Lesson 1:  Introduction of the text, Mailing May

Materials:  Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnel

                    Directions page for journal entry

                    Journals and pencils for students

Objectives:  Students will be introduced to the story of Charlotte May Pierstorff. 

Students will be drawing on their own life experience to draw connections   

to May’s journey.

Time:  approximately 1 hour

Lesson:  Before reading the text aloud, I will hand out the directions page for the journal entry, asking students to write what it would be like to take a journey alone, at age five, on transportation that they’ve never used before (train, plane, ship, etc.)  They will need to describe their feelings, thoughts, and expectations.  After writing the journal entry described above, students will have time to share their journal entries with the class if they wish to do so.

Next, as a whole class, we will look at the cover of Mailing May and predict what the story may be about.  We will discuss from the photograph and tickets on the cover what time period this story might take place in. 

Finally I will read the story aloud to the students in its entirety.  After a first reading, we will discuss the students’ thoughts about the story, especially pertaining to the local area of Grangeville.  We’ll discuss whether or not the students think this could actually be a true story.  We’ll review the concept of genre and decide which genre we think this story fits.  Then I’ll read the Author’s Note which tells the true story behind the story.  With this added information, we’ll decide if we need to reevaluate the genre we picked.

Next we will review the story again with the intent of picking out vocabulary words to study along with this unit.  As a class, we will choose words that aren’t familiar to everyone and words that seem interesting to use in our writing such as strong verbs.  Some possible words that students may pick include:  beeline, bundled, wintry, slogged, commenced, puzzled, canvas, nowadays, strange-like, flabbergasted, mumbled, permissible, valise, scrambled, carted, tingly, chugged, headed, adventuresome, steel, curled up, tunnels, spidery, trestles, stilts, conductor, passenger, cranky, plumb, mail carrier.  I will ask the students to copy the words we select into their reading journals and we will use dictionary practice to look up each word and together decide on the appropriate definition for use in this story.  The students will write the definition in their reading journals and draw a sketch of each.  Students may share their sketches with each other if they wish.  These words will become part of our weekly spelling and vocabulary test.

Finally, we will end this session with a guiding question for this unit, “How has technology and transportation changed society in North-central Idaho in the 20^th and early 21^st centuries?”