Teaching Points of View with Wonders Unit 3

Teaching points of view is such a fun reading concept in 4th grade! Wonders Unit 3 is ALL about points of view. First, it’s character point of view in Week 1 & 2. Then, it’s the author’s point of view in Weeks 3 – 5. By the end of this unit – 4th graders have had a TON of practice with this reading skill.

Teaching Points of View of Two Characters

Fiction is the reading genre for the first two weeks of Unit 3. We can compare and contrast the points of view of two characters within each story.

First, students can use pronouns (his, her, you, she, or he) to find out which character’s point of view is used in the story “At the Library”.

Then, we need to determine what their point of view is. I model a simple Point of View – Supporting Details graphic organizer like this:

Each student will answer the questions at the bottom of the page independently. The point of view question can be used as an exit ticket for that lesson.

Because I think 4th graders need to do more than just identify the point of view, we will compare and contrast it in the anthology story, “The Cricket on Times Square”. We will compare Chester Cricket and Tucker Mouse’s point of view about New York by finding key details in the text.

This graphic organizer is set up so that students can easily compare and contrast the two points of view. After they have completed the graphic organizer, I ask them to summarize those similarities and differences.

Normally, I spend two days on the Anthology text so students will re-read the story and respond to the text-dependent questions on this page:

We will follow a similar lesson plan for the Week 2 stories, “Remembering Hurricane Katrina” and “Aguinaldo”.

Author’s Point of View

For the next 2 weeks in Unit 3, students will be focused on the author’s point of view. Understanding the author’s point of view is important because it shows the author’s beliefs or opinions about the topic.

Good readers need to be able to distinguish fact from opinion and how it can shape the information that is being read.

I’m confident that most 4th-grade readers understand how to find the author’s point of view because it was addressed in 3rd grade.

For 4th grade, I used the Common Core standard RI.4.8: Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in the text.

“Judy’s Appalachia” is the first text in the Reader-Writer Workshop text. Again, I model the graphic organizer by focusing on the opinions of the author towards the subject (Judy). After that, students will answer the text-dependent question based on this text.

I use this question as a formative assessment or exit ticket to determine how well students understood the standard on this first day.

Based on the data, I may adjust instruction on day two to give more or less support as they move into the Anthology.

Students will use a point of view graphic organizer as they read the text, “Delivering Justice”. They have the opportunity to find three examples of the author’s point of view and the supporting details for them.

Students will answer the questions under the heading, Respond to Text. Typically, I model the first question so they understand my expectation which is: 1) Complete sentences, 2) Supported by text evidence.

In this post, I show you how I use sentence stems (starters) to help my students learn how to cite text evidence.

Question 2 is perfect for partners to work on together! They can help each other find the answers in the text. Then they can check each other’s response to make sure it has the two elements I modeled for them. (This includes the vocabulary questions on this page.)

The last two questions are perfect for formative assessment because students will be answering them independently. You can really see who gets it and who needs additional help.

Teaching points of view is so much easier for you and your students if you have the right resources!

This Wonders 4th Grade Unit 3 Reading Response is perfect for that!

This no-prep resource is available for all 6 units in a Wonders 4th Grade Units 1-6 Bundle Pack for both Print & Digital. Now you can give students quality reading response activities all year!