What makes a place secret? Byrd Baylor speaks about a secret place out in the open that few people visit. Can that be secret? How did the storyteller feel about sharing another person's secret place? Brainstorm reasons why William Cottonwood left everything behind in his secret place. When we share another person's secret place, what gift (legacy) is given when a secret place is shared?

Assessment: Participation in the discussion. Quality of student oral and written response.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: To personally connect the concepts of private ownership and sharing.

Activity: Each student will find a secret place. (I used a classroom that led into a larger area so that there were plenty of desks, tables, nooks, and crannies. Each student picks up a small cloth bag with several pieces of chalk inside and a sheet of paper. Students will go to their secret place and sketch a secret place that they have had. Leave your picture in that secret place. Each child guides class to secret place. Share chalk picture and oral story.

Assessment: Quality of chalk drawings and oral presentation of the journey to a secret place.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: To develop the concept of legacy--how places can be used, internalized, revered, preserved and left for others.

Activity: B. Baylor has shared her secret place. Analyze the details of the written text. How did the artist show that in the illustration? Are there things we can describe and moods we can evoke with words that we cannot show. There is an expression, "A picture is worth a thousand words." When is this true? Are there moods, etc. that a picture cannot show?

Assessment: Oral and written responses to directed instruction.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: To develop practice in description and in awareness of how the power of description and creative writing can allow us to return to special experiences.

Activity: Imagine your secret place--it can be real or one you wish you had, or a combination of both. Soft music playing. Make lists or mind maps of sights, smells, tastes, sounds, textures, moods, etc. Books you have read and then seen the movie. Colors--light, dark. Contrast--clear, muted.

Assessment: Quality of mind map and descriptive lists.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: To focus on the personal connection with a legacy and to understand that creative expression provides the means by which a place can remain one's own and become part of heritage.

Activity: Create a poem in which you paint a "multisensory picture" in someone's mind using words. Just as in all reading, it will still be your secret place because it will be a little different in each person's mind.

Assessment: Quality of word choices in recreating the experience.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: To refine the content of their writing and develop imagery and originality.

Activity: Refine and revise your ideas putting your poem in quality form.

Assessment: Quality of poem.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: To allow students to demonstrate their literary expression and portray legacy through the creative reading of their work.

Activity: Poetry readings. Find appropriate music either with Secret Places in text or simply a song that evokes the mood.

Assessment: Enthusiastic response of the audience to the quality of the poems.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: