Thursday, November 20, 2008

Duck for President!


The voters had spoken. Duck was officially in charge.”

Imagine…a duck is tired of doing his chores, and decides to hold an election to replace Farmer Brown. When Duck wins, Duck quickly realizes that running a farm requires too much hard work, and sets out to run for governor. With the help of the hens, and speeches "that only other ducks can understand," he eventually ends up running the country.
I chose this book as a fun way to engage our students in the Presidential electoral process in this 2008 election year. Mayport students have already participated in a nationwide online Mock Presidential Election – now they can enjoy an author’s fictional spin on this important civic right and responsibility! As we conclude our K-5 Narrative Genre study, students can appreciate Doreen Cronin’s use of a simple repeating line (The voters had spoken. Duck was officially in charge.) to organize the events of Duck’s story. Our young authors can also learn from Ms. Cronin’s use of a circular story structure where the beginning (Running a farm is very hard work.) is the same as the end of the story (Duck is writing his autobiography which takes us back to the beginning of the story we just read…Running a farm is very hard work.).

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES:

K/1 (Reading Standard 2: Comprehension – retell the story & predict what Duck will do next after he finishes writing his autobiography)
After hearing Duck for President read aloud with pauses to think aloud about predictions you are making as a reader, each class will produce a retelling of the story. Using a large sheet of chart paper, facilitate the writing of a shared, whole group, interactive piece to be displayed on the standards-based bulletin board outside your classroom with teacher commentary. Then, discuss student predictions about what Duck will do next after he finishes writing his autobiography (i.e. Duck will fall in love with another Duck and have a baby duckling; Duck sells so many of his books that he becomes rich and never has to work again.) Next, give students a piece of paper to record their predictions and illustrate.

2/3 (Reading Standard 2: Comprehension – infer cause-and-effect relationships that are not stated explicitly: Predict/Infer)
After hearing Duck for President read aloud with pauses to think aloud about predictions you are making as a reader, each class will produce a retelling of the story and add at least 2-3 predictions to the end using original ideas (i.e. Next Duck will get bored again with his farm chores and take his book to Hollywood to make it into a movie.) Using a large sheet of chart paper, facilitate the writing of a shared, whole group, interactive piece to be displayed on the standards-based bulletin board outside your classroom with teacher commentary. Next, invite students to create their own written predictions to post with the shared retelling.

4/5 (Elb The student makes and supports warranted and responsible assertions about the text: Predict/Infer)
Read aloud Duck for President and pause to think aloud about predictions you are making as a reader. After each prediction, note the details from the text that support your prediction. Next, brainstorm student predictions about what Duck will do next after he finishes writing his autobiography. Make a list of student predictions on the left side of a T-chart. Once you have 2-3 strong predictions, lead a discussion to identify details and events in the text that support each prediction. Create a bulleted list of these details and events on the right side of the T-chart next to each prediction. Assign groups to record a single “warranted and responsible” prediction and write details or events from the text that support the group’s prediction. Post the class chart and group predictions on your standards-based bulletin board with teacher commentary.

1 comment:

Mrs. Felter said...

Dear Mayport Elementary,
You have such an awesome blog! My students love the book Duck for President and this year we had a book called Grace for President as one of our books of the month. Grace for President is about an ambitious girl named Grace that runs for school president. The book is a great tool to use when teaching about elections and the electoral process! Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
Miss Lipsky