Community Based Literature Activities
Share a piece of literature that focuses on a person's contribution through their job. Have students develop interview questions to go home and interview an adult about their occupation and the product or service they provide. Focus on how their jobs provide satisfaction both through what they do and what they provide to the community.
Share a piece of literature that focuses on music. It might be a story about a composer, a poem, or a song which students like. Have the students develop interview questions to go home and interview an adult. They might want to focus on present tastes in music, tastes the adult had when they were the student's age, how music has changed over a period of time, how music is still the same, or what is it about music that people enjoy.
Select a book which has an event that people in the child's life would have lived during its occurrence. Have the student's write interview questions and interview people who know about the event.
Select a place in the community which has the same setting and visit it. Have students prepare interview questions to interview people about how they feel about the setting. When students return to class have them discuss the similarities and differences between the literature and the real life setting.
Make a chart and list each character in a separate box. Have the students record what they learned about each character as they read or share the literature. Teachers can create their own to share with students also.
Make a character map for the main character and maybe an important minor character. Mark the important events along a time line for the story. Have students share what they thought was important and why. Teachers can create their own to share with students also.
Have students make a list of what they liked about the literature and did not like. Have students make a list of what they liked certain characters or did not like about them.
Write an advertisement for the piece of literature and tell why everyone should get to know a character.