Short Story Elements

Please,visit http://www.learner.org/interactives/story/cinderella.html and complete the activities. I promise that you'll get fun doing it. 

Don't forget comment! Kisses!

The Frog Prince by Brothers Grimm

The Giving Tree

The first time that I listen The Giving Tree story, I didn't understand anything. But now, I can undertand a little bit more...

Please, Watch the video. Don't forget comment bellow this article. Kisses!

DRTA

What is Directed Reading/Thinking Activity (DRTA)?

Directed Reading/Thinking Activity is a teaching strategy that allows the guides the students through the process of making predictions based on the information that the text has provided them. The teacher asks questions about the text, the students answer them, and then develop predictions about the text. As the students move through the text, their predictions are changed and modified according to the new information that is provided from the text.

Why is DRTA Important?

Directed Reading/Thinking Activity is an important strategy because it actively teaches students the skill of comprehension. This strategy relies on the teacher actively modeling the art of comprehension for her students. Also, SBR allows the teacher to monitor the students’ comprehension levels through basic discussion.

What materials do I need?

A short text that none of the students are familiar with, typed up on an over head project

or

A class set of the same text

How do I pick the appropriate text?

When searching for an appropriate text, consider the following:

1. Have any of my students read this text before?

If some of your students are familiar with the text, they will not be able to make appropriate predictions because they will have more information than the rest of the students.

2. Does the text provide ample predictive points where reading can be interrupted and discussion can be started?

This strategy requires the text to be “chunked” into several different sections. The beginning and end points of these “chunks” will vary, depending on the text. A perfect time to end a section (or “chunk” a section) is where the text allows for predictions to be made. Sometimes this will occur after a paragraph, other times after only a sentence. Also, look for texts that provide “chunking” opportunities of different lengths. Students may get impatient if they are only able to read a sentence at a time, or they may get bored or tired if they are required to read paragraphs at a time.

What are the benefits to DRTA?

DRTA is a motivating teaching strategy. Students enjoy making predictions and then finding out whether or not their predictions were correct. DRTA is also a very flexible strategy in that it can be used individually, with a small group, or with an entire class. It can also be used in any subject and can meet the needs of any leveled reader.

What are the drawbacks to DRTA?

DRTA may be time consuming, depending on the length of the text. This is because the text needs to be typed up and “chunked” ahead of time.

What is the process that I need to follow?

Before presenting the text to the class:

1. Select an appropriate text (see above).
2. Chunk that text at its predictive points, and type it onto an overhead (or into a word program if you have access to a projector and a screen).
3. Prepare a list of comprehension questions that can be asked throughout the activity.

When presenting the text to the class:

1. Introduce the title (and perhaps a supporting image from the text) and ask the students to make predictions about what they think the text is about. Ask students to support their claims.
2. Begin to read each of the “chunked” sections, one at a time. (Note: When doing this activity for the first time, read the text aloud to the students. However, once they gain experience with this strategy, have them read the sections silently. Provide ample time for every reader to finish the text).
3. At the end of every “chunked” section, ask both predictive questions (“Were your predictions correct?”, What has changed since your last prediction?”, “What do you think will happen next?”) and comprehension questions (“who is…?”, “why do you think the character did that?”, “what would you do if you were in that situation?”)
4. Repeat instruction 2 and 3 until you reach the end of the text.
5. Reflect on how the students’ predictions changed. Reviewing the students’ past predictions serves as a comprehension check. Encourage the students to look at how their predictions changed and ask them what made them change their predictions. Depending on the level of your students, you can ask them to consider the author’s role in their predictions and encourage them to look at the strategies that the author used to keep them guessing or to make them change their predictions.

References Web: http://literacystrategies.wordpress.com/drta/

https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/what-is-directed-reading-thinking-activity/

Ambar and me work together in the Short Story: Stuart Little 2. It was funny...always is funny.

We want to share our first experience applying DRTA in class with partners.

Here are some pictures about...

The Winepress

The Winepress by Josef Essberger

"You don't have to be French to enjoy a decent red wine," Charles Jousselin de Gruse used to tell his foreign guests whenever he entertained them in Paris. "But you do have to be French to recognize one," he would add with a laugh.

After a lifetime in the French diplomatic corps, the Count de Gruse lived with his wife in an elegant townhouse on Quai Voltaire. He was a likeable man, cultivated of course, with a well deserved reputation as a generous host and an amusing raconteur.

This evening's guests were all European and all equally convinced that immigration was at the root of Europe's problems. Charles de Gruse said nothing. He had always concealed his contempt for such ideas. And, in any case, he had never much cared for these particular guests.

The first of the red Bordeaux was being served with the veal, and one of the guests turned to de Gruse.

"Come on, Charles, it's simple arithmetic. Nothing to do with race or colour. You must've had bags of experience of this sort of thing. What d'you say?"

"Yes, General. Bags!"

Without another word, de Gruse picked up his glass and introduced his bulbous, winey nose. After a moment he looked up with watery eyes.

"A truly full-bodied Bordeaux," he said warmly, "a wine among wines."

The four guests held their glasses to the light and studied their blood-red contents. They all agreed that it was the best wine they had ever tasted.

---

One by one the little white lights along the Seine were coming on, and from the first-floor windows you could see the brightly lit bateaux-mouches passing through the arches of the Pont du Carrousel. The party moved on to a dish of game served with a more vigorous claret.

"Can you imagine," asked de Gruse, as the claret was poured, "that there are people who actually serve wines they know nothing about?"

"Really?" said one of the guests, a German politician.

"Personally, before I uncork a bottle I like to know what's in it."

"But how? How can anyone be sure?"

"I like to hunt around the vineyards. Take this place I used to visit in Bordeaux. I got to know the winegrower there personally. That's the way to know what you're drinking."

"A matter of pedigree, Charles," said the other politician.

"This fellow," continued de Gruse as though the Dutchman had not spoken, "always gave you the story behind his wines. One of them was the most extraordinary story I ever heard. We were tasting, in his winery, and we came to a cask that made him frown. He asked if I agreed with him that red Bordeaux was the best wine in the world. Of course, I agreed. Then he made the strangest statement.

"'The wine in this cask,' he said, and there were tears in his eyes, 'is the best vintage in the world. But it started its life far from the country where it was grown.'"

De Gruse paused to check that his guests were being served.

"Well?" said the Dutchman.

De Gruse and his wife exchanged glances.

"Do tell them, mon chéri," she said.

De Gruse leaned forwards, took another sip of wine, and dabbed his lips with the corner of his napkin. This is the story he told them.

---

At the age of twenty-one, Pierre - that was the name he gave the winegrower - had been sent by his father to spend some time with his uncle in Madagascar. Within two weeks he had fallen for a local girl called Faniry, or "Desire" in Malagasy. You could not blame him. At seventeen she was ravishing. In the Malagasy sunlight her skin was golden. Her black, waist-length hair, which hung straight beside her cheeks, framed large, fathomless eyes. It was a genuine coup de foudre, for both of them. Within five months they were married. Faniry had no family, but Pierre's parents came out from France for the wedding, even though they did not strictly approve of it, and for three years the young couple lived very happily on the island of Madagascar. Then, one day, a telegram came from France. Pierre's parents and his only brother had been killed in a car crash. Pierre took the next flight home to attend the funeral and manage the vineyard left by his father.

Faniry followed two weeks later. Pierre was grief-stricken, but with Faniry he settled down to running the vineyard. His family, and the lazy, idyllic days under a tropical sun, were gone forever. But he was very happily married, and he was very well-off. Perhaps, he reasoned, life in Bordeaux would not be so bad.

But he was wrong. It soon became obvious that Faniry was jealous. In Madagascar she had no match. In France she was jealous of everyone. Of the maids. Of the secretary. Even of the peasant girls who picked the grapes and giggled at her funny accent. She convinced herself that Pierre made love to each of them in turn.

She started with insinuations, simple, artless ones that Pierre hardly even recognized. Then she tried blunt accusation in the privacy of their bedroom. When he denied that, she resorted to violent, humiliating denouncements in the kitchens, the winery, the plantations. The angel that Pierre had married in Madagascar had become a termagant, blinded by jealousy. Nothing he did or said could help. Often, she would refuse to speak for a week or more, and when at last she spoke it would only be to scream yet more abuse or swear again her intention to leave him. By the third vine-harvest it was obvious to everyone that they loathed each other.

One Friday evening, Pierre was down in the winery, working on a new electric winepress. He was alone. The grape-pickers had left. Suddenly the door opened and Faniry entered, excessively made up. She walked straight up to Pierre, flung her arms around his neck, and pressed herself against him. Even above the fumes from the pressed grapes he could smell that she had been drinking.

"Darling," she sighed, "what shall we do?"

He badly wanted her, but all the past insults and humiliating scenes welled up inside him. He pushed her away.

"But, darling, I'm going to have a baby."

"Don't be absurd. Go to bed! You're drunk. And take that paint off. It makes you look like a tart."

Faniry's face blackened, and she threw herself at him with new accusations. He had never cared for her. He cared only about sex. He was obsessed with it. And with white women. But the women in France, the white women, they were the tarts, and he was welcome to them. She snatched a knife from the wall and lunged at him with it. She was in tears, but it took all his strength to keep the knife from his throat. Eventually he pushed her off, and she stumbled towards the winepress. Pierre stood, breathing heavily, as the screw of the press caught at her hair and dragged her in. She screamed, struggling to free herself. The screw bit slowly into her shoulder and she screamed again. Then she fainted, though whether from the pain or the fumes he was not sure. He looked away until a sickening sound told him it was over. Then he raised his arm and switched the current off.

---

The guests shuddered visibly and de Gruse paused in his story.

"Well, I won't go into the details at table," he said. "Pierre fed the rest of the body into the press and tidied up. Then he went up to the house, had a bath, ate a meal, and went to bed. The next day, he told everyone Faniry had finally left him and gone back to Madagascar. No-one was surprised."

He paused again. His guests sat motionless, their eyes turned towards him.

"Of course," he continued, "Sixty-five was a bad year for red Bordeaux. Except for Pierre's. That was the extraordinary thing. It won award after award, and nobody could understand why."

The general's wife cleared her throat.

"But, surely," she said, "you didn't taste it?"

"No, I didn't taste it, though Pierre did assure me his wife had lent the wine an incomparable aroma."

"And you didn't, er, buy any?" asked the general.

"How could I refuse? It isn't every day that one finds such a pedigree."

There was a long silence. The Dutchman shifted awkwardly in his seat, his glass poised midway between the table and his open lips. The other guests looked around uneasily at each other. They did not understand.

"But look here, Gruse," said the general at last, "you don't mean to tell me we're drinking this damned woman now, d'you?"

De Gruse gazed impassively at the Englishman.

"Heaven forbid, General," he said slowly. "Everyone knows that the best vintage should always come first."

Comments

Vocabulary
Vocabulary Quiz
Comprehension Quiz

The Dog and The Wolf

Aesop's Fables: The Dog and the Wolf

A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by. "Ah, Cousin," said the Dog. "I knew how it would be; your irregular life will soon be the ruin of you. Why do you not work steadily as I do, and get your food regularly given to you?"

"I would have no objection," said the Wolf, "if I could only get a place."

"I will easily arrange that for you," said the Dog; "come with me to my master and you shall share my work."

So the Wolf and the Dog went towards the town together. On the way there the Wolf noticed that the hair on a certain part of the Dog's neck was very much worn away, so he asked him how that had come about.

"Oh, it is nothing," said the Dog. "That is only the place where the collar is put on at night to keep me chained up; it chafes a bit, but one soon gets used to it."

"Is that all?" said the Wolf. "Then good-bye to you, Master Dog."

Better starve free than be a fat slave.

Please, visit this Amazing website http://saberingles.com.ar/stories/28.html

Vocabulary

gaunt: demacrado
worn away: desgastado
chafe: rozar
starve: pasar hambre
slave: esclavo

Never Mind Them Watermelons

An Alabama Ghost Story

retold by  S. E. Schlosser

Listen to the story HERE: http://americanfolklore.net/mp3/watermelons.mp3

Well now, old Sam Gibb, he didn't believe in ghosts. Not one bit. Everyone in town knew the old log cabin back in the woods was haunted, but Sam Gibb just laughed whenever folks talked about it. Finally, the blacksmith dared Sam Gibb to spend the night in the haunted log cabin. If he stayed there until dawn, the blacksmith would buy him a whole cartload of watermelons. Sam was delighted. Watermelon was Sam's absolute favorite fruit. He accepted the dare at once, packed some matches and his pipe, and went right over to the log cabin to spend the night.

Sam went into the old log cabin, started a fire, lit his pipe, and settled into a rickety old chair with yesterday's newspaper. As he was reading, he heard a creaking sound. Looking up, he saw that a gnarled little creature with glowing red eyes had taken the seat beside him. It had a long, forked tail, two horns on its head, claws at the ends of its hands, and sharp teeth that poked right through its large lips.

"There ain't nobody here tonight except you and me," the creature said to old Sam Gibb. It had a voice like the hiss of flames. Sam's heart nearly stopped with fright. He leapt to his feet.

"There ain't going to be nobody here but you in a minute," Sam Gibb told the gnarled creature. He leapt straight for the nearest exit - which happened to be the window - and hi-tailed it down the lane lickety-split. He ran so fast he overtook two rabbits being chased by a coyote. But it wasn't long before he heard the pounding of little hooves, and the gnarled creature with the red eyes caught up with him.

"You're making pretty good speed for an old man," said the creature to old Sam Gibb.

"Oh, I can run much faster than this," Sam Gibb told it. He took off like a bolt of lightning, leaving the gnarled creature in the dust. As he ran passed the smithy, the blacksmith came flying out of the forge to see what was wrong.

"Never mind about them watermelons," Sam Gibb shouted to the blacksmith without breaking his stride.

Old Sam Gibb ran all the way home and hid under his bed for the rest of the night. After that, he was a firm believer in ghosts and spooks, and he refused to go anywhere near the old cabin in the woods.