Welcome to Success

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The start of the school year is the time to set the tone for the rest of the school year. This literature-rich unit will ignite a discussion about the necessary traits for a year of success. Members of a learning community demonstrate many traits of success while fostering those traits in others.

OBJECTIVE

Students will:

1. Generate a list of traits that facilitate success (tolerance, respect, integrity, etc.)
2. Identify the traits portrayed by characters in literature
3. Rank the traits in order of importance
4. Justify their top 3 and bottom two ranked traits
5. Agree upon 10-12 traits for success that will guide the students through the year
6. Define each of these traits in student-friendly language
7. Reflect in writing how students are demonstrating these traits in school and at home
8. Reflect and discuss how their peers are demonstrating these traits in school
9. Reflect in writing about the traits (“Which attitudes are your strengths?”)
10. Set goals for a successful year (“Which attitudes do you want to further develop?”)

LESSONS FOR THIS UNIT
Lesson 1: Traits that Foster Success
Lesson 2: Our Successful Traits

CULMINATING ACTIVITY

In cooperative groups, students will use a digital camera to illustrate each of the traits and write a caption to accompany the photos. These photos can either be made into books or into a beautiful classroom display.

SUPPORTING BOOKS

Books for Teaching Success

Unit Plan: Famous First Graders
In this unit, which includes 4 lessons, students interview each other and make a short film with the goal of foster teamwork and self esteem.

ARTICLE	The Thanksgiving Lesson Not every teacher would take first graders to homeless shelters or to visit the mayorâ??s office. I do.
LESSON PLAN	Our Successful Traits Here's a great lesson plan idea for new and first year teachers. Students examine and rank the desirable personality traits that they identified...
BOOK INFORMATION	The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tells the story of a teenage misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.