Though fictional, the story Angel Child, Dragon Child by Michele Maria Surat is based on her recollections of the Vietnamese students in her classes. It is the story of a young Vietnamese girl, Ut, who comes to the United States with her family. Her mother was forced to stay behind in Vietnam because the family did not have enough money. The children in my class found this story very powerful and moving perhaps because Ut was about their age. Everyone just wanted to learn more.
After reading and rereading the story and discussing Ut’s character in depth, we became curious about her country and its culture, especially what school is like in Vietnam. It was very difficult to find appropriate material for second graders. We read aloud what books were available, viewed photographs from sites on the Internet and did research using Golden Books Encyclopedia in the computer lab. We gathered enough information to compare and contrast Vietnamese schools with U.S. schools. A Venn diagram helped us organize this information and led to serious discussion about the similarities and differences in our cultures.
The idea for a picture book stemmed from a previous lesson in which we had read a book written by a kindergarten class. "If they can make a book, why can’t we?" many of my students asked. As a class we discussed the possibility and process and decided with even greater interest to do it! Our goal was to "publish" a picture book that would be helpful to other children who were interested in learning about Vietnam. The children continued reading (independently, with partners and in small groups) and began recording information on index cards. We discussed and discouraged copying and modeled paraphrasing. This was very difficult for some. After a conference in which cards were edited and ordered, each student completed a storyboard with text from information on their cards and sketches to go with each frame. There was another brief conference before they began working on the actual pages of their books. This was an exciting and challenging project. Everyone was enthusiastic and worked diligently to complete his/her individual book by our "deadline."
Our finished product is a compilation of pages, text, and illustrations from these individual books into one class book…A Picture Book of Vietnam.
We welcome any comments:
e-mail us:
ptaverna@pocanticohills.org
thongell@pocanticohills.org