   
|
|
|
Mr. Lee's Corner Store
 |
Traditional Korean foods and objects found in a Korean grocery store (click); world map; photographs of Korea; images of the Korean alphabet; and books about Korean Americans |
|
 | Create a neighborhood store modeled on Mr. Lee's grocery in a corner of your classroom. Stock the shelves with items you would find in a Korean market, such as such as gingerroot, powdered ginseng, soaps, rice crackers, canned goods, and tea. With your students, discuss the differences and similarities between objects found in their kitchens, such as cabbage, and those from traditional Korean cooking, such as kimchee. What would they find in a Korean market that they would not see where they go grocery shopping? |
| Help students to learn about Korea, Mr. Lee's birthplace. Set aside an area of your classroom for materials about Korea, including a map of the world with Korea highlighted, photographs of the Korean countryside and people, and letters from the Korean alphabet. Include books about Korean Americans and Korea (see Resources for ideas).
|
One Time I . . .
Students reflect on and share lessons they have learned about right and wrong. They connect their actions to consequences and make predictions about the book based on their discussion.
30 min.
|
Whole group
|
|
CA Reading Standard 2.4: Students make and modify predictions about forthcoming information.
|
|
|
Paper and pens |
|
Read the title of the story and show the cover of the book to the class. Ask students to think about the word lesson. What does it mean? How does somebody learn a lesson? Where have they learned lessons?
Ask students to think of a time when they learned a lesson about right and wrong. Have them take a piece of paper and anonymously write down something they did that they knew was wrong and ended up being punished for. What happened? How did they feel? What were the consequences of their decisions? What did they learn?
Next, ask students to form a community circle. Have students crumple up the papers they wrote on and throw their paper into the middle of the circle. Pick some of the papers randomly and read them aloud. Ask students to think about the patterns they hear. When do people make bad decisions? What might help them make better choices in the future?
Tell students that, sometimes, people learn lessons they wouldn't expect from doing something wrong. That's what Cooper's Lesson is all about.
Diving In
20 min.
|
Whole class; small groups; pairs
|
Introduce the book to students in a large or small group. The focus of this first reading should be reading for pleasure–encouraging students to enjoy the beauty of the book and the story it tells. In order to foster this enjoyment, try some of the following activities:
| Discuss the cover, the title, and the illustrations. Ask students what story they think the book tells, and how each part of a page might tell that story differently. Also ask students to predict what lessons Cooper might learn. List these predictions and ask students to check them after the reading is complete.
|
| Point out that this book is bilingual – it is written in two languages. Ask students why a book might be written this way. Why does it matter what language an author uses? How does a language change how a story is told or who hears it? Tell students that sometimes, even in the English story, they will find Korean words that they might not know. What could they do when they find these words? Encourage them to identify strategies – and to think about the strategies that Cooper uses as they listen to the story.
|
| Read page 4 aloud to the class. Ask students why Cooper's cousin might call him “half and half.” What does that mean? How can a person be half-and-half? How could it make someone feel? Ask them to keep this question in mind as they read the book on their own, in pairs or small groups, or as they listen to you read the book aloud.
|
| Encourage students to further explore the book actively by taking a “picture walk” through the book, thinking about the story as it is told in the illustrations. What do they see in the pictures? How are these illustrations like or unlike illustrations in other books?
|
Making Meaning
Students identify and practice strategies for understanding new words in the story.
30 min.
|
Whole class and pairs
|
|
CA Reading Standard 1.6: Student use sentence and word context to find the meaning of unknown words.
|
|
| Flipchart and markers
|
|
Ask students what English or Korean words they didn't know when they first looked at or listened to the book. Ask how they were able to figure out what those words meant. Use a flipchart to list strategies they brainstorm, including:
- looking at the pictures
- looking at the word in the context of the phrase, sentence, and paragraph
- using the dictionary
- asking a friend
- asking a heritage Korean speaker or consulting a Korean-English dictionary (in the case of defining unfamiliar words in Korean)
Apply these strategies to the non-English words in the English text. Point out that, in the English text, some words are in italics-these words are in Korean, although they are written in the same characters English uses. In general, the strategy of using the context to determine the general meaning of the word will work best for these words. Discuss why this is so with your students. For your reference, the Korean words in the English text are:
- p. 3: Kamsahamnida – Thank you
- p.4: insam – Ginseng
- p. 6: An yong – Hi
- p. 6: An yong ha se oh – Greeting, like “hello”
- p. 12: Ye – Yes
- p. 12: Mullon imnida – It is trouble
- p. 18: Aigo – Gosh or Alas
- p. 20: Namu – tree
- p. 29: Saenggang – ginger
- p. 30: Igosul Hanguk-o-ro mworago malhamnikka? – How do you say this in Korean?
Next, work to identify and understand challenging or unfamiliar English words in the story. Discuss additional strategies that students might use with English words, such as word roots, prefixes, or suffixes. Some challenging English words in the story include:
- p. 3: allowance, insisted
- p. 4: miniature, skyline
- p. 6: aisles
- p. 10: expectantly
- p. 12: prickles
- p. 14: gripped, stammered
- p. 24: register, chemist, blurted
- p. 30: awkward, mingling
If there are Korean speakers in your class, ask them to find similarly difficult words in the Korean text.
After students read the book, ask them what new words they found and what strategies they used to figure them out. Add any new strategies to the flipchart and post the list in your classroom.
Lessons Learned
Students identify and discuss the challenges facing Cooper and the lessons he learns throughout the story.
45 min.
|
Whole class and small groups or pairs
|
|
CA Reading Standard 2.6: Students extract appropriate and significant information from the text, including problems and solutions.
|
|
| Chart paper and markers; pencils and paper
|
|
Once you have finished reading the book, ask your students to revisit its title. What lesson, or lessons, does Cooper learn? Point out to the class that there might be more than one correct way to answer this question. In order to figure out some of the possible answers, the first thing to do is to identify the challenges Cooper faces.
As a group, brainstorm some of the problems that Cooper has to deal with, such as not understanding Korean; struggling with people's stereotypes and assumptions about him; understanding the difference between right and wrong and the problems with stealing; feeling separate from the Korean community; and feeling as if Mr. Lee does not like him. Create a chart like the one below and fill in the first box with your students' ideas.
Assign students in small groups or pairs to work on one of Cooper's problems. Ask them to look in the book for evidence of this struggle. Explain that this evidence might be a sentence or a page that illustrates the challenge Cooper faces. The more evidence they can find, the better.
Ask students to share the evidence they find. Chart their responses and have the class give feedback on their findings. If more than one pair or small group is working on the same problem, compare the evidence they find and discuss whether it makes sense.
As a group, discuss the lesson that Cooper learned in dealing with each challenge. Record the lesson on the appropriate line in the chart. If students disagree, point them to the book in search of evidence to back up their arguments.
Inside Out
Using a graphic organizer, students analyze how characters change over time, both emotionally and in others' perceptions.
45 min.
|
Individual or small group
|
|
CA Reading Standard 3.3: Students determine what characters are like by what they say or do and by how the author or illustrator portrays them.
|
Ask your students to think about one time that they learned a lesson. How has that lesson changed them? Ask class members to think further about how they would know if somebody has changed. Prompt them to identify someone's words and actions as indications that somebody has changed.
Point out to the class that Cooper changes a lot in the story. Ask the class to think about what lessons Cooper learned and how they changed him. However, he was not the only one that changed. Mr. Lee changes, too. And to make things more interesting, Cooper and Mr. Lee change how they see and treat each other. Ask students to share some examples of the ways Cooper and Mr. Lee change throughout the story.
Using an overhead projector, show the class the Inside/Outside Graphic Organizer. Explain that inside the outlines of the body, students can put words or phrases that describe how somebody feels. Outside, students write down words or phrases that describe how other people see them. As a group, identify some words you could use to describe how Cooper feels at the beginning of the story. These words will go in the inside of Cooper's body.
Next, talk about how Mr. Lee sees Cooper at the beginning of the story and figure out how Mr. Lee would describe Cooper at this point of the story. Come up with a list of words and phrases and explain that those words or phrases would go outside of the outlines. Record these examples in the appropriate places on the overhead projector.
Next, ask students to come up with some more words to add to their own copy of the graphic organizers. Then, tell them to think about how Cooper changes throughout the story. What new words might they put inside of Cooper's body to describe how he feels now? What words might they use to describe how Mr. Lee sees Cooper now? Have them fill out the graphic organizers accordingly. Point out that some things might stay the same, but many things about Cooper will have changed by the end of the story.
Finally, ask students to fill out the graphic organizer for Mr. Lee, describing how he feels and how Cooper sees him at the beginning and ending of the story. Ask them to pay attention again to how Mr. Lee changes, both inside and in Cooper's perceptions.
Alternatively, have students work in small groups. Rather than copying the individual graphic organizers, draw the outlines of the body using markers on chart paper and ask students to work together on the diagram using markers.
|
|
|
|
