Self Talk & Emotions: Three activities to explore 54 Things Wrong with Gwendolyn Rogers
I am seven chapters in to reading 54 Things Wrong with Gwendolyn Rogers with my class. They are enjoying it and we have been having powerful discussions. I thought I would share three short activities we did over the last week linked to the book. This is one of the Surrey School Book of the Year Nominees and is making a powerful read aloud!
Activity 1: Check the Self Talk
Activity
We defined self talk as a class
We talked about examples of negative and positive self talk in the book so far
Each student made a T-Chart on a large sticky note to record Gwendolyn’s negative and positive self talk during ONE chapter
We paused throughout the chapter to talk about a few different examples (explicit negative, negative through comparison, intrusive thoughts etc.)
We discussed the results at the end (and that results may vary based on what you perceive as positive/negative)
At the end of the chapter, students wrote on the back of the sticky note ONE example of their self talk either hurting or helping them
Student Responses
My Learning
Unsurprisingly, the student self talk was overwhelming negative—because those intrusive thoughts are what stick with us. This activity for me highlighted the importance of teaching about self talk, intrusive thought, and strategies to combat them. It also reinforced that (1) this is the right book for my class right now and (2) SEL needs to continue to be the focus of my classroom.
Activity 2: What do your emotions looks like?
Activity
Each student had an 11 X17 piece of paper folded in quarters so only ONE quarter was visible
Gwendolyn Rogers personifies her emotions in the book and they become characters that are part of her emotional experience throughout the book. It is very powerful. In the box that was visible, I asked the kids to draw three of Gwendolyn’s emotions as she saw them:
Anger: spiky, red, breaks out of his shell and takes over—only sadness and coax him back in the shell
Sadness: always around, blue, fuzzy, when it takes over, it can wrap Gwendolyn in a thick blanket of fur that makes it impossible to move.
Confidence: a grey stickman
Table groups discussed why she saw the emotions this way and how they changed when they took over a situation.
The students then unfolded the 11X17 piece of paper and labelled the other three boxes anger, sadness, and confidence
I asked students to draw what each emotion looks like for them (personified or any way they imagine it)
Student Responses
Drawing Gwendolyn’s Emotions
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Drawing Our Emotions
Many kids personified the emotions using the same colours as Gwendolyn. Other students drew situations where they felt each emotion. This was a vulnerable thing I asked them to do, and they took it seriously.
My Learning
This took longer than I thought—as exploring emotions often does! Between the instructions, the drawing, and the unpacking of the big feelings/ideas, it took about 40 minutes. I ran out of time to read, but that is okay! I didn’t want to rush reading without doing the connected comprehension activity, so I collected the 11X17 sheets in order to make sure they didn’t get lost, and we had lunch.
I am finding it powerful to start with Gwendolyn and her experience before stepping into our experiences. Talking about emotion is vulnerable and I am asking my students to be vulnerable with me as we read this book.
Activity 3: Guided Comprehension Activity
Activity
I handed back the 11X17 sheet from the day before and had the kids flip the sheet over and number the sections 1-4
Character T-Chart: The students voted on two characters they wanted to zoom into during that days reading. They would record ideas and information about the characters to learn more about them. They chose Gwendolyn and her half-brother Tyler.
Important Events: We are creating an anchor chart of important events in chronologic order to help the kiddos with working memory challenges and help all of us review what has happened. We are trying to make 1-2 bullet points per chapter. Some chapters have more—but we are doing our best. So in box two the kids had to pick out 5-6 key events in the chapter, which we used as a class to vote on the 1-2 ideas added to the class summary.
Doodle/Draw: A space for the doodlers who need to be doing something while listening
Prediction/Question T-Chart: We have a list of questions about the book that we are keeping track of and ticking off as we find the answers. This is another example of student voice and choice baked into our learning. The kids are invested in finding the answers!
We paused throughout and scaffolded ideas on the board/ students added ideas to their own page.
After the chapter, the kids discussed what they thought should be on the important events chart and we voted as a class. We also added a few ideas to each of the class character charts.
Student Responses
Character T-Chart
As it turned out, very little of this chapter was about Tyler, but that is okay! We learned lots about Gwendolyn and even added a few ideas about her mom to the character sheet during our class discussion.
Important Events
The goal was to pull out 5-6 important events from he chapter. We stopped at different points throughout the chapter to discuss as a class what we might write down.
Questions and Predictions T-Chart
This is such a juicy book that the kids are full of questions! We are also really learning how to engage with text in powerful ways.
My Learning
My students are growing in their ability to pick out important events. They are also full of unique questions. I was also reminded that scaffolding is key, as is taking time while reading to engage with the text.
If you are familiar with Reading Power, you may notice that many of the activities are working to support building specific skills (predicting/questioning). This is intentional.
How do I design activities?
Scaffolding…scaffolding…scaffolding… I am designing as many activities as I can that help the kids engage with text, make personal connections, and feel joy in reading. When I did reading comprehension assessments in September, I noticed that many of my students found summarizing challenging. I also found out through interviews with students that many of them didn’t see themselves as readers—or enjoy reading longer books like novels. Working memory challenges and connecting to novels seemed to be stumbling blocks for many!
Knowing these general things about my class allows me to design activities that build engagement with text, personal connections, and joy! Collaborative summaries and anchor charts have been my friend.
I am letting the book and class needs guide the activities I design. Whenever possible, I bring in student voice and choice. I am seeing growth—and joy—which make me so happy!
Final Thoughts
I recognize that the topics I am exploring are emotional/hard for kids, so I am building in time and supports for success. When we are talking about self talk, for example, we start by looking at Gwendolyn before ourselves. We are also working on building a safe, strong class community, which allows kids to share hard things. I am being vulnerable and talking about my experiences to build mutual trust.
Reading to your class is a powerful way to model oral language, and build reading comprehension. A book like 54 Things Wrong with Gwendolyn Rogers does double or triple duty because it can be used to explore SEL/HPE, art, and social sciences.
In the intermediate class, it is so important to make everything you do explore multiple aspects of curriculum! As intermediate teachers, we have so many topics and a million curricular competencies—which can feel overwhelming. A well chosen read aloud or picture book study can be a powerful way to connect with your students and have them connect with many different topics.
Examples from my teaching:
Out of My Mind: Exploring inclusive education and the Core Competencies
Number the Stars: Social Studies connections
Refugee: Social Studies/SEL connections
Hatchet: We designed experiments as we read
Lemonade War: Financial literacy AND SEL
The Red Pyramid : Social Studies..Ancient Egypt passion projects
The possibilities are endless! Let the books and your students guide you on your journey and have fun digging into literacy.