Teaching Perspective and Point-Of-View
Objective: Students should come away with working definitions of the terms “perspective” and “point-of-view,” as well as the ability to recognize from whose perspective a story is taking place, and to insert their own perspectives into their writing.
Age/Grade: 2nd-3rd
Materials: The Pain and The Great One by Judy Blume
Writing materials (paper, pencils, etc.)
Chart paper, marker
Rationale: This mini-lesson (leading into a Writer’s Workshop) speaks to the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework’s Guiding Principle 9, “An effective English language arts curriculum develops each student’s distinctive writing or speaking voice.” The students in my class are able to write long narratives, with descriptions of events, but they rarely insert their opinions or emotions into the stories. Therefore, this lesson is designed to familiarize them with a book that does a particularly good job of telling the same story from two different perspectives/points-of-view, and to encourage them to do the same when they write.
Activity:
1.) Read the first half (“The Pain”) of The Pain and The Great One.
2.) Write the words “perspective” and “point-of-view” on the chart paper, and define them. According to the Massachusetts Department of Education website, perspective is “a position from which something is considered or evaluated; standpoint. Point-of-view is defined as “the vantage point from which a story is told.”
3.) Explain that every story’s narrator (students should be familiar with the term narrator by this point in the year) has a different perspective/point-of-view, and that knowing more about them helps us get to know the narrator better. Mention that the same situation can have multiple perspectives – an example I used was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day: the story would have been very different if it was told from the point-of-view of his mother, or one of his older brothers.
4.) Once you feel that the students have a good grasp on the two concepts, read the second half of the book, “The Great One”. Point out the similarities to the brother’s story, i.e. they both talk about (and have different perspectives on) the block buildings, the cat’s preferences, and the parents loving the other one more.
5.) At the end of the mini-lesson, reiterate that you would like the students to make an effort to insert their own perspectives/points-of-view into their writing. Review the meanings of the words one more time, and explain the assignment: Write about something that happened to you, then write the same story from a different perspective – for instance, if the story is about the child fighting with his friend, he should write about what happened from his point-of-view, then retell it from his friend’s point-of-view.
6.) Have students go to their seats and work. Leave ten to fifteen minutes at the end of the period to have the group reconvene (see “Wrap-Up”).
Wrap-up: When group reconvenes, have 2-3 students read their stories out loud. Discuss how they used different perspectives and points-of-view, and how it changed the story to hear what another character had to say about it. Also mention that when you read a book, you should always figure out from whose perspective the story is told, because it might change how you feel about the information you read.
Adaptations and Extensions: One possible extension would be to continue looking into perspectives in future lessons, and to explore how different perspectives can not only affect fiction, but nonfiction as well (i.e. newspapers, documentaries, statistics, etc.). A unit could be developed with the purpose of fostering a healthy wariness in students, urging them to consider the source before believing what they hear or read. On a different note, this lesson could also be used in a curriculum that revolves around socio-emotional development, providing a context for conversations about empathy and understanding another person’s “side of the story.”
Assessment: I used the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s 6 Trait Writing Framework [1]as my frame of
reference for assessment. There are six rubrics that cover kindergarten through second grade: voice, ideas and content, sentence fluency, word choice, organization, and conventions. The rubrics are generally on a scale of 1 to 6, with scores of “Not Yet,” “Emerging,” “Developing,” “Competent,” “Experienced,” and “Wow!
Reflection in Practice: One of the students with whom I worked, Dago, is an extremely proficient student in all areas, but his literacy skills are particularly advanced. However, he rarely uses his own “voice” when writing, choosing instead to tell his stories through facts and details. I wanted to try this lesson with him because it necessitates the insertion of opinions and emotions, and that’s something he particularly needs to work on.
I was very pleased with the writing Dago produced. He wrote a (true) story about how his younger brother had accidentally spilled a cup of juice on a homework assignment that Dago had worked on all weekend. In the first half, he wrote about how angry he had been, and how he had yelled a lot and told his brother that he didn’t want to play with him anymore. In the second half, he wrote the same story from his brother’s perspective, saying how bad he felt because he dropped the juice and got yelled at, and that it was a big deal when his older brother was mad at him. After reading his story, Dago commented, “I probably made him feel pretty bad. I should probably tell him I’m sorry when I go home, huh.” Another student added that writing from two perspectives might be a good way to figure out how to work things out when you fight with someone, because it helps you understand how they might be thinking.
[1] Reprinted at http://www.cyberspaces.net/6traits/.
