It Didn t Frighten Me

GUIDED READING POETRY It Didn t Frighten Me Written by Janet L. Goss and Jerome C. Harste and illustrated by Steve Romney KEY IDEA Night after night, a young boy sees strange creatures outside his window. None of them frighten him except a big brown owl. LITERACY STANDARDS ADDRESSED IN THIS PLAN ISBN 978-1-62889-018-1 RL.K.3* MAIN FOCUS Key Ideas & Details Sessions 1, 2, 3 Describe how characters in a story are linked together and/or describe major events in a story in sequential order. *standard adapted from another grade RL.K.4 Craft & Structure Sessions 1, 3 Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text. RL.K.5* MAIN FOCUS Craft & Structure Sessions 2, 3 Identify structural elements of a text, sentences, paragraphs, and stanzas and their purpose in conveying the message. *standard adapted from another grade RL.K.7 MAIN FOCUS Integration of Knowledge & Ideas Sessions 1, 2, 3 With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts). RL.K.10 Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding. SL.K.2 Comprehension & Collaboration Sessions 1, 2, 3 Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood. L.K.5 Vocabulary Acquisition & Use Session 2, Additional Instruction With guidance and support from adults, explore word relationships and nuances in word meanings. L.K.5c Vocabulary Acquisition & Use Session 1 Identify real-life connections between words and their uses (e.g., note places at school that are colorful). RF.K.3b Phonics & Word Recognition Session 2, Additional Instruction Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels. RF.K.4 Fluency Session 2 Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding. W.K.1 Text Types & Purposes Writing Connection Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (e.g., My favorite book is...). W.K.8 Research to Build & Present Knowledge Sessions 2, 3 With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question. MONDO BOOKSHOP GRADE K 1

Session 1 LEARNING FOCUSES RL.K.3*, RL.K.7 Students read closely to analyze the text and illustrations to understand how the characters in the poem are linked together. RL.K.4 Discuss the phrase pitch black with students. Elicit from students that the boy sees the creatures at night when it s dark. Point out the context clues very dark night to clarify that pitch black means, very, very dark. ELL SUPPORT RL.K.7 Discussing the Text Ask questions at students language proficiency levels and provide the following sentence frames for student responses: B: This picture shows. I/A: This illustration helped me understand. Corrective Feedback Have students closely reread the title and first sentences to think about the links between and among characters. Encourage them to silently or softly reread line by line and look at the pictures, stopping to think and talk together about their understandings. PREVIEWING THE TEXT 5 minutes Introduce the book by looking at the cover illustration, title, and back cover. The book we re reading today is called It Didn t Frighten Me. Say the name with me. Now let s look at the cover. What time of day do you think it is? The boy is near a bed, so it might be time to go to sleep. Let s read the back cover to learn more. It is nighttime in the book because it says Night after night. Think about the words Then one night on the back cover. Talk to a partner about what you think those words mean. Who will share their ideas? We decided they mean that one night the boy gets frightened. READING THE TEXT CLOSELY 10 minutes Explain the learning focuses. Have students read pages 2 5. Check their application of the focuses. Provide support if needed. Then read the book. Today as we read, we ll think about the words in this poem and what we see in the illustrations to find the connections among the characters. Later, we ll think about those connections and try to figure out the author s message. Let s read pages 2 through 5 and talk about what we read and see. Who can talk about the characters? There s a boy, an alligator, and a witch. What happens? One night, the boy sees the orange alligator outside his window in a tree. Another night, he sees the purple witch in the same place. How does the boy feel about what he sees? He s not scared. Who can point out details to support that? It says the boy looked out his window and saw them in his tree. He says that the thing in the tree didn t frighten him. How did the illustration help your understanding? The boy is smiling, so he s not scared. The alligator and witch are smiling and waving. They look friendly. Maybe that s why the boy doesn t get frightened. I can see that the alligator and the witch are sitting in the same spot. It could be a pattern. If you are satisfied that students can apply the focuses, set the reading assignment for the session. If you are not, prompt students to return to pages 2 5 to read and think through how the characters are linked together. Our work as readers today is to keep thinking about how the characters in the poem are linked together. Now, let s finish reading the book. 2 IT DIDN T FRIGHTEN ME

DISCUSSING THE TEXT 10 minutes Invite students to talk about how the characters in the book are linked. Remind students to ask questions if they don t understand what others say. Let s talk about what else you read and saw in the book. Ask a question if you don t understand the point that a classmate is making. Every night, the boy saw another strange creature in the same spot. What examples can you give from the text? The words say that he saw different things in the tree outside his window. Here are some: a silver tiger, a pink dinosaur, and a green goblin. The pictures show each thing that he sees. Who can talk about how the boy reacts to what he sees? It says that they didn t frighten him. That s the same as at the beginning. Then one night he saw a brown owl. For some reason, that scared him! Focus on the illustrations in the book. Who can talk about what they saw in the illustrations that helped them understand the characters better? Each creature is sort of smiling at the boy. Like in the beginning, they seem friendly and kind of funny. The pictures are bright and colorful. I think the boy likes the creatures. The owl, though, looks scared. It says, Who me? like it s surprised. Based on what we read and saw, and the pattern we noticed earlier, how would you say the characters are linked together? The boy sees a colorful creature every night outside his window sitting in his tree. None of them frighten him. But the owl is plain and brown and the only one that speaks. It does frighten him. We ll keep these ideas in mind. Have students focus on the phrase pitch black. Who can remind us what pitch black means? very, very dark What is the phrase used to describe in the poem? the night Let s make sure we really understand the phrase by naming other things and places we might describe as pitch black. the inside of a cave, inside a closet with the door closed Confirm students good use of the focuses and encourage them to keep the focuses in mind whenever they read other poems and stories. You read closely to understand how the characters in the poem are linked together. Keep reading this way as you read other poems and stories. E-RESOURCE Formative Assessment: Comprehension Using the Quick Start Planner, note this session s learning focuses. Observe each student s articulation and use of text evidence to evaluate effective use of the learning focuses. SL.K.2 DISCUSSION Collaborative COMPREHENSION SHARE Notice how the text tells you about each creature on two pages. First, there s a page that tells what creature the boy sees. Then there s a page that shows a picture of the creature. Keep this in mind when describing connections. L.K.5c Real-Life Connections TEACHER S CHOICE COMPREHENSION: LINK CHARACTERS E-RESOURCE Formative Assessment Have students use the blackline master on page 10 to think about how the characters in It Didn t Frighten Me are linked together. Review students answers as you evaluate their mastery of the learning focus. RL.K.3* COMPREHENSION Link Characters MONDO BOOKSHOP GRADE K 3

Session 2 LEARNING FOCUSES RL.K.3*, RL.K.5*, RL.K.7 Students return to text to read closely in order to analyze the text and identify its structure. Students determine how the structure helps them understand the authors message and the links between characters. TEACHING TIP Performing in a Reader s Theater is appropriate for reading poems. By practicing the reading of rhythmic and descriptive text repeatedly, students develop confidence as they practice reading with expression, intonation, and inflection. RETURNING TO THE TEXT 5 minutes Ask students to reflect on the text read previously. Guide them to recall how they applied the learning focus to their reading. Let s think about the poem we read together and how we thought about what we read and saw. We read about all these strange creatures that a boy sees outside his window every night. We talked about how the colorful creatures didn t frighten the boy. READING THE TEXT CLOSELY 10 minutes Explain the learning focuses. Invite students to reread pages 2 5. Check to see how well they have understood the focuses. If you are satisfied that students can apply them, set the reading assignment for the session. If not, provide corrective feedback as suggested on page 2 of this lesson plan. Today as we reread, we re going to pay attention to the way the poem is written and its different parts. We ll then think about how its structure helps us understand the message in the text. Let s reread pages 2 through 5.... Tell what you noticed about how the poem is written. Many sentences repeat. Some lines end with rhyming words. I can guess what words will be next. Do you see how the lines are grouped together? Because this is a poem, each group of lines is called a stanza. What do we learn about with each new stanza on these pages? We learn that the boy sees an orange alligator and then he sees a purple witch. Each stanza tells about a new creature. How are the stanzas different? They re only different when they tell about which creature the boy sees. Let s keep thinking about the poem s structure and how it helps us understand the poem and its message as we keep on reading. Formative Assessment: Phonics and Fluency Listen to each student read a portion of the text. Observe how they decode the spellings of various long vowel sounds, such as long i in white (p. 12) or long a in snake (p. 20). Pay close attention to fluency as well. If students need additional practice with decoding or fluency, provide the necessary support at the end of the session. Ask students to note words or phrases they find challenging for discussion after the reading. SL.K.2 DISCUSSION Collaborative 4 IT DIDN T FRIGHTEN ME DISCUSSING THE TEXT 10 minutes Facilitate a discussion in which students identify how the structure of the poem allows them to predict what will happen next. Encourage them to articulate that the structure also reveals the links between the characters. Remind students to ask about key details. Who can share what they noticed about the structure of other stanzas and lines in the book? Remember to ask questions if you re not sure about the ideas you hear. They all have mostly the same words. The only words that change are the names of the creatures. The last line of the poem is different from all of the others. Now it says that the owl did frighten him.

The authors wrote most of the lines the same way. How does that affect you when you read? It makes it easier to read because I ve already read most of the words. Once you learn the pattern in the lines and stanzas, you can think about the pattern to figure what you ll see next. Let s do that now. When I read the stanza that said the boy saw a blue bear, I knew the illustration on the next page would show a blue bear sitting in the tree. You used the pattern or structure of the poem to make it easier to read. How does that help you understand how the characters are linked together? The same thing happens with each creature the boy sees it in his tree. Prompt students to connect the poem s structure to its message. We ve talked about how the lines repeat in the stanzas of this poem, and how each new stanza tells us about another creature. We also talked about how the characters are linked together. Who can remind us how? The boy sees each creature in the same spot every night. Who has an idea about the last line in the poem and why it might be different? The boy was frightened of the owl. Somehow the owl was different from all the other creatures. That s why the words are different. How would you describe the pattern in the poem? It s like it goes: same, same, same, same, different! The boy sees one strange and colorful creature after another and it s always the same thing he s not frightened. Then he sees an owl, and he is frightened. If the authors were trying to send us a message with this pattern, what do you think the message would be? You never know when something will change and scare you. When things change, it can be scary. The great thing about reading a book over and over again is that we can learn more about it each time. We ll revisit our ideas about the message when we reread the poem again. Help students develop vocabulary by discussing how adjectives are used throughout the book. Turn to page 2 and read it with me.... What do you notice about the words pitch black, dark, and orange? They all tell us what something looks like. They describe something. They are all describing words. Who can tell us what a describing word is called? an adjective Adjectives are words that describe naming words. Let s look through the book and locate some more adjectives. purple, silver, pink, green, white, golden, blue, red, giant, spotted, big, brown What are these adjectives describing? the creatures Confirm students good use of the learning focuses and encourage them to keep the focuses in mind whenever they read poems or stories. You did a great job analyzing the structure of the poem and thinking about how it helped you understand the authors message. What was it about the way the poem was written that helped us understand its message? the repeating sentences and lines in stanzas; the way the lines were all the same and then different in the end COMPREHENSION SHARE Draw your own version of the poem. Think of creatures your character might see outside a window. Draw each one. Then draw a last creature that s different from all the others in some way. How is it different? How does your character react differently? L.K.5 Word Relationships ELL SUPPORT L.K.4 Vocabulary Support vocabulary such as window and frighten in context using the ELL vocabulary strategies in Getting Started. MONDO BOOKSHOP GRADE K 5

Remember to think about the way a poem or story is written to help you figure out what it means. E-RESOURCE Formative Assessment: Comprehension Using the Quick Start Planner, note the session s learning focuses. Observe each student s articulation and use of text evidence to evaluate effective use of the learning focuses. RF.K.3b PHONICS & WORD RECOGNITION Long Vowel Sounds RF.K.4 FLUENCY Paired Reading RL.K.5* COMPREHENSION Text Structure W.K.8, RL.K.3* WRITING Gather Information TEACHER S CHOICE PHONICS AND FLUENCY FOLLOW-UP Phonics Practice Write white, blue, and snake on a whiteboard or on chart paper. Underline the i and e of white, the ue of blue, and the a and e of snake. Guide students to use the Sound and Say routine to read these words. Let s practice reading words with long vowel sounds using our Sound and Say strategy. We ll try it together. (Point to underlined letters of the first word.) Sound it. (Students say the underlined sound.) Now say the word. (Repeat for the next words.) Let s go back to pages 12, 16, and 20 and read these words in our books. Fluency Practice Model reading several pages fluently. Share your thinking about how reading at a natural and consistent rate helps you understand what you are reading. Have students practice in pairs reading with a natural, consistent rate by repeatedly reading aloud the pages you selected. As one partner reads aloud, the other should follow along in the text. TEACHER S CHOICE COMPREHENSION: TEXT STRUCTURE E-RESOURCE Formative Assessment Have students use the blackline master on page 11 to help them notice the repetitive structure of the poem and rhyming words in the poem. Review students answers as you evaluate their mastery of the learning focus. TEACHER S CHOICE CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE: COLLECT TEXT EVIDENCE E-RESOURCE Formative/Summative Assessment Have students use the blackline master on page 12 to introduce the constructed response question: Do you think the authors chose good things for the boy not to be scared of? Why or why not? Use details from the poem to support your opinion. Have students use self-stick notes to mark places in the book that help them answer the question. Point out that the details they include can come from the illustrations, as well as the main text. Review students self-stick notes as you evaluate their mastery of the learning focus. 6 IT DIDN T FRIGHTEN ME

Session 3 RETURNING TO THE TEXT 5 minutes Explain that students will reread the poem again in order to gain a deeper understanding of the links between the characters, while they think about the illustrations and how the structure of the text helps them understand its message. We have read the poem twice. The first time we looked at the connections between the characters. The second time we focused on the sentences, lines, and stanzas. Today as we reread it again, we will dig deeper into the links between characters. LEARNING FOCUSES RL.K.3*, RL.K.5*, RL.K.7 Students return to text to read closely and to analyze the text, illustrations, and structure to describe the links between the characters and to refine their understanding of the poem s message. READING THE TEXT CLOSELY 10 minutes State the learning focuses. Then have students reread pages 2 5. Check their application of the focuses as you have done previously. Then have them reread the rest of the book. Today as we read the poem again, we ll think more deeply about how the boy and the creatures he sees are linked together. Then we can use what we learn to revisit our thoughts about the authors message and better understand the poem. Let s reread pages 2 through 5 and think about what we learn from the words, structure, and illustrations. What words jump out at you? The ones that are different: orange alligator and purple witch. How are the orange alligator and the purple witch alike? Well, there re no such things! Alligators aren t orange, and there s no such thing as witches. Do the illustrations support that idea? Yes. In the pictures, they look like pretend creatures. RL.K.4 Invite students to ask questions about words in the text such as What is a unicorn? Discuss the word unicorn. Explain that unimeans one and the word corn means horn. Elicit from students that when the parts are put together they mean one horn. Then have students confirm this meaning by examining the illustration on page 13. DISCUSSING THE TEXT 10 minutes Prompt a discussion that continues to link the learning focuses. Support students as they share their ideas about links between characters based on the words, structure, and illustrations. Remind students to request clarification if they do not understand something. Who would like to share what they noticed as they reread the poem? When I read the rest of the book, I kept thinking about how all the creatures the boy sees are not real, except for the owl. A big, brown owl is a real animal. Who would like to add to that? I also noticed how everything is the same until the end when he sees the owl. Then he s scared. I thought that was funny. I would be scared to see all those other creatures that aren t real, but I wouldn t be scared of a real owl. You just described another connection between the other creatures. What did you say? They are not real. SL.K.2 DISCUSSION Collaborative COMPREHENSION SHARE Check your overall understanding of the poem by coming up with a new title for it. Try drawing a new cover illustration, too. MONDO BOOKSHOP GRADE K 7

You also pointed out a break in the link: the boy is scared by an owl. Does anybody have any thoughts about this? What do you think the authors are trying to say? I think they re saying that the boy is imagining all the other creatures for fun. They aren t real, so they re not really in the tree. That s why they don t frighten him. But one night a real owl lands in the tree. That frightens him because it s real, and he didn t expect it. Support students as they continue to talk about the poem. As students discuss their ideas with one another, remind them to ask questions about anything they don t understand. Share what you learned with your partner. Ask questions if you re not sure about something. Details in the words and illustrations help us see how characters in a text are linked together. We can understand the message by thinking about how the poem or story is written. W.K.8, RL.K.3* WRITING Respond to Question TEACHER S CHOICE CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE: WRITE TO SOURCE E-RESOURCE Formative/Summative Assessment Have students use the blackline master on page 12 to write and draw their response to the question: Do you think the authors chose good things for the boy not to be scared of? Why or why not? Use details from the poem to support your opinion. Tell students that they can use their self-stick notes to help them write and draw their answers. TEACHER S CHOICE Writing Connection W.K.1 WRITING Opinion WRITING AN OPINION E-RESOURCE Summative Assessment Invite students to write, dictate, or draw about which creature they like the best and why. You ve done a lot of close reading about the creatures in the book, and you ve paid attention to the details in the illustrations that show you what those creatures are like. Now, I d like you to write, tell about, or draw a picture that tells which creature you would most like to see outside of your own window. Give the reason or reasons for your thinking. Use details from the book to support your opinion. If you are writing or speaking, be sure you end your with a sentence that tells your point of view again and helps your readers or listeners know you are done. 8 IT DIDN T FRIGHTEN ME

TEACHER S CHOICE Additional Instruction WORD STUDY Adjectives Help students extend their understanding of adjectives. We talked about adjectives earlier. Who can remind us what an adjective is? An adjective is a word that describes a naming word. Who remembers some of the adjectives used in the poem we just read? color words like orange, size words like big I d like you to now come up with a few adjectives of your own. Who can start? round, flat, tall, skinny Let s come up with a few more, and then we ll use them in sentences to make sure we understand how they work with naming words. L.K.5 Adjectives Opposite Meanings Reread the text on page 2. Talk about the words dark and light. Ask students to share their understandings of these words. It s night when the boy sees the strange creatures in his tree. Who would like to tell us what part of the text helped you know this? The poem says very dark night. Yes, night is dark. Tell us what it s like during the daytime. It is light. Tell me what you think of the words dark and light? Dark means not light and light means not dark. That s right. That s why we say the words dark and light have opposite meanings. L.K.5 Opposite Meanings TEACHING TIP Other words to explore in this way include black and white, night and day, and up and down. PHONICS Long Vowel Sounds Use the Sound and Say routine for more practice with long vowel sounds. Guide students to identify the letters and sounds that differ in a list of words drawn from the text or that you have created in advance. Depending on the ability of your group, you can work with word pairs (light, white) or a word bank containing several pairs of words for students to locate. Let s practice finding some letter sounds that change one word into another word. Here is the word light. Let s say each sound in light. (Say the sounds.) Now, here is a word that has the same long i sound as light. (Point to the word white.) Which letters are different? (Students name i and e). Let s say the sounds together. What word? (white) Which spelling of long i was different from light? (i_e) RF.K.3d PHONICS & WORD RECOGNITION Long Vowel Sounds TEACHING TIP The words in this book that contain long e spelled ee are: see, tree, and green. MONDO BOOKSHOP GRADE K 9

Name Date Comprehension: Link Characters Read the names of the characters in each row. Think about how the characters are linked. Write this link in the chart. Characters The orange alligator and the purple witch How They are Linked The boy and the owl The boy and the green goblin Mondo Publishing Score: 10 IT DIDN T FRIGHTEN ME

Name Date Comprehension: Text Structure Fill in the blanks with words from the book It Didn t Frighten Me. Underline the words that rhyme. 1. I looked out my window only to see, a up in my tree! It me! 2. I looked out my window only to see, a up in my tree! It me! 3. I looked out my window only to see, a up in my tree! It me! 4. I looked out my window only to see, a up in my tree! It me! Mondo Publishing 5. I looked out my window only to see, a up in my tree! It me! Score: MONDO BOOKSHOP GRADE K 11

Name Date Constructed Response Do you think the authors chose good things for the boy not to be scared of? Why or why not? Use details from the poem to support your opinion. The authors chose a(n). I feel that this is a choice because. For these reasons, I believe that the authors made choices. Mondo Publishing Score: 12 IT DIDN T FRIGHTEN ME