Lesson Plan

Mapping the Travels of Paul Bunyan Through Alabama, Too!

Subject Area

English Language Arts
Social Studies

Grade(s)

3

Overview

During this lesson, students will recount a Paul Bunyan tall tale, an entertaining way to identify bodies of water and landforms in the United States. Although Paul Bunyan's Tales did not focus on Alabama, students will create their own narratives after viewing photographs of major mountain ranges, rivers, and lakes throughout Alabama. This lesson will utilize older maps of the United States and Alabama, which are used to remind us that this folk tale was handed down orally until the early 1900s when a newspaper printed several accounts of the tall tale.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

English Language Arts (2021) Grade(s): 3

ELA21.3.18

Demonstrate content knowledge built during independent reading of informational and literary texts by participating in content-specific discussions with peers and/or through writing.

Unpacked Content

UP:ELA21.3.18

Vocabulary

  • Demonstrate
  • Content knowledge
  • Independent reading
  • Informational text
  • Literary text
  • Content-specific discussions

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Content knowledge is information learned about a specific subject.
  • Content knowledge can be learned by independently reading text.
  • Informational text is nonfiction text, and literary text is fictional.
  • Active listening skills.
  • Writing skills.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Build content knowledge from independently reading informational or literary text.
  • Use content knowledge learned from independent reading in content-specific discussions with peers.
  • Use content knowledge learned from independent reading in writing.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Content-specific discussions with peers can demonstrate the content knowledge they learned through independent reading.
  • They can produce writings that demonstrate knowledge of content-specific information.
English Language Arts (2021) Grade(s): 3

ELA21.3.R3

Expand background knowledge and build vocabulary through discussion, reading, and writing.

Unpacked Content

UP:ELA21.3.R3

Vocabulary

  • Background knowledge
  • Vocabulary
  • Discussion

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Relating experiences through discussions, reading, and writing will help build background knowledge and improve vocabulary.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Connect new concepts to prior experiences to increase background knowledge through discussions, reading, and writing.
  • Construct the meaning of words through discussions, reading, and writing.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Background knowledge can increase by relating experiences to new ideas, topics, and words while participating in discussions, reading, and writing.
  • Vocabulary will increase by constructing the meaning of words while participating in discussions, reading, and writing.
Social Studies (2010) Grade(s): 3

SS10.3.2

Locate the continents on a map or globe.

Unpacked Content

UP:SS10.3.2

Vocabulary

  • geographical features

Knowledge

Students know:
  • How to locate continents on a map or globe.
  • How to use vocabulary associated with geographical features of Earth.
  • How to locate major mountain ranges, oceans, rivers and lakes throughout the world.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Locate continents on a map or globe.
  • Use vocabulary associated with geographical features of Earth.
  • Locate major mountain ranges, oceans, rivers and lakes throughout the world.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Maps and globes can be used to locate major geographical features of Alabama and the world.
English Language Arts (2021) Grade(s): 3

ELA21.3.33

Write personal or fictional narratives with a logical plot (sequence of events), characters, transitions, and a sense of closure.

Unpacked Content

UP:ELA21.3.33

Vocabulary

  • Personal narrative
  • Fictional narrative
  • Logical plot
  • Sequence of events
  • Characters
  • Transitions
  • Closure

Knowledge

Students know:
  • A narrative is a piece of writing that tells a story.
  • A personal narrative tells about an event that was personally experienced by the author, while a fictional narrative tells a made up story.
  • A narrative story describes a sequence of events in a logical order (beginning, middle, end) and provides a sense of closure as an ending.
  • A narrative story describes the actions, thoughts, and feelings of the characters.
  • Narrative transitions indicate when and where the story is occurring.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Write a personal narrative that recalls a personal experience or a fictional narrative with a made-up story.
  • Write a narrative with a logical sequence of events and details that describe how the characters feels, acts, and thinks.
  • Use appropriate transitions in narrative writing.
  • Write a narrative that ends with a sense of closure.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Narrative writing includes predictable elements, like a logical sequence of events and an ending that provides the reader with a sense of closure.
  • Because narrative writing describes a chronological sequence of events, it includes transitions that indicate the time and place in which the story is occurring.
  • Narrative writing can be used to tell about something that happened to them personally or it can tell a story they made up.

Primary Learning Objectives

During this lesson, students will recount a tall tale as a fun and entertaining way to identify bodies of water and landforms in the United States in general and Alabama specifically.

Students will write a summary of a tall tale, which will describe landforms and bodies of water.

Students will create a narrative that identifies landforms and bodies of water in Alabama after observing pictures, videos, or photographs.  

 

Additional Learning Objective(s)

Students should be given the opportunity to put together a collection of photographs or construct a collage to create a narrative tall tale about landforms and bodies of water in Alabama. Students may use technology, if available.

Procedures/Activities

Essential Question:

How were bodies of water and landforms created according to a tall tale?

Vocabulary:  

Teacher and students choose a word list (optional)

Purpose or Learning Outcome:

The students will use the retelling of a tall tale as a fun and entertaining way to learn about landforms and bodies of water. Students will increase their vocabulary by using synonyms or descriptive words when creating a story.

Before Strategy: 

Give students a copy of the map of the United States. Tell students that the 1826 map is a primary resource. 

Allow students to locate places, such as a city, states, landforms, or bodies of water. Assist students, if you need to, with identifying a city, state, landform, or body of water. Sometimes students can name an area on the map but don't know if the area is a city or a state, river, gulf, or ocean.

Have students call out as the teacher records the places on the board or chart paper.  

Example:  City(Capital)      State     Country     Body of water        landform

Tell students that those places are real but they will hear a tall tale or make-believe story of how some places on the map were formed.  

During Strategy: 

Show images of Paul Bunyan, so students will have a visual of the giant.

The teacher will tell the story of Paul Bunyan using expressions and gestures.

If possible, the teacher should use the interactive whiteboard to project a map of the United States.

The teacher or helper can point to the places on the map referred to in the story.

Paul Bunyan was so large. (HOW LARGE WAS HE?) Everything he did received huge results.

This story tells how Towering Paul Bunyan went to get water from the Great Lakes. He wasted the colossal bucket of water, which began to cause an enormous flood in the abundantly populated community. Quick thinking and clever, Gigantic Paul started to dig an immeasurable ditch from the vast Great Lakes to the exorbitant Gulf of Mexico. He called this extensive ditch, The Mississippi River. Paul threw the monumental amount of dirt he dug, to the West and called it, the Mighty Rocky Mountains.

The teacher should ask students to take out desk maps (or atlas in textbooks) and locate the “real” places they heard in the story.

Students use desk maps, wall maps, or the atlas to locate places mentioned in the story.

Working with a partner, students will summarize the story of Paul Bunyan using synonyms for big. The students should understand that the main objective of the story is to learn how to locate landforms and bodies of water on a map. Partners should use markers to trace, highlight, or circle places on the map. The teacher should observe as students retell the story and trace/identify landforms and bodies of water on the map correctly.

Activity 1

Make a T-chart by folding a sheet of paper on the line of symmetry. Tell students that this means half is on one side and half is on the other.

Label the T-chart Realism on one half and Fantasy or make-believe on the other half.  

Place three statements that are facts from the stories on one side.  

Place three statements that could never happen on the other side.

Students should be able to write a conclusive statement at the bottom of the page to these questions:

What is a tall tale?

Why use a tall tale to identify landforms and bodies of water?

After students write their child-friendly answers, give them the "textbook" answer.  

A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual.

Some stories such as these are exaggerations of actual events, people, or places.

The students should look at their T-charts, which show imagination on one side and facts on the other.

Use an exit slip to determine if the student understood the purpose of the lesson. The exit slip should demonstrate that each student can identify landforms and bodies of water.

The teacher should repeat the purpose of the lesson to students whose answers did not include the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Gulf of Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains.

Emphasize at this time that each location must have capital letters because they are proper nouns.

Correct answers:

The ditch in the story is the Mississippi River.

A river is a body of water.

Ponds, lakes, oceans, and seas are also bodies of water.

The dirt in the story is the Rocky Mountains.

A mountain is a landform.

Canyons, hills, plateaus, and mesas are landforms.

Continue or Day 2

After Strategy: Activity 2

Give students a primary resource 1823 map of Alabama. The task is for students to create their own tall tale using Paul Bunyan as the character, any other folk hero, or a fictional character to explain how landforms and bodies of water were formed in Alabama.

Encourage a mixed-ability group of students to volunteer to retell the Tall Tale of Paul Bunyan.

Remind students of the definition of a tall tale.  

Remind students that we used the tale to identify landforms and bodies of water in the United States. Tell students we are using a primary resource map of the United States drawn up during the time that Paul Bunyan's tales started.

However, now we will identify landforms and bodies of water in Alabama. Tell students that they also have the opportunity to create an entirely different tall tale using pictures of landforms and bodies of water in Alabama.

Students work with partners or small cooperative groups. Students should use landforms and bodies of water found on the Alabama map to create a tall tale.  Create the story using technology.

Assessment Strategies

Using an Alabama map, students should identify landforms and bodies of water just as the teacher and students did with the United States map. Students make a T Chart. Label the chart landforms and bodies of water of Alabama.

Students should have a map of Alabama and pictures of landforms and bodies of water. Tell students they will be viewing a primary resource map of Alabama drawn up in 1823 about the time when Paul Bunyan's tales would have been recounted. Students will use this map to identify landforms and bodies of water.  

Students will work independently, brainstorm with partners, or in a cooperative group to create a tall tale about the landforms and bodies of water in Alabama.

Each student should make a concerted effort to contribute to their tale.

After a sufficient amount of time, have students share their tales with classmates. Students' retelling should include a picture, a map of Alabama showing where the place is located, and a creative tall tale.

Students should have the opportunity to comment and make constructive comments to their classmates. 

Acceleration

Have a group of students dramatize the story again, using descriptive words for big and expressive gestures. The main purpose of the lesson is to identify landforms and bodies of water.

Students may use technology to create a podcast, digital collage, or a tall tale with pictures of landforms and bodies of water in Alabama.  

Suggested Reading List:

William, H., 100 Things You Need to Know About Alabama. Atlanta, GA.: Whitman Publishing, LLC., 2016

Hamilton, Virginia, The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. Knopf Books for Young Readers
 
Kellogg, Steve, Paul Bunyan. Reading Rainbow Book, Feb. 2004
 

 

Intervention

Encourage students to identify landforms and bodies of waters on the Alabama map.

Have students answer these questions about the Paul Bunyan Tale told aloud by the teacher to provide additional time to reteach the main points of the lesson.

Did the teacher read from a book?  NO

Was the story entertaining? Hopefully, students say YES.

A tall tale is essentially an oral form of entertainment.

Does the story have a literal meaning? NO

Did this story sound as if it was made up? YES

Intervention Activity:

Students should use an Alabama map. Guide students as they find bodies of water and landforms on the map.  Students may trace, highlight, or circle bodies of water and landforms (found on the Alabama map) that will be used in a creative story.  

Use landforms and bodies of water in Alabama and rewrite the Paul Bunyan tale, substituting landforms and bodies of water from the Alabama map.  

Students may work independently, with partners, or in cooperative groups.

Intervention Activity:

Students should write a new tall tale using landforms and bodies of water in Alabama. Use prompts to assist students with creating a tall tale.

Examples of story starters come from the book entitled, 100 Things You Need to Know About Alabama.

Paul Bunyan was traveling through scenic Alabama when suddenly he tripped and fell which caused a large gash in the ground.

That gash became the Russell Cave at the Russell Cave National Monument site.

Paul Bunyan walked through the forest, tearing down so many trees as he brushed through, now the land is known as gullies visible in the hills of Walker County, Alabama.  

The picture on page 139 of the book entitled 100 Things Things You Need to Know About Alabama, shows a sad boy.  Students could continue their tall tale with this picture in mind.  Students could make up a tall tale that would help the sad boy restore his land and home during a time of depression.

Paul Bunyan would get up each morning and exercise. Each time he lifted his arms, he would make an entrance in the Russell Cave.

Each time Paul would stomp his feet, it would make  Wetumpka Impact Craters.

Give students the opportunity to come up with their own tales or use the ones suggested.

After 30 minutes, students should be ready to make presentations. Give more time if needed by extending it to another day.

Students should write a paragraph (at least five sentences) summarizing the Paul Bunyan Tall Tale.  

Approximate Duration

Total Duration

91 to 120 Minutes

Background and Preparation

Background/Preparation

Students should have some knowledge of ACOS 3.1.

  1. Locate the prime meridian, equator, Tropic of Capricorn, Tropic of Cancer, International Date Line, and lines of latitude and longitude on maps and globes.

    • Using cardinal and intermediate directions to locate on a map or globe an area in Alabama or the world

    • Using coordinates to locate points on a grid

    • Determining the distance between places on a map using a scale

    • Locating physical and cultural regions using labels,

      symbols, and legends on an Alabama or world map

    • Describing the use of geospatial technologies

      Examples: Global Positioning System (GPS), geographic information system (GIS)

    • Interpreting information on thematic maps
      Examples: population, vegetation, climate, growing season,

      irrigation

    • Using vocabulary associated with maps and globes 

Geographic reasoning rests on deep knowledge of Earth’s physical and human features, including the locations of places and regions, and the distribution of landforms and water bodies. 

The teacher will entertain students with a tall tale about Paul Bunyan. This tall tale is a narrative that depicts the wild adventures of extravagantly exaggerated folk heroes. A tall tale is essentially an oral form of entertainment; the audience appreciates the imaginative invention rather than the literal meaning of the tales.  Associated with the lore of the American frontier, tall tales often explain the origins of lakes, mountains, and canyons.  They are spun around such legendary heroes as Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of the Pacific Northwest.

The Paul Bunyan Tall Tale will be used to locate landforms and bodies of water. Realism and fantasy will be maintained throughout the lesson.  Students will identify oceans, rivers, the gulf, hills, mountains, and other landforms in the United States in general and in Alabama specifically.

The following article from the Encyclopedia of Alabama provides information about the "Physiographic Sections of Alabama": http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1362

There are many notable landforms and bodies of water in Alabama worthy of creative narratives.  As students create their own narratives, they will be able to identify them.

Students will be able to distinguish between The Paul Bunyan Story as make-believe (fantasy) and the places in the tall tale as “real” or facts.  Then students should be able to create their very own tall tale using pictures from the book, 100 Things You Need to Know About Alabama by Horace Randall Williams.

The teacher can view the texts listed in the Bibliography for additional background information. 

Materials and Resources

Materials and Resources

Digital devices are optional.

Materials needed are chart paper, and desk maps of the US and of Alabama.

1862 United States Map (1 copy per student or share digitally)

1823 Alabama Map (1 copy per student or share digitally)

Images of Paul Bunyan to display for students

Image 1

Image 2

The school library would be helpful in providing research materials.  Photographs of landforms and bodies of water in Alabama are necessary for this lesson.

Technology Resources Needed

Digital devices are not necessary for this lesson.  This would be an ideal lesson for teachers with no access to technology.

 

Approved Date

2017-05-18
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