Lesson 13: Look Both Ways, Comparing Text Versus Audio

Turn and Talk

Do a search to find an audio or podcast dedicated to the art of storytelling. You can search for a New York-based organization that hosts and broadcasts storytelling events and competitions. See if you can find their audio story about a boy who receives a bad haircut. You will use the audio story later in this lesson.

Say these Directions: Today, you’re going to listen to the audio of a story. There are organizations dedicated to the art of storytelling that host storytelling events and competitions called “slams,” and they invite their best storytellers to share their stories on their podcasts.

Have students turn to partners to discuss the differences between reading a story and listening to one.

• Ask: Think about the ways in which listening to a story that is read out loud is different from reading one to yourself. What additional elements does a story have when you hear it? What is missing from the written version? Turn to someone close to you and discuss.

  • Listening to a story is different from reading because you can hear the tone in the person’s voice, how they’re feeling when they say the words, and how fast or slow they speak. But you don’t have a narrator’s voice to hear internal thoughts.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, we’re going to listen to a story on a podcast that has a similar style to the stories you’ve already read in Look Both Ways and compare the two. We’ll especially focus on how each story helps establish the author’s purpose and point of view.

Fluency Practice

Share the first part of the opening paragraph from “Skitter Hitter” where all students can see it, from the first sentence through “For once.”

Model reading the passage fluently, with thoughtful emphasis to help capture the emotions behind it.

Say these Directions: As you listen to the opening paragraph of “Skitter Hitter,” think about what is already happening in the story.

• Ask: What would you say is the main idea of this part of the opening paragraph? Why might the author have chosen to introduce this story this way?

  • The author is letting us know that something important is going to happen to Pia on her way home by saying how she might have acted differently. The phrase “if she knew” is really important. Reynolds might have chosen to introduce the story that way because it makes us really wonder what happened that was so important.

Introduce the purpose for a second reading, focusing on emphasis and prosody. Share that while prosody is usually a term applied to poetry, it can also apply to text like this that is written with a poetic purpose. Then echo-read the passage with the entire group. Model very strong emphasis and exaggerated prosody choices for clarity, and encourage students to do the same.

• Say: This time, we’re going to echo-read the passage together. I want you to pay close attention to my emphasis—which words I’m saying more strongly than others—and my prosody—the rhythm and pace of poetic words.

Have students work in pairs to partner-read the passage and practice building fluency. Pair students deliberately, either with those of similar abilities or an emerging reader with a stronger reader, with whom they will not be embarrassed to make a mistake. Model giving supportive feedback related to emphasis and prosody.

• Say: For example, I might tell my partner, “I liked how you emphasized ‘walked’ and ‘once’ and put a big pause before the last sentence. I think you could hit them both even harder, like ‘maybe she would have walked . . . for once.’”

Have partners take turns reading and giving feedback for the remaining time available.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, we’re going to compare listening to a story and reading one. A big part of what sets listening apart from reading is that listening allows you to react to the speaker’s emphasis and prosody—which words they hit harder than others and the rhythm they use when speaking.

Part A: Author’s Point of View in Audio vs. Text (RL.6.6, RL.6.7) (15 minutes)

Earlier, you searched for a podcast where the storyteller recounts a bad haircut they got as a kid. Students will discuss the differences between listening to and reading a story, including how the authors use each medium to establish their purpose or point of view.

Teach: Features of Stories Read Aloud

Remind students of the discussion they had in the Launch section about how listening to a story differs from reading, and that they practiced reading a section of Look Both Ways aloud to focus on emphasis and prosody. Instruct them to keep all that in mind as they listen to the audio story.

• Say: As you listen, pay attention to what you experience as a listener that you couldn’t get from just reading words on a page. What do you hear—tone, pauses, speed, emotion in the voice—that helps you understand the storyteller’s point of view? Later, we’ll compare this to what you notice when you read a story on paper.

Discussion

Say these Directions: Think about the similarities and differences between audio and text stories. Consider how both types develop the author’s purpose or point of view.

• Say: Briefly summarize the story we just heard.

  • Answers may vary depending on the audio story you choose to share with your students.

A guy is telling a story from when he was a kid about how he let his cousin cut his hair before school, and it looked terrible. He kind of goes back and forth between acting like it was really serious and then showing that it kind of wasn’t. At the end, he just says, “So I went to school, and it looked bad, and people laughed,” showing that he had to just get over it.

• Ask: How would this story have been different if you had only read it and not listened to the audio?

  • One difference is that we could hear the parts that the speaker thought were important to emphasize by noticing when he paused and when he emphasized words. If we were just reading it, we could have decided where the emphasis could go.

• Ask: What are some ways the storyteller gets his point of view across in the story we listened to?

  • Answers may vary depending on the audio story you choose to share with your students.

One way he gets his point of view across is by jumping back and forth between telling the story from his point of view as a fifth grader and his point of view as an adult looking back. One way he shows this is by saying, “See, I didn’t know any better.” He also makes a lot of jokes at his own expense to show that now he has a different, older point of view. He can laugh at what happened, almost as if it happened to someone else.

• Ask: What did you understand about the storyteller’s point of view from listening that you might not have picked up from reading a transcript of the same words? What does hearing the story give you that reading it doesn’t?

  • When I listened, I could hear the storyteller’s voice get faster and higher when he was embarrassed. He also paused before telling us his reaction, which made it feel more dramatic. If I just read the words, I would know what happened, but I wouldn’t hear how he still feels about it. His voice showed me that this memory is still kind of funny and kind of painful for him.

Part B: Listening for Author’s Perspective (RL.6.6, SL.6.1b) (15 minutes)

Students will work in groups to read a section of the anchor text aloud, noting parts of the text where the author’s point of view is strong, weak, or suddenly changes. Each group will complete a graphic organizer to record their thoughts. Then all groups will compare and discuss.

Graffiti/Table Talk

Organize students into groups of three or four, and hand out copies of the 3 Column Chart graphic organizer to each group.

Tell students to label the three columns “Strong Point of View,” “Weak Point of View,” and “Change in Point of View.” Then complete one item from each column as an example. Use evidence from both the audio and the text. Note which medium (audio or text) your evidence comes from and what that medium let you notice

• Say: For example, in my first column for “Strong Point of View,” I would write: “Paragraph 1: Pia’s point of view (text)—we can see right away that we’re in her head because the author describes what she’s thinking.” In the audio story, the storyteller’s point of view is also strong because I could hear his voice speed up when he was embarrassed; that’s something I wouldn’t have noticed just from reading. In my second column, for “Weak Point of View,” I would write: “Full paragraph 2: Stevie’s point of view (text)—it’s weaker here because we’re still mostly in Pia’s head and don’t know much about Stevie yet.” In my third column, for “Change in Point of View,” I’d write the quote “Stevie was never ready to go” and note that this is where Stevie’s perspective gets stronger and we start to see things through his eyes too.

Say these Directions: You are going to read “Skitter Hitter” out loud in your groups and complete your graphic organizer with notes on strong point of view, weak point of view, and changes in point of view. Before reading, your group should assign the following roles:

• Reader: reads the text aloud to the group

• Signaler(s) (one or two): uses hand signals during the reading to mark point-of-view moments

  • Thumbs-up means the point of view is strong.

  • Thumbs-down means the point of view is weak.

  • Waving hands back and forth means there is a change in point of view.

  • Any group member can signal, but it is the signaler’s job to watch for these moments.

• Recorder: takes notes in the graphic organizer for the group whenever someone signals

• Say: Once you have your roles, the reader will begin reading out loud. When a signaler gives a hand signal, pause the reading so the recorder can write down what you noticed in the correct column.

Discussion

Either display or record all the notes from the graphic organizers in one place so students can compare and learn from each other’s thoughts. Prompt a discussion about how hearing the story read out loud informed their understanding of point of view in the story.

• Ask: Now think about this written story compared to the audio story. What does the written version give you that the audio didn’t? For example, can you see things on the page—punctuation, word choice, paragraph breaks—that help you understand point of view in a way the audio couldn’t show you?

  • Answers may vary depending on the audio story you choose to share with your students.

In the written version, I could see the short sentences, which showed me that the character was hesitating or thinking carefully. I could also go back and reread a line to figure out what the author really meant by a word choice. In the audio, the story kept going, and I couldn’t stop to think about one part. The written version also let me see how the author separated the dialogue from the narration, which helped me notice when the point of view shifted from what the character said to what they were really thinking.

• Ask: What was different about hearing this story out loud rather than reading it? How did it affect how you understood the point of view in the story?

  • Answers may vary depending on the audio story you choose to share with your students.

Hearing it out loud made each point of view clearer. We hear a shift when the author uses “if [this character] knew” to move the point of view from Pia to Stevie to Marcus, and back again. Also, hearing lines like “Magic Marker . . . Marcus” aloud made me hear the pause marked by the ellipsis and how “marker” and “Marcus” sound so similar. It was almost as if hearing one reminded the author of the other.

• Ask: What is one thing almost every group noticed, and one thing another group noticed that yours did not?

  • It seems like every group noticed that the author used “if [this character] knew” and “if [that character] knew” to show point of view, even if some points of view were still stronger than others. One thing another group noticed that I didn’t was that there are some parts where it’s not clear whose point of view we see, like when they describe the “testosteronies” in the hallway.

Quick Write

Say these Directions: Write a short response to the following prompt.

• Ask: Think about the audio story we listened to as both audio and a written text. Choose one moment when the storyteller’s point of view comes through strongly. Explain how the audio story helped you understand that point of view. What specific technique, such as a pause or tone of voice, made the point of view clear? Would you have noticed the same thing in the written text? Why or why not?

  • One moment when the storyteller’s point of view comes through strongly is when he talks about seeing his haircut for the first time. In the audio, his voice got really quiet and slow right before he described it, and then he sped up like he was still upset about it. That change in speed helped me realize this moment was a big deal to him, and that he still feels embarrassed even though it happened a long time ago. I don’t think I would have noticed the same thing just by reading it, because on paper, the words would all look the same. You wouldn’t know where he slowed down or sped up unless the author added something like short sentences or a lot of periods to show the pauses.

Assign students to read “Five Things Easier to Do Than Simeon’s and Kenzi’s Secret Handshake” from Look Both Ways. Instruct students to take notes in their Journal on the following prompt:

• What is unique about the structure of “Five Easier Things to Do Than Simeon’s and Kenzi’s Secret Handshake”? What does that structure show us about the characters?