Teacher commentary and reflection:

Student project from 2002, a visual essay based on their reading of Laura Esquvel's Like Water for Chocolate. Click on the picture for larger view.

The overall lesson on Like Water for Chocolate was a success.  The students loved reading the book; I even had students who had not completed previous assigned books read this book in three days.  Students were eager and excited to participate in classroom activities and completed assignments on time.  Throughout this lesson, there were obstacles that got in the way but did not prevent the success of the unit as a whole.

My driving activity for this unit was to have students write narrative essays about their family traditions and write a how-to essay providing instruction on how to prepare a favorite family meal.  My purpose for this assignment was to prepare students for the unique writing style of Laura Esquivel and introduce them to the theme of family traditions.  When I discussed this assignment with the class, I received many puzzled looks.  The students explained that they did not have a family tradition. I was surprised at their remarks, and I realized that they did not know how to define family tradition and make connection to their own family life.  I had taken for granted that they would know. 

To eliminate this obstacle, I prepared a one week lesson on family traditions and rituals and incorporated it as part of the unit. Students viewed the television modified version of the film Soul Food whose plot includes the themes of family and family traditions.   As a result of teaching about family traditions and rituals, the unit was extended an additional two weeks.  The first week included class discussions and worksheets and in the second week students worked on writing and editing their narrative essays.

As a rule, I cover the historical setting of the books I teach.  In doing so, I always have students conduct a preliminary research and write a summary before I lecture on the historical setting.  The purpose for this strategy is that I find when students have invested time and energy in a topic before I lecture, they bring prior knowledge to the subject area and they derive more from the lecture.  Once students completed their research, summary writing, and oral presentations, I lectured on the Mexican Revolution (1910-1933) and they viewed the film Viva Zapata.  During the course of the unit, I had ten books on the Mexican Revolution in the classroom for students to use.

As a reading strategy, students worked in small groups using reciprocal teaching.  This was not a new concept for my students who had used reciprocal teaching with short stories throughout the school year.  My assessment of students as I sat in on their group discussions was that their written work and group conversations were more superficial than analytical.  My first reaction was to give each group guided questions to consider along with the questions that the group questioner prepared for the discussion.

After a couple of days, I decided against this approach and allowed the students to continue what they were doing before I intervened.  The purpose of my decision was that students were actively engaged in group discussion and they were following the strategy of reciprocal teaching.  However, I prepared a guided reading worksheet that students completed after the reciprocal teaching which gave them an opportunity to reread the book.  The students did not mind reading the book again, and the guided questions were designed to prepare students for the final project and a final response to the essential questions.

I used audio tapes for students who have difficulty with reading.  These students listen to the tapes in class while following along with the reading, and then they participated in the class discussions.  The class discussions followed the small group discussions.

In teaching this lesson again, I would re-think the use of reciprocal teaching.  This was my first time using reciprocal teaching with a book.  The guided reading worksheets were more successful in preparing students for the final project than the reciprocal teaching; however, the reciprocal teaching allowed students to take control of their own reading and explore the book with one another.