Quit Calling Me a Monster

Nicole McPherson, Rachel Cherry, Mathea Turkalj, Liz Hogan

NHES 4: Interpersonal Communication

4.2.1        Demonstrate healthy ways to express needs, wants, and feelings.

4.2.2        Demonstrate listening skills to enhance health.

4.2.3        Demonstrate ways to respond in an unwanted, threatening, or dangerous situation.

4.2.4        Demonstrate ways to tell a trusted adult if threatened or harmed.

Grade(s): TK-2

Objective:

Students will demonstrate the ability to use interpersonal communication skills to enhance health and avoid and reduce health risks.

Students will demonstrate their listening skills when listening to the book, and when pair-sharing. 

Students will brainstorm and come up with multiple ways to solve different scenarios in healthy ways and how they can help each other as a class. 

Language objective 

The students will demonstrate their writing skills by writing an entry in their journal about a time they experienced a strong emotion. 

The students will demonstrate their speaking skills while discussing ways to handle different scenarios and feelings with classmates.

The students will demonstrate their listening skills while listening to the book, their teacher and their classmates. 

Opening:  

Read “Quit Calling Me a Monster” by Jory John. The story is about a monster who does not like being called a monster because it hurts his feelings. He knows he is one and he knows he can be scary “but he can’t help it, he was born this way”.  

Support for emergent bilinguals, IEPs, and advanced students:

• Teacher will use facial expressions, noises, and different intonations to help bilinguals and IEPs further understand the book. 
• For the formative assessment, the teacher can allow time for students to share with a partner before sharing out loud.  The teacher should also have the questions written down and provide visuals when they can. The teacher can provide sentence frames and a word bank if needed.  

Formative Assessment: 

Discuss the book with the students: How did the monster feel? Why did he feel this way? Could he help the fact that he was a monster? How would you feel if you were the monster? How can we help people (or monsters) who feel this way? 

Modeling:

Students will be divided into groups. Each group will be assigned a different skit to perform addressing different ways in which to tell trusted adults if they feel threatened or harmed (e.g. “Johnny and his friend Jane have not been feeling comfortable in their classroom because their classmate has been making threatening comments. They decide to tell someone about what happened.”)  Students will perform skits in front of the rest of the class.

Support for emergent bilinguals, IEPs, and advanced students:

• ESL students will be paired with advanced students.  Prompts will also be translated if necessary. Modeling also allows for visual learners to better understand the point. Repetition and rehearsal can benefit emergent bilinguals as well as students with IEPs.

Formative Assessment: 

Students will discuss each skit after it is performed, reflecting on the choices that were made and why they chose the person they did to report to. Students who did not perform the skit will be asked what they would have done in that situation if it was them.   

Shared and/or guided instruction: 

Come together as a class and make an anchor chart of good interpersonal communication skills they want to have. Come up with ideas as a class on what to do when someone is feeling sad, angry, excluded, etc. and write those down as well. Most, if not all students should be able to participate in this.  Students should be able to come up with a list of 10-20 ideas collectively. Teacher will be able to assess who is participating and who isn’t as well as how good each student’s understanding is.  

Support for emergent bilinguals, IEPs, and advanced students.

• Allow students time to share with a partner next to them before they share outloud, which will take a lot of pressure off of ELs and students with IEPs.  

Closing & Summative Assessment: 

-In their journals, students will select a time where they felt a strong emotion (happy, sad, angry, scared, etc). The student will then describe how they handled it (e.g. angry = hitting) and what they will do next time instead (e.g. i will take deep breaths, walk around my backyard, listen to music and then talk to my parents about it).

-Have students pair-share what they wrote.  Their partners will practice listening and they can discuss even more ways to solve this issue. Anyone who wants to share out to the class can.  The teacher will be walking around and checking in to assess students’ understanding. 

Support for emergent bilinguals, IEPs, and advanced students:

• Teachers can have sentence frames for emergent bilinguals and IEPs.  They can also have the opportunity to draw the scenario out and what they would do.  If needed, the student can also speak one on one with the teacher (or another IEP or emergent bilingual) about the situation and how the dealt with it/will deal with it next time. 
• For advanced students, they can pretend they are writing a book (similar to the monster book).  They can use dialogue, draw pictures, include different POVs, etc. 

Assessment Criteria: 

To receive full credit, the student’s writing will clearly demonstrate their ability to use interpersonal communication skills. To receive partial credit, the student will recognize their need to use a skill, but is unable to identify an appropriate skill in the given situation

Enduring understanding:

Apply interpersonal communication skills to express needs, wants, and feelings productively. 

Important health education question:

Why is it important to communicate effectively?

Sources:

Online reading of the book:🎃 Quit calling me a Monster

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Problem-Scenario-Cards-3109011 

https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2018/promoting-social-and-emotional-health#activities