Literature Counts...

In my TE 401 class I recently had to teach a lesson on Thanksgiving. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do. Since I would be teaching 1st graders I decided to first brainstorm with them about the holiday. Then i would read them some literature on the holiday. After the story was over i would recap on what they learned and do a creative project that involves making Thanksgiving turkeys that describe what the students are thankful for. Simple enough? Not really. I begin by look for a book that tells the story of Thanksgiving for 1st graders. This was not an easy task. Many of the books that I found at our countries most popular book stores were not telling of the Thanksgiving story. They were more like "Jane Doe had a horrible Thanksgiving". That was just the first problem

After an intensive search I found one book that told the story of Thanksgiving. After reading the story it did not seem to be for the 1st grade level but at that time I had no choice. So I bought the book. That day I began reading the story with a few tweaks that I thought would make it go smoothly. The story took longer than I expected and by the time I was done I had lost the attention of all the students on the carpet. When it was time to recap the story they couldn't even tell me some of the main points in the story. The literature had lost them.

So the moral of the story is that LITERATURE COUNTS! The choice of literature is very important in teaching a lesson. You have to think of the grade level, the content of the book, and whether or not the students will be interested. Well I have definitely learn my lesson...no pun intended.