Blue Skin of the Sea
Grade Level: Grades 6 - 8
Content Areas: Language Arts
Art
Basic Concepts: Rationalization
Critical Thinking
Character Mapping
General Objectives:
1. Students will get a greater understanding for the characters and their interaction in the book.
2. Students will realize how important every character is to the others in the book.
Materials: Pen
Paper
Book Blue Skin and the Sea
Character Map
Procedure:
Activity #1: Concept Map
Time Frame: There is no real time frame because this is a continuing process until the end of the book.
Materials: Pen
Paper
Book Blue Skin and the Sea
1. The students will read each chapter either in class or at home.
2. During this reading, they will right down each character that appears, no matter how insignificant.
3. At the end of the chapter, the students will draw or add to the map the new characters of the chapter, and draw lines to the other names if they relate to any other character.
EXTENSIONS:
1. Students may want to put numbers next to the names as reference as to which chapter the name appeared in.
2. They may also pick out one smaller character when they finish the book, use their map, and talk about how that one person was crucial to the story line.
ASSESSMENT: Using the rubric on character maps. There can be no twos or lower for the student to be successful.
Activity #2: Group Analysis
Objectives:
1. Students will learn from each other by retelling the main point of a chapter by acting out
2. Students will become more familiar with the plot by seeing their friends act it out.
Time Frame: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Materials: Book Blue Skin and the Sea
Character Maps and other notes
1. After the book is finished, the students will be divided into groups to discuss the book. The teacher will give them the chapter they are going to talk about.
2. The students will then talk about the chapter, picking out the main theme of the chapter.
3. The groups will be called up in the order of the chapters assigned to do their presentation.
4. After the presentations are finished, the class will discuss the book and its cental themes.
EXTENSIONS: Students could also make this a type of game, to see if the other students read the chapter. The students could act it out without using words and see if the class can guess the action taking place.
ASSESSMENT: Grading will be done using both the class participation and the presentation ruberics. Success will be no more then one two on any of the rubrics.
INTERNET RESOURCES:
http://www.norfolk.ne.us/salisbry.htm
http://www.bdd.com/forums/teachers/sals.html
http://kalma.doe.hawaii.edu/hern95/pt027/library/salisbury/html