Rationale for Book Choice & Instructional Setup
Oliver Jeffers's The Heart and the Bottle is a sad, but uplifting picture book that touches on a universal human experience - the death of a loved one and the resulting grief process - in a soft, approachable way. With the spare text and elaborate illustrations often working together and its familiar theme, this book is perfect for a mini-lesson on inferencing and text-to-text connections, both "comprehension beyond text" reading strategies. However, that higher-level potential of the text is determined by students' ability to "comprehend within text." As Fontas and Pinnell acknowledged:
"Readers must understand the basic message of a text as a foundation for thinking beyond and about it. Inferences, for example, must be grounded in the text; otherwise, they are just loosely associated thoughts" (p. 32).
Therefore, it is important that students derive the literal meaning of this picture book. So that the higher-level thinking can occur. Wilhelm argued the power of "frontloading techniques," or strategies that "build on and 'load up' students' minds with the knowledge they need to comprehend the text" (p. 74). Implementing a more concrete preview strategy than a "picture walk" will enable students to grasp the literal meaning.
Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell G. S. (2006). Teaching for comprehending and fluency: Thinking, talking, and writing about reading, K- 8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Wilhelm, J. D. (2012). From the known to the new: Building background before and during reading. In Enriching comprehension with visualization strategies (pp. 77, 94). New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.
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Book Information
Author: Jeffers, Oliver Title: The Heart and the Bottle ISBN: 978-03992-5452-9 Place of Publication: San Francisco Publisher: Philomel Date of Publication: 2010 Number of Pages: 32 pages Recommended / Listed Price: $17.99 Review: In love with learning and filled with an eagerness to explore, a little girl scampers around with her grandfather. She savors his wisdom and companionship. However, with the death of her grandfather, her grief makes her literally bottle up her emotions by putting her heart in a bottle that hangs around her neck! By numbing herself to the pain of his passing, the little girl also loses her passion for knowledge and discovery. Will she regain her sense of wonder? Finding herself unable to connect to a younger, curious child that she meets, the little girl starts to realize the importance of feeling and the pursuit of knowledge. But is she too late? Can she retrieve her heart from the jar? Vibrant illustrations with thought bubbles complement the words of the text. This is a sad, but uplifting story that offers hope to the disheartened. (Ages 4+). |
Activate Prior Knowledge
Losing a loved one is a sensitive issue - especially if recent - so eliciting personal connections prior to reading should be approached cautiously and compassionately. However, losing a loved one is a universal and important issue, so a safe, comfortable discussion about it is necessary and doable. The following are some suggested questions and a brainstorm activity to activate students' prior knowledge: - Have you ever lost someone you love? - How did that make you feel? - What does it mean to "bottle up your emotions"? To be numb to them? Is that a healthy or unhealthy form of grief? - A lot of times, people say that they "wish their heart was made of stone." Has anyone heard of the saying? What does it mean? In a brainstorm activity, the teacher can record student responses and ideas on the front board or on a piece of chart paper. The question: How do we respond to grief? If student answers are incomplete, the teacher can ask whether anger, tears, a flower/candle memorial service, or donations to a non-profit organization in the loved one's name are realistic responses. Such would serve as examples that may help students' own thinking about the question. After the brainstorming, the students should help the teacher classify them as unhealthy and healthy coping mechanisms. Coelho, P. (2013, November 8). Hearts are made to be used, not to be stored [Twitter post]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com /paulocoelho/status/398855709699227648
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Model Preview Strategy: "Story Impressions"
To preview the text, students will use the Story Impressions strategy in which the teacher provides 1-5 words clues for each of the story grammar elements and students create a short narrative that ties together all of the phrases. Teaching Point: "We've used "picture walks" to familiarize ourselves with the general plotline of a story, but now we will use a less visual strategy to gain that familiarization. We will use a set of clues instead. A prior sense of the story will enable us to comprehend it easier during-reading." The teacher should project the clues on the SmartBoard, and then identify which story grammar element is captured in which clues via a think-aloud. For example: "One story element is setting. Which of these clues relates to setting? A story can take place in nature, so that one must be it. I'm going to annotate that clue so I remember that relation." After labeling the clues, the teacher should model how to string them together into sentences to hypothesize how they work together and write a short narrative paragraph. The teacher should model the integration of about two story grammar element clues. Teacher will model the use of transitions to create flow. For example: "Let's combine the setting and the characters together first. 'A curious girl and her grandpa explored nature together.' Can I add anything to that? 'Because they enjoyed each other's company'. 'Then one day, the...' Hmmmm, who is the one who dies? Which makes more logical sense?" Active Engagement
After the teacher models and gets them started, students will pick up with a partner and continue to string together a narrative paragraph from the clues for The Heart and the Bottle. Students should be reminded to use transition words. An anchor chart of transition words can be hung in the classroom for reference. Students should have a chance to share their paragraphs. |
Establish Purpose & Interactive Read Aloud
The teacher will tell the students to keep in mind the Story Impression clues and how they either unfold differently or similarly to what they theorized in their narrative paragraphs. So students can be prepared for the after-reading activity, the teacher will inform them that they will have to compare and contrast their narrative paragraphs with the actual storyline at the end of the read-aloud. The teacher will pause periodically during the read-aloud and ask a range of comprehension questions about the text. Some suggestions for questioning follows: - Look at the pictures in the thought bubbles, what kinds of things is the little girl curious about? - Why is the chair empty? Let's look back at the pictures. Who was sitting in that chair before? Who do you think that man is? - Do you think a bottle necklace is a safe place for your heart? Why or why not? - What do you think the little girl is feeling right now? What types of emotions? - What motivates the girl to try to remove her heart from the bottle? - Why can't the little girl open the bottle and the younger girl can? Glover, M. (2013, March 19). The heart and the bottle by Oliver Jeffers [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube/watch?v=rB7k0S06hhY
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Modeling
The teacher will model how students should approach comparing and contrasting their narrative paragraph with the actual storyline. This should be done through a think-aloud. The teacher will take the sentences she formed and apply them what actually happened in the story. For example, "I noted that the grandpa was the one who died in my narrative paragraph, and that proved true in the actual story. We got a clearer sense of the "nature" setting through the real text. The girl was everywhere! She was out in the snow, looking up at stars, and in the ocean!" Thoughts could be recorded on a Venn Diagram for a concrete reference points students can look to during their active engagement.
Active Engagement
Students will then turn to a partner and evaluate how true to the text they were able to get their narrative paragraphs based on the Story Impression clues. Students should have the opportunity to share. |
Mini-Lesson "Comprehension BEYOND Text" Extension: INFERENCING
The next day (not the same day, since only one strategy should be taught any given day), the teacher could do a mini-lesson on the "comprehension beyond text" strategy, inferencing. The teacher could use The Heart and the Book because this preview lesson should have given students a solid understanding of the story so that they can take their thinking about this picture book to a higher level. There are abundant inferences made throughout this reading by a proficient reader. Or the students could have been taught inferences in a prior lesson, so students could perform it on the text during the read-aloud. That would be the ideal. Here is a list of some inference questions that arise: - Who is the the man with the curious little girl? - What happens to the man? - Why can the younger child get the heart out of the jar and the ` protagonist cannot? - How does the younger child get the heart out of the jar? - Why does the heart feel heavy around the girl's neck? |
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Quote Comic
C.S. Lewis's "To Love at All"
C.S. Lewis's "To Love at All"
Another "comprehension BEYOND text" skill is text-to-text connections. As previously mentioned, the benefit of taking The Heart and the Bottle to such a higher-level reading comprehension level is rooted in how seamlessly it fits inferencing and how its universal theme can be found in many other texts. That's why ensuring that students "comprehend within text" for this book is of the utmost importance. Check out C.S. Lewis's quote in graphic form below! As a potential supplemental texts for higher grade levels, the comic captures a message similar to The Heart and the Bottle: if we lock away out hearts, no bad can happen to them but no good can happen to them either.
Than, G. A. (2013, 12, February). 103. C.S. LEWIS: To love at all [Comic]. Zen Pencils. Retrieved from http://zenpencils.com/comic/103-c-s-lewis-to-love-at-all/