Interview with a Snowman

AUTHORS

Maureen Stanton

Samantha Harris (Kindergarten student teacher at Columbian)

GRADE

Done with third grade students and their kindergarten reading buddies.

NE STANDARDS

Kindergarten

1.2.1 By the end of first grade, students will speak in clear, complete, coherent sentences using Standard English.

·          Share information and tell stories

·          Use the conversational skills of taking turns and staying on topic.

Third grade

4.2.5 By the end of fourth grade, students will demonstrate the use of self-generated questions, note taking and summarizing while learning.

·          Generate questions in exploration of a topic

4.3.2 By the end of fourth grade, students will deliver organized oral presentations using complete sentences, clear enunciation, adequate volume and eye contact.

OBJECTIVES

MATERIALS

TIME

Three 30 minute blocks

VOCABULARY

Interview

Day 1
Anticipatory Set
Read “Snowmen at Night” by Caralyn Buehner.  Tell students to pay attention to as many details as possible.

Procedure
Questions to ask:
1. What are some things the snowmen did at night?

2. What is an interview?  Why do we have interviews?  Where do we see interviews?

v      Interview: a person asks another person questions

v      Purpose: for the audience to gain useful information about the person being interviewed.

v      Examples: news stations, 20/20, sports center, theater production
of cast, presidential interviews, actors/actresses, etc.

3. What kinds of questions should be asked during an interview?

v      Questions that give the audience information, not questions that provide useless information (ex: What is your favorite color?).  They should be leading questions, not yes or no.

Introduce project.  Each set of buddies will be doing an interview.  The third grader is the interviewer and the kindergartener is the snowman.  They will be coming up with questions and answers together and deciding how they will present their interview.  They should ask any questions they may have.  If time allows, they can start brainstorming questions together.  Also ask students to be thinking of names for the news station.

Day 2

Anticipatory set
Ask students to tell whether the following examples are appropriate questions to ask during an interview:
1. What is your favorite color? not appropriate

2. Please tell us what your favorite thing about being a snowman is?    appropriate

3. What did you have for dinner last night? not appropriate

4. What do you enjoy most about being a snowman?  Please explain. appropriate

Remind students that their questions should give the audience useful information.  Also talk about what kind of qualities an interviewer has.  They must talk loud and clear and they do not giggle throughout their interview, even if they mess up.

Ask for suggestions for a name for the news station and decide on a name.  This can take a long time if the teacher allows it so try to make this as simple and quick of a process as possible.   

Procedure
1. Students will break off into their reading buddy group and brainstorm a list of questions and answers.  They should only have 3-4 questions.

2. They will need to fine tune their presentation and practice interviewing.  The third graders should help the kindergarteners feel as comfortable and confident as possible. 

Day 3

Anticipatory set
Get news station ready.  Remind students to treat this as if they were on live TV.  Even if they mess up they should just keep going.  No giggling either!!  (This will help move the interviews along)

Procedure
1. Each group presents their interviews.  They can be as creative as possible.  The only requirement is that the third grader is the interviewer and the kindergartener is the interviewee. 

ASSESSMENT
As each group presents the teacher should be taking notes of their presentation.  Did they speak clearly?  Did they giggle or stop and start over if they messed up?  Are their questions appropriate?  Did they ask questions that gave useful or useless information?  The students can turn in their questions after each presentation so the teacher can look at the questions more closely after the lesson. 

The students can be scored according to these guidelines.  This lesson was done with reading buddies so it was not given as a graded assignment.

CLOSURE

Once all groups have presented their interviews discuss what they thought were some really good interview questions they heard.  Why did they like them?  Were they interesting, attention grabbing, useful information, etc.?  Talk about things they learned through this project.  Did they think interviewing would be as easy/hard as it turned out to be?

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