After promising to read "The Chimpanzees I Love" to my Grade 3s a few weeks ago, I made good on my promise today, and finally got around to introducing the text.
This first-person, non-fiction narrative presents a rather difficult challenge for highly ESL learners with limited schema in the area of research biology and animal rights activism, so we took our time, and did a lot of predicting first, examining the book's cover in great detail, and discussing what the various elements might mean.
We also took a picture walk (the students loved the rich photography in the book), and looked at the table of contents in some detail.
Finally, we got out some paper and a clipboard, and the students jotted down keywords and ideas as I read aloud the first chapter, stopping often to discuss new words or concepts. (It was fascinating to see where the connections various students made to the text took us: We spent time considering evolution, sexism, travel, the future, immigration, parenting... all these topics were student-generated in response to just the first chapter of Jane's narrative!)
Afterwards, the students used the words they had written down to craft sentences or poems summarizing the first chapter of the book. Here's what we came up with in the meagre 12 minutes before the recess bell rang:
This first-person, non-fiction narrative presents a rather difficult challenge for highly ESL learners with limited schema in the area of research biology and animal rights activism, so we took our time, and did a lot of predicting first, examining the book's cover in great detail, and discussing what the various elements might mean.
We also took a picture walk (the students loved the rich photography in the book), and looked at the table of contents in some detail.
Finally, we got out some paper and a clipboard, and the students jotted down keywords and ideas as I read aloud the first chapter, stopping often to discuss new words or concepts. (It was fascinating to see where the connections various students made to the text took us: We spent time considering evolution, sexism, travel, the future, immigration, parenting... all these topics were student-generated in response to just the first chapter of Jane's narrative!)
Afterwards, the students used the words they had written down to craft sentences or poems summarizing the first chapter of the book. Here's what we came up with in the meagre 12 minutes before the recess bell rang:
We are eager to continue our exploration of Jane Goodall and the chimps after March Break when we resume with our reading, engage in our planned "Grand Conversation", and do some follow-up research about Goodall and her work, in the computer lab.
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