EL Support Lesson
Fairy Tale Character Traits
Objectives
Academic
- Students will be able to answer character trait questions to demonstrate comprehension.
Language
- I can show understanding of a text by answering questions about characters.
Introduction
(2 minutes)
- Explain to students that today they will be learning how to discuss characters in a story, along with some new vocabulary to talk about the characters.
- Write castle, prince, and princess on the board. Have students turn to partners to discuss each word to see if they can come up with a definition and an example or sentence for each.
Building academic language
Word
(8 minutes)- Provide definitions (on board or projected) of all Tier 2 words.
- Explain that students will now rotate around the room to the brainstorming sheets and add their comments and/or example sentences for each word and read about what other students have written. (Note: This can be done informally, with students choosing which words to approach and in what order, or more formally, with students divided into groups and rotating systematically from word to word.)
- Separate students into groups with a completed brainstorming sheet and have them answer questions aloud about the word. For instance, "What does the word mean?"
- Have students use sentence frames for support in their oral discussion.
- Allow students to create and share aloud their own sentences with the new vocabulary words. For example:
- One characteristic of the Big Bad Wolf is ____.
Sentence
(8 minutes)- Distribute the Character Traits: The Princess and the Pea worksheet.
- Read the story aloud. Have students circle new vocabulary as they read along with you.
- Read the instructions on the back and have a volunteer explain them back to you.
- Give students a few minutes to reread the passage in pairs before analyzing the first character.
- Ask for whole class' attention, then think aloud to model analyzing the first character. Ask, "Which word fits best here? How do we know?" Have students explain the clues.
- Have students work independently or in pairs to complete the rest of the worksheet.
Discourse
(10 minutes)- Distribute the Character Reactions worksheet, read the directions to the students, and ask a volunteer to repeat the instructions back to you.
- Have students work with partners to discuss possible answers.
- Provide sentence frames for students, using Tier 2 words where possible, to share with partners as they work. For example:
- The queen responded to ____ by ____ under the mattress.
- The prince responded to ____ by ____.
Formative Assessment of Academic Language
(4 minutes)- Assess students' understanding of vocabulary by evaluating their accuracy on the partner talk, worksheets, and participation throughout the class.
Review and closing
(2 minutes)- Distribute index cards/sticky notes as exit tickets.
- Instruct students to write their names on the back and choose one of 2–3 sentences to complete on their exit tickets. Write the sentence frames on the board. For example:
- An event in a story is ____.
Related learning resources
Glossary: Fairy Tale Character Traits
Worksheet
Glossary: Fairy Tale Character Traits
Use this glossary with the EL Support Lesson Plan: Fairy Tale Character Traits.
2nd grade
Reading & Writing
Worksheet
Vocabulary Cards: Fairy Tale Character Traits
Worksheet
Vocabulary Cards: Fairy Tale Character Traits
Use these vocabulary cards with the EL Support Lesson Plan: Fairy Tale Character Traits.
2nd grade
Reading & Writing
Worksheet
Character Traits in Fairy Tales
Lesson plan
Character Traits in Fairy Tales
Use this as a stand alone lesson, or as a pre-lesson for the Fairy Tales: Character Traits lesson.
2nd grade
Reading & Writing
Lesson plan
Fairy Tales: Character Traits
Lesson plan
Fairy Tales: Character Traits
In this literary lesson, students use fairy tales to practice identifying character traits. Students are challenged to justify their reasoning using text based support.
2nd grade
Reading & Writing
Lesson plan
