Our curriculum unit, Animals through Children’s Literature, is conceived from a Literature-Based approach in which “children learn by searching for meaning in the world around them” (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2007). Along with this approach, we employ the New Curricular focus where integration, interaction and innovation work towards the attainment of a common goal: meaningful learning. Rooted in both the Literature-Based approach and the New Curricular focus, we have decided to organize our curricular unit as what is known to be a “hybrid literature program” in which we arrange the content to include both children’s literature genres and the topic of animals.      

 

          By organizing our curricular unit basing ourselves partly on genres, we aim to “provide a context for students to learn about the various types of literature and the characteristics of each” (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2007). It is our belief that through the use of multiple types of children’s literature genres in our curricular unit, students will be exposed to a wide variety of literature that will consequently provide them with useful schemata (prior knowledge) for story types.

 

          Through the incorporation of the specific topic of animals into our curricular unit, we seek to provide our students with a general awareness of the power of literature to explain and further their knowledge about any given topic. Also, it is common knowledge that young children (generally from kindergarten to 4^th grade) share a common interest in literature related to animals. And being that, “children’s interests have been shown to be one of the most powerful motivating forces available to teachers” (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2007), we plan make use of the motivational tool given to us through our student’s obvious interest in animals. Therefore, by using a myriad of genres in children’s trade books and a topic of general interest among lower elementary level students, we aspire to promote and deepen our student’s knowledge and comprehension of animals and of the importance of animals in the world we live in.

 

          In this curricular unit, our primary goal is to help students achieve a higher level of language learning, while motivating and maintaining enjoyment in our students when doing so. As a result, we have based our curricular unit on various theoretical principles to serve this purpose. The first one being that, according to John Dewey children learn doing and manipulating, therefore in the activities that will be developed throughout this curricular unit, we have included activities in which the students can learn in a practical and meaningful manner. Furthermore, in our curricular unit we have also included a social focus based on Vygotsky’s learning theory. Vygotsky believed that learning occurs accordingly to the social environment in which children develop. This theorist also spoke of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), in which a more advanced peer assists another student so as to enable a better and higher learning. Using this theory as a guide, we will develop collaborative work activities, where each and every student participates and contributes to the learning of the whole group.

 

          Lastly, our curricular unit - and the methods utilized in it - fully comply with the Puerto Rico Department of Education’s Curricular Framework, which establishes four content standards for the teaching of English: oral communication, written communication, reading comprehension, and literary appreciation. The 4^th content standard is the one most obviously present in our curricular unit, due to its inevitable connection with literature. And it is in this content standard the PR Department of Education states: “Students will read and listen to oral, written, and electronically produced texts and performances and relate them to their own lives. They will enjoy and evaluate literary merit based on an understanding of the different genres, the literary elements, and the literary

periods and traditions revealed. Literature has the power to maintain the students

motivated and excited about learning.” Through this statement, it can be noted that the Literature-Based focus of our curricular unit successfully serves both, the Department of Education’s goals and expectations, as well as encourages and enables effective language learning in our students.

 

          In conclusion, through our curricular unit focused on the Literature-Based approach based on subject of animals we aim to tackle “the components of instruction considered essential to the teaching of reading (and the teaching of the English language) by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension, including fluency and vocabulary instruction” (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2007). To our understanding, by including daily teacher read-aloud and promoting independent reading, students will develop valuable intrinsic behaviors that cannot be taught, such as: a positive attitude towards reading, a positive attitude towards animals, self-motivation to read, self-motivation to help preserve and conserve endangered species of animals, and a lifelong reading habit.