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th Grade Response to Literature
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-fir Unit:
} The Development of the Human |
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 Gibbons' Ideas for Building Bridges to Text
Chapter 5

".. .if students are to become literate in the ways that the four roles suggest, then all
teachers need to make provisions for this literacy development through focused reading
tasks and the kinds of talk that accompany texts." P. 87

Before Reading Activities aim to support overall text meaning by building up relevant
field and or topic knowledge and so prepare learners to read the text. Specifically, these
activities:
■ Prepare learners for potential linguistic, cultural, or conceptual difficulties.
■ Activate learners' prior knowledge and understandings (p. 87)

During Reading Activities aim to make explicit the unconscious processes and practices
that fluent readers use... Effective readers:
■ Understand that reading is about making meaning.
■ Scan a text before reading it to get a sense of what it contains.
■ Understand the purpose of a text.
■ Recognize the overall "shape" and organization of the text.
■ Recognize which sentence of each paragraph is the topic sentence.
■ Read critically, reflecting on and responding to what they read.
■ Carry meaning "in their heads" across sentences and paragraphs, rather than
reading word by word. (pp. 92-93)

After-Reading Activities make use of the now familiar text as a basis for further
language development. They usually require students to return to the text and perhaps
reread parts of it carefully in order to complete the activity. Most after-reading activities
have one or more of these three purposes:
■ To focus learners attention more deeply on the information in the text.
■ To use the language in the text as a model for further language study.
■ To allow for a creative or critical response to what has been read. (p. 100)

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Gibbons' Activities
(The Big Ideas)
Before Reading Activities:
■ Activate learners' prior
knowledge and
understandings
Before/During/After Reading
Activities:
■ Preparing learners for potential
linguistic difficulties
■ To use the language in the text
as a model for further language
study.
Before/During Reading Activities:
■ Prepare learners for potential
linguistic, cultural, or
conceptual difficulties.
(iJ
Arachne
Designed Lesson Moves Specific Strategies from Gibbons You
Might Use in This or a Similar Lesson
1. Accessing Prior Knowledge: Think
about a memorable character from a
story you read or saw
a. QuickWrite: Who is the character?
What makes him/her memorable?
b. Co-Constructed Chart: Record
qualities that make a character
interesting, exciting, and/or engaging
2. Preview the Unit: ABC Word Wall for
Academic Language
a. Add additional academic words to the
chart system that was established in
the Exposition Unit.
b. Add critic and critique to the ABC
Word Wall and to your own personal
chart in your Reader's/Writer's
Notebook
3. Introducing Guiding Questions for
the Unit:
a. What can we learn about the
development of the human story
through the myths and fables of the
Ancient Greeks?
b. Why is this knowledge relevant
today?
c. How does reading and writing like a

Before Reading Activities:
■ Activate learners* prior
knowledge and understandings
kinds of talk that accompany texts
During Reading Strategies
Reading Critically:
■ Read critically, reflecting on
and responding to what they
read.
2
critic influence responses to literature
including stories like the myths and
fables?
d. What are the elements of an effective
response to literature?
4. Accessing Prior Knowledge
("Arachne"):
a. Think about a character from a story
you have read in one of the earlier
modules who exhibited hubris,
excessive pride.
b. Based on your own experience or on
the character from the story, do you
agree or disagree with the Ancient
Greeks about hubris? Give evidence
to support your claim.
5. Instructional Conversation:
a. Share your answers with a partner,
and then share with the whole group.
6. Comprehension: Reading to Get the
Gist
Chunking Strategy
Write the "gist" questions on the board.
■ What is happening here?
■ Who are the characters in the
narrative?
■ What do you know about them? How
do you know?
Ask students to keep them in mind as they
isten to the teacher read the first tliree
paragraphs of the story aloud.

Reading Critically:
Questioning the Text
After Reading
■ To focus learners attention
more deeply on the information
in the text.
After -Reading
■ To focus learners attention
more deeply on the information
in the text.
■ To allow for a creative or
critical response to what has
been read.
kinds of talk that accompany texts
After -Reading
■ To focus learners attention
more deeply on the information
in the text.
■ To allow for a creative or
-o
CJI
Continue reading in chunks to the end of the
story
At the end, ask these questions:
■ What happened?
■ What have you learned about the
characters now? What makes you
think so?
■ What questions do you have?
Interpretation: Read, Write, Talk, and Listen
For Significant Sentences or Phrases
QuickWrite: Choose one of the main
characters from the story and respond to the
following in your Reader's/Writer's
Notebook:
■. What are the significant words
and phrases in this story?
■ What do these words and phrases
suggest about the main character?
Is the main character credible; that is, does
the character act in the way real people do?
Support your answer with evidence from the
text.
a. Instructional Conversation: Have
students share their answers with a
partner; then share with whole group.
b. Co-Constructed Chart: Record
students ideas on a chart: What
Makes a Character Credible?
 critical response to what has
been read.

After-Reading Rereading for a Purpose

■ To focus learners attention
more deeply on the information
in the text.
■ To allow for a creative or
critical response to what has
been read.
After-Reading
■ To focus learners attention
more deeply on the information
in the text.
■ To use the language in the text
as a model for further language
study.
• To allow for a creative or
critical response to what has
been read.
After-Reading
■ To focus learners attention
more deeply on the information
in the text.
■ To use the language in the text
as a model for further language
study.
■ To allow for a creative or
critical response to what has
been read.
7. Interpretation: Read, Write, Talk, and
Listen to Determine Credibility of a
Character
a. Credible/Not-Credible Graphic
Organizer
Fill out the top portion of the
graphic organizer as a model of
how to determine if Aracline is a
credible character. Paste completed chart
into R/W Notebook when
completed
b. Gallery Walk
With Reader's/Writer's Notebooks in
hand, have students view their peers
work, jolting down any assertions they
feel are particularly effective.
Evaluating Characters: Believable or Not?
One of the most important words on these lists is credible. Credible means "believable." The
opposite of credible is incredible, meaning "not believable." When we read fiction, we expect, above
all, that the characters will be credible, that they will act the way real people do. Even if we're
reading science fiction with Martians as characters, we still want to believe in the characters.

To decide whether characters are credible, ask yourself these questions:

• Do the characters have weaknesses as well as strengths? Is a character too good to be true?
too strong? too unselfish? too evil?
• Do the characters talk and act like real people?
• Do the characters grow and change as a result of the events in the story?

Evaluating Plot: Believable or Not?

One word critics often use in talking about plot is contrived. A contrived plot includes events that are
not believable. A contrived plot may contain too many coincidences, like chance meetings. In a
contrived plot major obstacles are quickly overcome. If you read a story in which two lovers on a
sinking ship struggle through icy water up to their waists, hack through chains holding the hero
captive, kill a gunman, leap onto an ice floe, and survive, you know you're dealing with a contrived
plot

To test the credibility of a plot, ask yourself questions like these:

• Do the events in the plot grow naturally out of the decisions and actions of the
characters?
• Do many of the events result from chance or luck, or are there believable
causes and effects?
• Do events unfold the way they would in real life?

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 YES NO

Credible thoughts, words, actions, and Not credible thoughts, words, actions, and interactions
interactions with others with others
Textual Evidence Textual Evidence
(Citation or paraphrase) (Citation or paraphrase)

Explanation Explanation
(In your own words) (In your own words)

Textual Evidence Textual Evidence

(Citation or paraphrase) (Citation or paraphrase)

Explanation Explanation
(In your own words) (In your own words)

Textual Evidence Textual Evidence

(Citation or paraphrase) (Citation or paraphrase)

Explanation Explanation
(In your own words) (In your own words)

Make an assertion about whether or not the main character is credible.

Name Score

128
P9
 Arachne
retold by Olivia E. Coolidge

Arachne was a maiden who became famous throughout Greece, though she was
neither wellborn nor beautiful and came from no great city. She lived in an
obscure little village, and her father was a humble dyer of wool. In this he was
very skillful, producing many varied shades, while above all he was famous for
the'clear, bright scarlet which is made from shellfish, and which was the most
crlorious of all colors used in ancient Greece. Even more skillful than her father
was Arachne. It was her task to spin the fleecy wool into a fine, soft thread and to
weave it into cloth on the high standing loom within the cottage. Arachne was
small and pale from so much working. Her eyes were light and her hair was a
dusty brown, yet she was quick and graceful, and her fingers, roughened as they
were, went so fast that it was hard to follow their flickering movements. So soft
and even was her thread, so fine her cloth, so gorgeous her embroider)', that
soon her products were known all over Greece. No one had ever seen the like of
them before.
At last Arachne's fame became so great that people used to come from far
and wide to watch her working. Even the graceful nymphs would steal in from
stream or forest and peep shyly through the dark doorway, watching in wonder
the white arms of Arachne as she stood at the loom and threw the shuttle from
hand to hand between the hanging threads, or drew out the long wool, fine as a
hair, from the distaff as she sat spinning. "Surely Athene herself must have
taught her," people would murmur to one another. "Who else could know thaw
secret of such marvelous skill?"
Arachne was used to being wondered at, and she was immensely proud
of the skill that had brought so many to look on her. Praise was all she lived for,
and it displeased her greatly that people should think anyone, even a goddess,
could teach her anything. Therefore when she heard them murmur, she would
stop her work and turn round indignantly to say, "With my own ten fingers 1
gained this skill, and by hard practice from early morning till night. I never had
time to stand looking as you people do while another maiden worked. Nor if I
had, would I give Athene credit because the girl was more skillful than 1. As for
Athene's weaving, how could there be finer cloth or more beautiful embroidery
than mine? If Athene herself were to come down and compete with me, she
could do no better than I."
One day when Arachne turned round with such words, an old woman
answered her, a grey old woman, bent and very poor, who stood leaning on a
staff and peering at Arachne amid the crowd of onlookers. "Reckless girl," she
said, "how dare you claim to be equal to the immortal gods themselves? 1 am an
old woman and have seen much. Take my advice and ask pardon of Athene for
your words. Rest content with your fame of being the best spinner and weaver
that mortal eyes have ever beheld."
"Stupid old woman," said Arachne indignantly, "who gave you a right to
speak in this way to me? It is easy to see that you .were never good for anything
in your day, or you would not come here in poverty and rags to gaze at my skill.
If Athene resents my words, let her answer them herself. 1 have challenged her to

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a contest, bui she, of course, will not come. It is easy for the gods to avoid
matching their ski]] with that of men."
At these words the old woman threw down her staff and stood erect The
wondering onlookers saw her grow tall and fair and stand dad in long robes of
dazzling white. They were terribly afraid as they realized they stood in the
presence of Athene. Arachne herself flushed red for a moment, for she had never
really believed that the goddess would hear her. Before the group that was
gathered there she would not give in; so pressing her pale lips together in
obstinacy and pride, she led the goddess to one of the great looms and set herself
before the other. Without a word both began to thread the long woolen strands
thai hang from the rollers, and between which the shuttle moves back and forth
Many skeins lay heaped beside them to use, bleached while, and gold, and
scarlet, and other shades, varied as the rainbow. Arachne had never thought of
giving credit for her success to her father's skill in dyeing, though in actual truth
the colors were as remarkable as the cloth itself.
Soon there was no sound in the room but the breathing of the onlookers
the whirring of the shuttles, and the creaking of the wooden frames as each
pressed the thread up into place or tightened the pegs by which the whole was
held straight. The exxited crowd in the doorway began to see that the skill of
both in truth was very nearly equal, but that, however the cloth mighf turn out
the goddess was the quicker of the two. A pattern of many pictures was growing
on her loom. There was a border of twined branches of the olive, Athene?s
favorite tree, while in the middle, figures began to appear. As they looked at the
glowing colors, the spectators realized that Athene was weaving into her pattern
a last warning to Arachne. The central figure was the goddess herself competing
with Poseidon for possession of the dry of Athens; but in the four corners were*
mortals who had tried to strive with gods and pictures of the awful fate that had
overtaken them. The goddess ended a little before Arachne and stood back from
her marvelous work to see what the maiden was doing.
Never before had Arachne been matched against anyone whose skill was
equal, or even nearly equal to her own. As she stole glances from time to time at
Athene and saw the goddess working swiftly, calmly, and always a little faster
than herself, she became angry instead of frightened, and an evil thought came
into her head. Thus as Athene stepped back a pace to watch Arachne finishing
her work, she saw that the maiden had taken for her design a pattern of scene's
which showed evil or unworthy actions of the gods, how they had deceived fair
maidens, resorted to trickery, and appeared on earth from time to time in the
form of poor and humble people. When the goddess saw this insult glowin" in
bright coiors on Arachne's loom, but she did not wait while the cloth was ju°d<*ed
but stepped forward, her grey eyes blazing with anger, and tore Arachne's work'
across. Then she struck Arachne across the face. Arachne stood there for a
moment, struggling with anger, fear, and pride. "I will not live under this
insult," she cried, and seizing a rope from the wall, she made a noose and would
have hanged herself.
The goddess touched the rope and touched the maiden. "Live on, wicked
girl," she said. "Live on and spin, both you and your descendants. When men
look at you they may remember that it is not wise to strive with Athene." At that
the body of Arachne shriveled up, and her legs grew tiny, spindly, and distorted.

P12
There before the eyes of the spectators hung a little dusty brown spider on a
slender thread.
All spiders descend from Arachne, and as the Greeks watched them
spinning their thread wonderfully fine, they remembered the contest with
Athene and thought that it was not right for even the best of men to claim
equality with the gods.

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