Literacy Observation 3: Domain 5: Comprehension

TC NAME: Lacey Bridges

RICA Domain: Comprehension

RICA Competency: Instruction and Assessment—Understanding and Analyzing Narrative/Literary Texts

Grade Level: 5th

INSTRUCTION:

            The students in this fifth grade class were getting ready to read The Princess and the Warrior: A Mexican Folktale.  Mrs. X started by explaining that they were about to read a pourquoi story, which is a folktale that explains the origin of something in nature. The students were asked if they knew of any other pourquoi stories, and one student said that they read about why the coyote howls.  As a class they discussed how pourquoi folktales are not really true, but rather a stories used as explanations.  The pourquoi was contrasted with the non-fiction story Volcanoes they had read the week before, and they pointed out how both stories are both about volcanoes, but they will be very different.  Mrs. X told the students that the plots of folktales are traditionally about a conflict between good characters and evil characters and that they needed to be looking for which categories characters would fall into during their reading.  She also prepared them for the story by discussing the setting of the story, ancient Mexico during the time of the Aztecs. 

            The students read the folktale in the popcorn fashion.  The story was about a warrior, Popo, and a princess, Ixtaccihuatl, who were in love.  The warrior was going to be appointed chief upon his return from battle, when he would marry the princess.  However, the character called the “jealous warrior” tricked the princess into thinking her lover was dead, and she died of a broken heart.  When Popo returned to find his princess dead, he never wanted to be apart from her.  So, the gods turned them into volcanoes so they could be together forever.  Popo became an active volcano, spewing lava and the princess became an inactive volcano.  The purpose of the pourquoi tale was to explain how these two volcanoes came to be in Mexico.

            During the story Mrs. X asked the students who they thought was a good character and who they thought was a bad character. Mrs. X then discussed some foreshadowing, and asked what in the text may indicate something bad was going to happen.  The students discussed the character called the “jealous warrior” who did not like the main character, and how he thought he should be chief, not Popo, and the possibility of the jealous warrior bringing harm to Popo.  Through the discussion that occurred during this lesson on pourquoi tales, plot, setting, characters and foreshadowing, the teacher was building her students’ comprehension.

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

            The lesson was conducted with the entire class at once.  The students were all sitting at their desks, each with their own Houghton Mifflin textbook that contained The Princess and the Warrior.  The teacher was also displaying the text on the document camera, which was projected in front of the classroom.  Illustrations were provided within the text that went along with the story.