Every other year in my rotation with 1st and 2nd grade levels, I have a “Twits” year. It culminates in a student multimedia presentation where each student presents characters they’ve designed. I’m looking forward to this year. I guide students to keep this fun!
My challenge this year, is to broaden my read aloud literature choices, since I know that several of these students have heard my favorite choices already. Do you know of any good choices for this lesson?
We use a read aloud with richly drawn and highly realistic characters (Evelyn Minshul’s The Corn Husk Doll, or Susan Woodward Springer’s Seldovia Sam, for instance)–they get the sympathy of my students. Next, we hear a story such as Roald Dahl’s The Twits and appreciate the author’s ability to develop outrageous, unreal characters and manipulate his readers into not empathizing with them. We talk about how we enjoy the Twits’ nasty high jinks and look forward to their eventual come-uppance.
These literature experiences give us a chance to discuss story elements (such as plot and character) and compare and contrast them among stories we all have experience with. Students learn to make and share personal connections, and are enriched by the connections others bring as we explore various themes.
We especially enjoy contrasting the very realistic characters and illustrations of Evelyn Minshull’s The Corn Husk Doll to the outlandishly drawn and far less charming Twits in Roald Dahl’s book. After discussing how the authors design characters we care for (or that we don’t care for), the students all design their own “Bad-‘Un.”
Linking text, student reaction, and technology: Our story reactions and discussion of character development combine with our enthusiasm for working with the computers in the technology studio! Each student creates their own “Bad’un” (a character that is fun to dislike and not too scary), by first imagining and describing with words, then drawing on paper, and finally creating a digital picture using Kidpix®. Students choose whether they want to use their paper drawings or their digital creations, and each student’s choice is imported into a Primary Class slide show. Each student uses our digital camera and takes a picture of a classmate for a slide. Then each student is recorded introducing their own and their Bad’un’s slides for our show. They love the chance to pick the transitions between their slides, and to hear themselves speaking on the final presentation.
