The story summary (the story is for the third-grade students).
Every Dog Has its Day
Roscoe was a bulldog. As all bulldogs, he was big and ugly. He was a kind dog, but unfortunately, he was not smart. When Roscoe’s owner went to work, he left him chained up outside. Roscoe was nice to all of his neighbors. He did not even bother a rat, living nearby. A group of pupils regularly passed Roscoe on their way to school. One day, one of the schoolboys had a candy bar that smelled incredibly. Roscoe wanted it so badly that he even jumped up when the boy was passing next to him. He even tried to run up the desired candy bar in the boy’s hands, but he was chained, and of course, it stopped him. As the boys realized Roscoe was a hostage of the chain, they started mocking him each day. They always tried to laugh at him. They called him names. They teased him. They threw things at him, but they never left him alone. Roscoe became very sad. He started losing his hair, and he even got sick. The rat, who lived nearby, felt sorry about Roscoe. She felt it was very unfair to mock Roscoe because he was a good dog, nice to every individual around him. So, she decided to help the dog. One day she started gnawing through Roscoe’s leather chain. She did not end, but the bullies came. Again, they started making fun of the poor dog. However, this time, Roscoe felt that he was free as the leather chain eventually tore. He ran up to the boys. Although all of them managed to escape, one boy slipped and fell. Roscoe saw he was very scared, and he felt very pity for him. So he approached the boy, and started gently licking his hand. After this day, the boy convinced his friends to stop bullying Roscoe. That was the dog’s day! Since that day, Roscoe knew that every dog and even every rat, and any living creature had their day!
An introduction of new vocabulary
Before reading the story to the class, the teacher will introduce the new words that will help the class in grasping the main idea of the story. To engage students in the learning process, the teacher will ask them to help her in giving definitions to the new words. So, as she offers each new word, one by one, she asks students to make their own definitions of those words. For example, she names the new word bother, and she puts it down on the board. Then she asks a question: “Who can help me in telling what bother is?” One of the students raises his hand and says that it means disturbing or annoying someone. The teacher praises the pupil and puts his answer down on the board. The same procedure is done for the following list of the new words: burst, charged, growled, tease, yanked. As sometimes students may not find the complete and correct answer to the question regarding the meaning of the new word, the teacher helps them by giving the exact definition. For example, students may not know the meaning of the word yanked. Then, upon hearing no answer to the question regarding the definition of this word, the teacher may explain it as “pulled something with force and without a warning or unexpectedly”, and then the teacher will put the definition on the board so that students might copy it into their notes.
Pre-reading questions:
- Do you think every human being and every animal may have one’s successful day? (Analysis)
- What evidences such as examples or facts can you mention to prove your position? (Knowledge)
- Can you think of a situation in a dog’s life that would help us conclude that the dog may have a nice day when it faces the situation? (Synthesis)
During-reading questions:
- Who are the main characters in the story? (Knowledge)
- Describe Roscoe: if he is a good dog? (Comprehension/Evaluation)
- What do you predict would happen when Roscoe would free himself out of a leather chair and would run after the boys, who were bullying him? (Synthesis)
Post-reading questions:
- What is the main idea of this story? (Comprehension)
- Why can we conclude that Roscoe had his day when the rat helped him? (Analysis)
- Do you believe that not even every dog, but even every living creature has its day? How can you prove your position? (Evaluation)
Self-Assessment
The experience of writing a story synopsis was very beneficial to me:
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
Comments: This experience was beneficial to me because I had an opportunity to learn the strategies that would help me engage my students in the interactive reading process. I have always known that asking questions to students at the end of story reading is not effective because especially elementary learners need help in concentrating and being attentive during the whole process of reading. This time, I gained a variety of evidence to prove my vision; for instance, Harmer (2007) and Trelease (2006) believe so. This task helped me expand my knowledge on how to engage my students in interactive reading. I especially benefited from learning how to implement questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. I have gained a new understanding concerning asking questions on a variety of thinking levels including knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Overbaugh & Schultz, n. d.).
I was well prepared to create a story synopsis:
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
Comments: It is difficult to give an exact answer as I only had a theoretical vision on how to do it, but I did so in practice only a few times (and I did not have a proper understanding of how to do it before).
I would not change anything if I did this again:
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
Comments: I believe having more experience would help me do it even more effectively as practice makes perfect. I am sure in my future work, I shall be able to do it in a more and more skilled way.
This experience helped me gain competence in creating higher-level thinking skills activities related to children’s literature:
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
Comments: This is definitely so as during my work on this task, I had a wonderful opportunity to spend much time studying the literature on the topic, and thinking about how to implement the newly gained knowledge in practice.
References
Harmer, J. (2007). Practice of English language teaching. UK: Longman. Overbaugh, R., & Schultz, L. (n. d.). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Web.
Trelease, J. (2006). The Read-Aloud Handbook. New York, NY: Penguin Publishing.