Suggested Audience: Can be adapted for grades 1 through 8.
Participants: Up to 4 sites connected.
Program Goal: To have students explore issues of diversity by researching the variety of winter celebrations and create stories or greeting cards that incorporate their research.
Preparation
for Program: Patricia and Fred McKissack
meet with teachers over interactive TV two weeks prior to the scheduled
videoconference author's visit to discuss the goals of the program with
them. Teachers describe their vision of the project and make a plan to
prepare their students for the videoconference. Preparation for the students
includes: 1) reviewing a biographical sketch of the McKissacks provided
by them, or reading the book, Can You Imagine? 2) reading Christmas
in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters; 3) filling out the handout,
"How I Celebrate," found below; 4) developing
4-5 questions for the McKissacks and selecting class spokespersons to
ask these questions
Program Description: The McKissacks will present a talk on the writing process and how an author writes a story. They will focus on how they researched their book, Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters and how they incorporated their research in the book. They will then ask the students to describe how they celebrate winter holidays in their house. Students can use their "How I Celebrate" worksheets to respond. Pat will then introduce students to the WAVE method of starting a story and have the students help her create one. There will be a fifteen minute question and answer time for the students to ask their prepared questions about the writing process.
Follow up activities:The assignment for this lesson is to have the students research different winter holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Chinese New Year and/or Winter Solstice and then create greeting cards, posters, or stories using the facts they have found out. Students will then be able to share their writing projects with the McKissacks during a follow-up videoconference and get feedback about their work from them and from the other schools connected.
Web Resources for Research about Winter Holidays
Handouts For This Lesson
These handouts are pdf files and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to open
them:
