The Gingerbread Man

 The Gingerbread Man

Character Identification

                Final Project     ⇌     Kristina Johnson

Image Source: Kristina Johnson

OVERVIEW

Lesson Plan: Identify story characters

Level: 2º

Subject: English and culture

Materials Needed: Student coloring supplies, fox ears, audience, Gingerbread Man buttons (three round circles), tape, one color-copy printed photograph of each character (print the same character photos from Gingerbread Man slides), the number of students copies of The Gingerbread Man cutout, and eight hard copies of The Gingerbread Man script

Digital Tools and Sources: SMART Board and Gingerbread Man slides 

Time: 40 minutes (1 session)

FINAL PROJECT

The topic I chose for the final project is character identification. Character identification is an extremely important element in this story, as each character serves an important role to the story's development. Also, this story is a classical part of American literature.  Many cultural references are made to this story, which is why my colleagues, and I chose to expose our students to this text in detail. This text is easily adapted to meet the needs of all learners and involves the audience members. We wanted to fully engage our active and young learners to the best of our abilities before the holiday festivities. This story helped create a more positive experience for the English Language Learners.

WHY THIS STORY?

I selected this story because I have experience with creating highly interactive texts. I observed that the class I worked with was athletic and wanted to involve them in a text that encouraged them to use their bodies correctly. I know the excitement students feel before Christmas break and how easily distracted they are during this time, which meant that we had to attract their attention still, but in a new way. I believe in using their excitement in a way to benefit them positively, which this text successfully supports. 

Although this a traditional story in the United States of America (U.S.A.), my colleagues confirmed that such a story did not exist in Spain. Runaway food stories appear to be common in many cultures, which is why I was surprised to learn that was not common in Spain. This story is included in the Grimm Brother's collection of tales, commonly known as the Grimm's fairytales. These tales originated from several European countries, including several that immigrated to the U.S.A. This story sounded very odd to my colleagues when I explained it to them. I wanted to highlight this cultural interest. I decided to explain this to my students as well, as this is a cultural difference that can be simply explained or better understood through drama.  

RATIONALE

Interactive texts require all students to participate or to play a role in the retelling of the story. I understand the anxiety and stress some students experience when speaking another language, in which this activity intends to decrease (Interactive Read Alouds, n.d.). I am able to refer to this story afterwards, due to the school community's common background knowledge of the genre. Interactive read-alouds provide students with the authentic spoken and written language experience. The language is more conversational while the students are guided through the more formal and difficult text language. All human experiences are normalized and create a stronger school community (Collier, 2023).

OBJECTIVES

My objectives included verbally repeating the key vocabulary words, orally identifying the characters, and nonverbally following directions when completing the art project.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Gingerbread Man slides
• One color copy of each character from The Gingerbread Man characters printed from the Gingerbread Man slides
• SMART Board
• Three round circles
• Audience
• Student coloring supplies (crayons, colored pencils, markers etc.)
• Tape
• Fox ears
• Eight copies of The Gingerbread Man script
• Number of students copies of The Gingerbread Man cutout 

ACTIVITY

This lesson will be the last English lesson before the holiday break. This lesson will occur within the allotted 40-minute class session. This lesson occurs in the student's classroom. Students are asked if they heard the story, The Gingerbread Man. The students are then shown a video from the Gingerbread Man slides to create the background knowledge of what the story is about. Students then view and repeat the story vocabulary from the same slides. Once the slide of the Gingerbread Man's repetitive phrase appears, the teachers stop on that slide. First, students learn how to pat their legs quickly to sound like running feet and to stop when the teacher uses a gesture (teacher created gesture). Next, repeat the phrase, "I'll run and run as fast as I can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread man!" after the teacher. Finally, students combine the movements and words together and stop when the stopping gesture is issued. 

Teachers select five students to read the script and act out the story characters. Two of the English language teacher assistants and bilingual coordinator act as the narrator, Gingerbread Man, and Fox. One of the English language teacher assistants manages the class and maintains the read-alouds pace. The Gingerbread Mand and Fox dress in their costumes once their characters are announced. The remaining students remain seated and contribute to the story whenever the Gingerbread Man runs away by patting their legs quickly and repeated the phrase they previously practiced. Each of the actors takes a script and a photo of their character. Students and teachers begin to act the story out (movements and running will vary, depending on the liberty's you have within your classroom and school). Once the story is completed, teachers gather all papers used.

After the story, students review the video and vocabulary again. Students are then instructed to create their own gingerbread men using this template. Students are allowed to take these projects home. Examples of what gingerbread men may look like were provided as well before students colored and drew on their templates. This activity met the needs of all learning styles and students with special needs or not. Modifications were made to ensure for student success.

SOURCES

Collier, K. (2023, August 3). Interactive Read-Alouds in the Early Grades. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/interactive-read-alouds-early-grades

Interactive Read Alouds. (n.d.). Rooted Linguistics: Serving Teachers of Multilingual Learners. https://www.valentinaesl.com/blog/interactive-read-alouds-literacy-instruction-and-english-learners-series-part-3-of

The Gingerbread Man © 2018 by Kristina Johnson is licensed under CC BY 4.0