Reading and Writing with Gary Soto Language Arts Lesson Plan, Thematic Unit, Activity, Worksheet, or Reading or Writing Teaching Idea

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Objectives:
1. The students will review author schema.
2. The students will identify literary aspects of a story, including plot, setting and dialogue.

Materials:
1. Tortillas Like Africa, poem by Gary Soto
2. Too Many Tamales, picture book by Gary Soto
3. Biographical information on Gary Soto (from Internet & Scholastic)
4. "Writer's Words" (index cards labeled: plot, setting, problem, solution, mood, etc.--as many literary aspects as you have covered)
5. Three bags with prompts. Bags labeled: "dialogue," "setting," "item." Each bag contains appropriate prompts, for example, the setting bag contains slips of paper reading Mars, a dessert, the beach, a pizza place, while dialogue has "What did you say?" and "I heard it approaching." Items can be keys, toys, etc.

Procedure:
1. Introduce Gary Soto (author schema).
2. Share poem.
3. Read Too Many Tamales aloud, then use Writer's Words to discuss literary aspects of the story. Students take turns drawing "Writer's Words" and explain how their word relates to the story. For example, the problem = lost ring.
4. Draw one prompt from each bag and write paragraph.
5. Share paragraphs.

Evaluation:
1. The students will correctly identify the literary aspects of Too Many Tamales.
2. The students will write cogent (and perhaps amusing) paragraphs using the three prompts.

Supplemental Activity:
Read Chato's Kitchen for lesson on character traits, reviewing author schema and text to text connection.

LessonPlansPage.com would like to take a moment to let you know about Concordia University's new Master’s Degrees in Education that you can complete online in just one year!

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