TITLE OF THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE: "Animals of the Chinese Zodiac" by Allison Wheeler, Jennifer Dashnaw and Marian Tracy, John F. Kennedy Elementary School, Ogdensburg, NY.

1. LEARNING CONTEXT
Describe the purpose, objective, or focus of the learning experience, including:

• the learning standard(s) and the specific performance indicators being assessed;
• a description of where this experience fits into the school or course curriculum; and
• what students need to know and/or be able to do to succeed with this learning experience.

This learning experience is based on the following learning standards:

Learning Standard 1 (ELA):

Students will read, write, listen and speak for information and understanding. The specific performance indicators of Standard 1 used in this experience are:

• gather and interpret information from different sources
• ask specific questions to clarify and extend meaning
• make appropriate and effective use of strategies to construct meaning from print

• Students will read, write, listen and speak for literary response and expression. The specific performance indicators of Standard 2 used in this experience are:
• present personal responses to literature that make reference to the plot, characters, ideas, vocabulary, and text structure

Learning Standard 2 (Social Studies):

• The study of world history requires an understanding of world cultures and civilizations, including an analysis of important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. The specific performance indicators of Standard 2 used in this experience are:
• study about different world cultures and civilizations focusing on their accomplishments, contributions, values, beliefs, and traditions.

 This learning experience is part of a much larger third grade unit on the Chinese New Year.

• Students will be introduced to the Chinese zodiac as part of the general introduction to the various elements of the Chinese New Year before they have this learning experience. They will have access to Internet-based information on the Chinese zodiac during this introductory experience.

For students to be successful with this learning experience, they will need to:

• listen to introduction to the learning experience
• listen to the story as it is being read
• observe the placement of the animals on the zodiac chart as the story is read
• use prior knowledge about the Chinese New Year for discussion following the story

2. PROCEDURE
Describe, in narrative form, the actions of students and teachers and the interactions among and between students and teachers, including how the learning experience:

• supports student progress toward attainment of the learning standards;
• reflects current scholarship in your field and "best" classroom practice; and
• incorporates technology (when used) into instruction to enhance learning and to assess student performance.

The librarian (teaming with teachers) will:

• prepare a large, colorful Chinese zodiac chart with removable animal medallions
• prepare to present introductory information on zodiacs and the Chinese zodiac, in conjunction with the children's literature piece, "The Great Race," by David Bouchard, with paintings by Zhong-Yang Huang
• read the literature piece, and place the zodiac animal medallions on the chart in the specific order mentioned in the story
• after completion of the story, hand out out a teacher-created informational sheet naming the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, which outlines the human characteristics associated with those animals
• lead discussion on the qualities ascribed to each animal
• lead a guessing game
• wrap up the lesson

The students will:

• come to the learning experience with prior knowledge of the Chinese zodiac
• listen to the story and observe the placement of the animals on the Chinese zodiac chart
• join in the discussion of the zodiac animal characteristics
• choose one zodiac animal and write three sentence clues about its characteristics
• play a guessing game based on those sentence clues

3. INSTRUCTIONAL/ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATIONS
Describe the procedures used to accommodate the range of abilities in the classroom, including students with disabilities, limited English proficiency, or bilingual students, such as:

• instructional modifications made; and
• physical modifications of the classroom setting.

The modifications needed for this learning experience are aide assistance in the writing/oral presentation, and the use of a loud, dramatic voice for reading the story.

4. TIME REQUIRED
For each aspect of the learning experience, state the amount of time for:

• planning;
• implementation (note the length of your class period, where appropriate, and the number of days to implement the experience); and
• assessment

Planning time required for the librarian:

• a few hours to construct the Chinese zodiac chart
• an hour to prepare the introduction to the lesson, to familiarize oneself with the elements and text of the story and to review the elements of the guessing game

Implementation of this learning experience

• will take approximately an hour, including introduction, reading of the literature piece, discussion and guessing game.

Assessment of this learning experience will take several forms:

• querying students for comprehension and for the ability to predict action in the story throughout the reading of the literature piece
• querying students for comprehension at the end of the literature piece
• informal observation of student responses during discussion of zodiac animals
• assessment of the written clues that students write about their 'secret' zodiac animal
• observation of student ability to guess 'secret' animals based on written clues

5. RESOURCES
Please note any extraordinary or unique resources (human or material) needed to successfully complete this experience:

• for the student; and
• for the teacher

For successful completion of this experience, students will need:

• prior introduction to the Chinese zodiac
• ability to listen
• ability to write three complete sentences

For successful completion of this experience, librarians will need:

• teacher to do prior introduction to the Chinese zodiac
• materials to prepare a large Chinese zodiac chart
• the book, "The Great Race," by David Bouchard, with paintings by Zhong-Yang Huang
• a teacher-created Chinese zodiac information sheet
• a teaching space that allows for large-group presentation

6. ASSESSMENT PLAN
Describe the:

• manner in which students are involved in developing assessment criteria, maintaining an awareness of their progress, and reflection on their work;
• techniques used to collect evidence of student progress toward meeting the learning standards' performance indicators (e.g. , observation, group discussions, journal writing, use of alternative testing techniques); and
• tools used to document student progress (e.g., scoring guides, rating scales, checklists). Please submit these tools.

Assessment will rest upon:

• student's ability to use listening skills and observation to take in details of the story and to see the relative positions of the various animals on the Chinese zodiac chart
• student's ability to write three sentence clues to clearly describe their 'secret' animal
• student ability to present their sentence clues orally
• ability of other students to guess the animals described, based on the orally presented clues

The librarian/teacher team will base assessment on:

• Student discussion
• Student writing
• Student oral presentation of their writing
• Student participation in the guessing game

The forms of assessment will be:

• Informal observation of student input throughout reading of the story and upon completion
• Informal observation of student discussion of Chinese zodiac animals
• Formal assessment of the written work (three sentences describing one of the Chinese zodiac animals)
• Informal assessment of the sentence clues and the ability of students to guess each other's animals based upon those clues

7. STUDENT WORK
Send three or four samples of student work:

• that reflect different levels of student performance; and
• include comments reflecting the basis for teacher's assessment.

8. REFLECTION
Please offer personal comments on the learning experience:

• why this lesson was developed for the specific learning standard(s) and performance indicator(s);
• what you learned from implementing this lesson; and
• how the lesson was reviewed by peers prior to submission and what you learned from the review.

This lesson was developed to:

• provide a culture-rich example of children's literature that would connect prior teaching on the Chinese zodiac to one folk version of how the zodiac came to be
• get students thinking about the specific animals of the Chinese zodiac, their physical traits and the human qualities ascribed to each of them
• to involve the school librarian as part of the teaching team in presenting literature-based activities for this specific curricular unit
• give students practice in listening to literature for both informational content and literary response

What was learned from implementing this lesson:

• students at the third grade level CAN listen to a long, fairly complex literature piece for both informational content and literary response
• students are interested in the Chinese zodiac
• there needs to be a stronger balance between discussion of physical traits of the Chinese zodiac animals versus the human characteristics ascribed to them

Peer review of this lesson prior to submission revealed:

• this is basically a good plan
• response to the literature piece is of premier importance in this learning experience
• redesign of the learning experience to expand student examination of the human characteristics ascribed to the animals of the Chinese zodiac would be desirable
• this learning experience could be extended to include student word processing of responses as a technology opportunity
• insertion of the written clues on the school's web page could provide an interesting and informative guessing game for other students
• this learning experience could be expanded to include science and art activities in addition to the language arts and social studies ones currently included