Robinson Crusoe Island Adventure

1. Read The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe with students. Have them identify the characters, setting, and plot. Discuss their impressions of this great classic story. Analyze the author's writing style.
2. Organize students in small groups, Invite groups to write an original Island Adventure. Encourage groups to describe the setting and people in their narratives.
3. To accompany their writing, student groups create the environment to show where their stories take place. Use Crayola Washable Markers to design waves and rocky or sandy beaches on construction paper.
4. Students turn a paper bowl upside down to make an island. Color the land with markers. Glue the island to the water and beach with Crayola School Glue.
5. If the setting is tropical, students may want to tear pieces of colorful tissue paper. Crumple and glue it around the island for foliage. Suggest groups find other creative ways to depict icy or volcanic island settings.
6. Use cardboard tubes to create a cave, or, if a tree house appears in the story, to create a tree trunk. Design the tree house-perhaps with doors, window, vines, escape hatches, and balconies. Create details with markers and glued-on pieces of construction paper. Add slides, ladders, and other details after the tree is glued to the island.
7. To make a palm tree, accordion fold green construction paper. Use Crayola Scissors to cut a long leaf. Unfold and glue leaves to the inside of the top of the cardboard tube. Dry. Carefully spread leaves apart.
8. Student groups share their original stories and artwork with small groups of classmates.

LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

LA: Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

LA: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

VA: Select media, techniques, an processes; analyze what makes them effective or not effective in communicating ideas; and reflect upon the effectiveness of choices.

VA: Intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of experiences and ideas.

Organize students into small groups. As you read the Robinson Crusoe story, students plot maps and timelines of the story. Student groups use these tools in writing their original adventures.

Working in small groups, students select a second adventure story to experience. While reading this book, students identify the literary elements of that adventure, including a description of the main characters, identification of the setting, and outlining the plot.

Students exchange island adventure environments. With the new artwork, students write a short story about the habitat. Post this short story with the habitat display.