Welcome to the Rainforest

1. Welcome to the Rainforest Designing a Multimodal Inquiry Project to Meet the Needs of Diverse Learners By Meredith Diamond, Ryan Harbison, Caitlyn Coogan, Annie Byrne, and Liz Finigan

2. Overview • Age Level: 3rd Grade Students • As a group, we decided to base our unit around the Rainforest. Not only was this a topic that held interest to each group member, but it was also a topic that we thought our students would thoroughly enjoy learning about as well. • The Rainforest is also a great topic for Project-Based Inquiry. As we have learned over the semester, English Language Learners thrive off of Project-Based Inquiry and learn best in this type of educational atmosphere, therefore we found this topic very appropriate.

3. We decided to base our Project-Based Inquiry Project around Freeman and Freeman’s: Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction • Students see the big picture so they can make sense of English language instruction • Content areas (math, science, social studies, literature) are interrelated • Vocabulary is repeated naturally as it appears in different content area studies • Through themes based on big questions, teachers can connect curriculum to students’ lives, making curriculum more interesting • Because the curriculum makes sense, English-language learners are more fully-engaged and experience more success • Since themes deal with universal human topics, all students can be involved, and lessons and activities can be adjusted to different levels of English language proficiency

4. Key Questions • What lives in the rainforest? • Why is the climate different there? • Why are rainforests endangered? • What will happen if they continue to diminish?

5. Reader’s Workshop Getting Students Familiar with Rainforest Literature and Vocabulary • We decided it was important to include Shared, Guided, and Independent Reading in the Reader’s Workshop in order to have our students become familiar with the language and be able to connect the vocabulary with the pictures. • In order to have children become familiar with Rainforest vocabulary, it was important to include a variety of literature within the Reading Workshop. Therefore, we felt that it was important to include a classroom library of books that the students would be able to refer back to during Independent Reading.

6. Shared Reading Addresses the following key questions: What lives in the rainforest? Why is the climate different there? • We decided to start our unit off with a shared reading book called Rain, Rain, Rain Forest by Brenda Z. Guiberson • After reading through the book, we decided that this was a good book to allow our students to become familiar with the language and vocabulary dealt with when learning about the rainforest. • We feel that Shared Reading is an important thing to keep in the curriculum even as students become older, for it really shows the students that you enjoy reading as well. • It is also important that ELLs can hear the words that they are being introduced to, read out loud so they are able to become familiar with the sounds. ”The process of developing reading proficiency is both social and psychological. Reading, like all language processes, is social because it involves communication with others” (Freeman & Freeman 22).

7. Guided Reading Addresses the following key questions: What lives in the rainforest? Why is the climate different there? • Throughout the unit, we plan on referring back Rain, Rain, Rain Forest for it is important that the ELL students become familiar with the vocabulary and are able to make relevance of what is being taught to them. “Through themes based on big questions, teachers can connect curriculum to students’ lives, making curriculum more interesting” (Freeman & Freeman 11). • Guided Reading is a time in the Reading Workshop where we would allow students to form groups and read together. This is a time where ELLs with different amounts of English experience can benefit from one another. This is also a time where children can discuss with each other what they have discovered with their own independent reading.

8. Independent Reading Addresses the following key questions: What lives in the rainforest? Why is the climate different there? “At the same time, reading is an individual, psychological process that involves language” (Freeman & Freeman 23). • Independent Reading time is a great time for ELLs to learn how to construct meaning within the text. “The readers previous experiences, including experiences with texts, play an important role in meaning construction” (Freeman & Freeman 24). • In our Reading Workshop, Independent Reading time will be used for students to apply the vocabulary they have learned throughout the unit to their own reading. It also allows time for students to predict and infer what they are reading on their own.

9. The Classroom Library • As with any classroom, it is important that children are given a variety of books in which they can choose from for independent reading. In this classroom library we provided the students with a variety of different books that will account for a wide-range of English Language Learners. • It is also important that students become acquainted with how the library is organized for we as teachers need to teach the ELL students how to go about selecting a book that they feel comfortable with. “Our role is to teach them [the students] how to choose books that they can understand and that sustain their interest. If our students begin to make meaningful choices, they are often more committed to the book. The best way to teach our students to choose appropriate books is to organize the classroom library thoughtfully” (Sibberson & Szymusiak 12). • Children Save The Rain Forest By Dorothy Hinshaw Patent • Rain Forests By Nancy Smiler Levinson • Kingfisher Voyages: Rainforest By Jinny Johnson • Rain Forests By Richard C. Vogt • Rain, Rain, Rain Forest By Brenda Z. Guiberson • The Rain Forest By Billy Goodman • A Walk in the Rainforest By Kristin Joy Pratt

10. Classroom Habitats Addresses the following key question: What lives in the rainforest? • This section of of our unit integrates the Arts into our classroom. • Students will research four different types of habitats and their corresponding life forms. • After doing research they will create these habitats out of construction paper, crayons, markers, scissors, etc. • Each corner of the room with serve a different habitat. • Students will feel as if they are in the rain forest and learn from the creations of diverse habitats! • Four Habitats • The Tree Canopy & Animals • Water Life & Animals • Ground Life & Animals/Insects • Nocturnal Life & Animals

11. How Creating a Habitat Affects Vocabulary Repetition • The idea of creating a classroom habitat serves a dual purpose, to immerse students in what lives in the rain forest and to immerse students in the vocabulary. • We will have everything in the environments labeled, like seen in this picture. • By looking around the room and seeing the wildlife with vocabulary labels, students are constantly reinforced with the terminology. • Through the immersion of vocabulary we are catering to the needs of ELL students who benefit from this vocabulary repetition.

12. How Creating a Habitat affects Art & Literacy “Maxine Greene’s (2001) vision of the role of art in cultivating imagination as a ‘cognitive capacity that is too often ignored in educational talk, and yet, is so fundamental to learning, to being in the world.’ (p 81) Green wrote of the arts as a way to release the voices and overcome the silences of diverse young people.” (Carger, 286) • In Carger’s article, he talks about the importance of art and talk with literature. After our reading workshops we decided to do an art activity to enhance the literature our students have been working with. They can use the arts to actually show and display what they have learned through reading and research. This activity is also an outlet in which diverse students and ELL’s can visually show their subject knowledge acquisition.

13. How Creating a Habitat Affects Art & Knowledge “’Art talk’ enables and stimulated them (students) to seek, share, and connect to knowledge in a school context.” (Carger, 290) • Through art students, especially ELL’s, can relate to information. Students can explore the info through arts. They can express their understandings, connect with their classmates, and make true meaning out of the knowledge.  “Art provoked them to reflect and to engage in authentic inquiry with their peers.” (Carger, 290) • While making the rainforest students can come together and learn from each other. They will be given an opportunity to work as a team to design, assemble, and transform their classroom. With deep thought and cooperation they can collectively produce an imaginative rainforest.

14. Rainforest Newscast Addresses the following key questions: Why are the rainforests endangered? What will happen if they continue to diminish? • We decided that a newscast would also be a great way for students to learn about the subject area, and for English Language Learners to progress in language acquisition. • Students will have the opportunity to research social issues associated with the Amazon and present their findings to the class in the form of a news report. • Issues for inquiry will include endangered species, deforestation, and the effects that these issues will have globally.

15. How a Rainforest Newscast can benefit ELLs • Freeman and Freeman made a list for effective reading instruction for ELLs. This list includes: “Through themes based on big questions, teachers can connect curriculum to students’ lives, making curriculum more interesting (Freeman & Freeman 11).” • A newscast would benefit both English fluent students and ELL students since it required learning based on a big question. • Also, newscasts are very relatable as most children are probably familiar with it. This would allow a connect to the students’ lives making it more meaningful.

16. How a Rainforest Newscast can Benefit ELLs (Cont’d) “Vocabulary is repeated naturally as it appears in different content area studies (Freeman & Freeman 11).” • Because students will be researching a consistent topic, vocabulary will be repeated naturally within the process. Also, students will be practicing verbal language, something that is also very important for ELLs. “Acquisition most often occurs in informal situations such as when we order a meal in a restaurant… However, acquisition also occurs in classrooms in which teachers create interesting lessons that involve students authentic language use (Freeman & Freeman 21).” • This newscast will allow for just that – for students to practice language use in an authentic voice.

17. Sounds of the Rainforest Activity Music is Universal: ELLs will not be at a disadvantage • This activity is used to close the unit as we thought it would be a fun and appropriate activity that all students would enjoy and remember. • Rainforest instruments activity • 1. Students will brainstorm and research as a class what sounds are heard in a rainforest • Research online and through nonfiction rainforest books provided • As children are researching they will write on sticky notes/paper all the facts they are finding to bring up with the rest of the class • Teacher will document everything the class has come up with on large paper for reference

18. Sounds of the Rainforest Activity (Cont’d) • 2. Students will make at least one musical instrument to replicate the sounds heard in a rainforest • Students can choose to make either a rain stick or drum • They may make both if time allows • Teacher can play sounds of the rainforest music for children to listen to as they work • 3. Once all instruments are made, class will get together to perform a concert in the room so it truly sounds like a rainforest • The class may perform their “concert” to other classes if allowed

19. How Music & Art in the Classroom can Benefit ELLs • Freeman and Freeman, along with many other scholars suggest that reading should be incorporated across the entire curriculum. Including a music/art activity will interest and cater to various students’ strengths. • Looking up information on sounds in the rainforests provides children with an opportunity to learn research skills. Miller teaches students about index’s, table of contents, searching for key words, and other characteristics of nonfiction as her students research their favorite topics in the classroom. “Do students have a wide variety of reading materials to choose from and time to read?” –Freeman and Freeman’s Checklist for Effective Reading Instruction (pg 10)

20. How Music & Art in the Classroom can Benefit ELLs (Cont’d) • This activity provides children with additional time to read in class as well as a larger variety of books to choose from. It’s likely that students will not be assigned to read nonfiction books often and that they will probably have much to learn on the topic of rainforests. • Freeman and Freeman note that students should be given an ample amount of time to make connections to what their reading and their own experiences. The music activity will allow for students to first discuss what they have learned about sounds of the rainforest and second to connect what they have learned to create their own version of what the rainforest sounds like.

21. Conclusion • Our inquiry based rainforest themed unit incorporates activities that cater to the many needs of ELL students. English language learners necessitate reading to be included throughout the entire curriculum as much as possible and for vocabulary to be repeated often so they can make meaning of what they read and remember what they are learning. By referring back to Rain, Rain, Rainforest and other books as well as labeling rainforest terminology around the room ELL’s will get the practice and reinforcement they need. Our key questions allow for us to do activities in all content areas including the arts. It is important to remember to include the arts in activities, especially for ELL students. The arts provides unlimited possibilities for ELL’s to express what they have learned and engage in hands-on activities to make connections to what they have read. By following Freeman and Freeman’s checklist for effective reading instruction we have assured that ELL students will learn as much as possible about the rainforest and succeed in improving their English and reading skills.

22. Works Cited: • Carger, Chris Liska. Art and Literacy with Bilingual Children. National Council of Teachers of English. 81.4 (2004): 283-292. • Freeman, David E., and Yvonne S. Freeman. Teaching Reading in Multilingual Classrooms. Portsmouth, New Hampshire:Heinemann, 2000. • Sibberson, Franki, and Karen Szymusiak. Still Learning to Read: teaching students in grades 3-6. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 2003.