Morrie and Kate
Come along with Morrie and Kate for some exciting adventures in literature in the new Literary Littles Elementary Curriculum! In this new curriculum, we will explore four main elements of literary fiction and use the essential questions to guide our reading!
When I began to teach essential literary concepts to my young students, I found the need for some illustrations to help guide their understanding. I developed the Literary Littles Elementary Curriculum to meet this need. This lesson book includes fully scripted lesson plans to teach foundational literary concepts through story cards. With engaging characters, original art, and extension activities, your students can explore abstract concepts in concrete, age-appropriate ways.
Reading Guides — These guides are an adult-level crash course to understanding each literary concept as it applies to, or is often found within, children’s literature. Starting here will give you a firm understanding of the concepts at hand before you present the Story Lesson to your student(s).
Book Lists — This program is designed to be used with any books your family is already reading. That said, I have provided a list of authors and books that I have found particularly useful in teaching each concept. Before you give each unit lesson, you can choose the books that you will present to reinforce the idea.
Morrie’s Stories — A Story Lesson with original art is used at the beginning of the unit to introduce each literary concept to the student(s). Choose a day to do the story lesson from each unit. Then, the rest of the month will be filled with reading, discussing, and a few extension activities to reinforce the unit topic.
Discussion Questions — After an introduction to the unit’s literary element, students will do a guided reading with discussion questions in hand. This is the heart of the program — asking the same questions over and over in book after book will establish a deep understanding of the patterns and themes of literature.
Extension Activities — A variety of extension activities and student pages are presented, but you will need to select the activities that meet your students’ developmental stages. In most cases, an option for illustrating or dictating instead of writing an answer makes the work accessible to pre-writing children.
Units Covered:
1. Main Character
2. Conflict Types
3. Story Structure
4. Setting
Pacing
The activities in each unit are designed to spread over a month’s time.
Ages:
The heart of this program is to take essential questions that writers and professors use when thinking about literature and to make them accessible to very young children. So while these materials and lessons are put together with the elementary aged child in mind, these questions will be useful with any age group. The card materials in each unit are a resource that, if kept accessible, can become a permanent and invaluable addition to your reading area.
What Others are Saying:
“Literary Littles by Laura Short is a well written, comprehensive yet approachable guide to critical thinking through literature for PreK-6. This could well be a college children’s literature course on critical thinking, yet it is very readable and approachable for anyone wanting their children to engage in, analyze, and understand literature on the more than just an enjoyment level. Each section has a teach piece for adults that is clear, and in my humble opinion, breathtaking in its clarity and content. The definition of poetry is impressive and awe inspiring. I especially liked the section on character change and how important that is in understanding a story. Worth their weight in gold are: delightful Author/book lists and very helpful Essential Questions to ask of any story. I would highly recommend this curriculum to anyone who loves and wants to share their love of children’s literature with littles PreK-6.”
-Dorcas Weir, M.Ed.