Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Jessi

Categor
Title
Author/Yea
Description
y
r
I chose to use five poems because they each show different perspective. In
teaching perspective, poetry is key because of the many different outlets the author
can show their perspective. By using figurative language, the author can turn a
simple perspective into something more complex that calls for analysis. Poems
serve as a type of outlet for writers, and the students can find different aspects of
the authors perspective that interests them.
Poetry
1. Annabel
Edgar Allan This is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe that is
Lee
Poe, 1849
told from the perspective of a man who has
lost the love of his life. His perspective is
filled with heartbreak and an intense love
that cannot fade, even in death. The
intense language that Poe uses throughout
this piece to express love shows the
students the deep insight into the man who
lost his love. Throughout a unit on poetry,
this piece can be used to show students
how perspective is used in all forms of
writing. If the teacher is having students
read this poem during a poetry unit, the
teacher can still have them identify the
perspective and have them right a poem
mimicking the intense perspective like in
the poem.
2. We Wear Paul
In his poem, Paul Laurence Dunbar
the Mask
Laurence
perspective is of the oppression that he
Dunbar,
feels as an African American having to wear
1913
a mask. The mask serves as a symbol of
what hides the truth about slavery and the
treatment of African Americans. Though his
poem is about slavery and covering up the
truth, the main perspective is oppression. In
the classroom, students would read the
poem aloud and discuss how Dunbars
perspective conveys his message of
oppression. Students would then write
poems in their own perspective of a time
where they may have felt oppressed. These
poems would not be shared in class because

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

3.
Dreamers

Siegfried
Sassoon,
1918

4. Masks

Shel
Silverstein,
1996

5. The
Voice

Shel
Silverstein,
1996

Jessi

of the potential for highly sensitive

experiences.
In this poem, the author writes from the
perspective of soldiers fighting in World War
1. Throughout this poem, perspective used
to convey strong images. The speaker
describes the sorrows that are embedded
within the soldiers and uses the senses to
describe the scenes of war. In order to have
students understand the perspective of the
soldiers, they need to focus on the images
and senses. The purpose of this poem is to
make the reader feel the emotions that the
soldiers felt. The teacher would instruct the
students to create a key for the senses and
reread the poem adding in the images that
put in their key. Once the students have
marked the sensory words in their poems,
they will conference with a neighbor to see
if they felt the same senses in the same
line. The students can then discuss their
differences and share as a class.
The characters in this poem are covered by
their masks, so their perspective is
blindness and followed more by a notion
and fear of being rejected. Through the
standards that the poem sets for the
characters, they are unable to see each
other because they are too afraid to be
rejected because of color. To help students
understand the blindness of the characters
perspectives, they will be instructed to fill
out a Somebody Wanted But So chart found
from Beers. The poem is short and easy to
follow, so they will be able to pull out the
meaning and see how the blindness of the
characters perspectives affected them in
the poem.
In this poem, the main idea is about each
individual readers perspective. The purpose
of this poem is to inform the reader that no
one can take their voice or personal
perspective away from them. This short
poem would be used as a warm up activity
in which the students are instructed to read
the poem, extract the main idea, and write

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Short
Story

1. Check,
Please

Mark
Mason,
2009

2. The TellTale Heart

Edgar Allan
Poe, 1843

Jessi

a brief paragraph about a time where they

used their voice to stand up for themselves
or others. To help guide them, the teacher
will share a brief story about a time they
saw someone being bullied and used their
voice and perspective to stand up for them.
A short story involving multiple perspectives
on a scene that unfolds at a restaurant, the
story moves in he said, she said fashion.
The story uses multiple perspectives to tell
the story of what exactly happened, but
many of the stories differ or feature new
details. To use this short story in the
classroom, the teacher would instruct
students to assume the role of one of the
people from the short story. Once the
people have been chosen, the remaining
students will form groups with the character
who they think told the story correctly and
one group of judges. These groups will then
reread the story and create a list of
supporting details about why their
characters perspective is the correct on.
Once the groups are ready, they teacher
conduct the class like a trial, having each
group of characters present their reasons
for why they know the true story of what
happened in the restaurant. Each group will
present, rebuttals will occur, and then the
teacher will confer with the group of judges
and determine which group won the trial.
Through this, the students will be able to
see how multiple perspectives can cause
changes in the story being told.
This story is told from the perspective of a
man who was taking care of an old man
with a vulture eye and ultimately murders
him. The vivid details that the man gives
from his perspective are what make up the
conflict of the story. This conflict is apparent
through both internal and external forces. In
order to students to apply the perspective
of the narrator and the types of conflict,
they will be asked to write a Who is to
Blame piece found from Gallaghers Write
Like This. For this activity they will be asked

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Novel

3. The
Ransom of
Red Chief

O. Henry,
1910

1. Wonder

R. J. Palacio,
2014

Jessi

if the man is to blame or is the environment

in which he was in with the old man is to
blame for his break in sanity. The purpose of
this activity would be to lead students to
think deeply about a narrator who is not
seen a sane and that narrators perspective.
This story is about two men who steal a rich
mans son in order to make money.
However, the men did not realize how
difficult the boy himself would be, so they
have to pay the father to have him take the
boy back from them. In order for the
students to apply what they read, the
teacher would instruct them to assume the
perspective of the father whose son has
been taken to help them think deeper about
the story. The teacher will then instruct the
student to reread the story, and write a
letter from the perspective of the father to
the men who took his son. Since this story
has a humorous underlining, the students
will be encouraged to try and make their
letters funny. The teacher can offer possible
topics such as why the father does not what
his son back and why he makes the men
pay him to take his son back.
This young adult novel uses multiple
perspectives to tell Augusts story of his first
year of school. August is a boy who suffers
from severe facial deformities, and this book
documents how August, his family, and his
friends, interact with him and his first year
of school. This is a story about perseverance
and finding happiness being with people
who look past any physical traits and see
the heart instead. After reading the novel,
student would be asked to complete a
performance task by having them draw a
heart on a piece of paper and decorating it
with the qualities that they believe to be
most important like they read about in the
novel. The students will be asked to think
like August and how he tried to look for the
good qualities in everyones heart. After
they have finished decorating and creating
their heart, they will be displayed in the

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

2. If I Stay

Gayle
Forman,
2009

3. Eleanor
and Park

Rainbow
Rowell,
2012

Jessi

classroom on the wall for all students to see

what the most important qualities of a
person really are.
This novel is the story of a girl who was in a
car accident with her family. She is looking
back at her life, while she is in a dream
state, trying to find reasons to return to her
body and wake up. Her perspective is an all
seeing position where she is able to see the
choices that she has made and their effects.
Before the students finish the novel, the
teacher will instruct the students to assume
Mias, the main character, perspective and
have the write about what the future holds,
found in Gallagher. They will be asked to
weigh the pros and cons of staying alive,
and then they have to choice to write about
a future alive or passed on. For this activity,
they student will have to support their
reasoning for what they chose for their
future as Mia.
This novel is told from two different
perspectives. One perspective is Eleanors,
and she is a girl new at a school who find
the love of her life on the school bus. Park,
the person tells the story from another
perspective, does not see Eleanor a first
when she sits next to him on the bus.
Through comic books and music, the two
find the love they have always wanted in
one another. Unfortunately, their love is cut
short my Eleanor being forced to move in
order to flee her abusive stepfather. The
perspectives in this novel show how two
people love and grow, even through difficult
experiences. After reading the first half of
the novel, the teacher will have the
students infer the ending of the story by
instructing them to write in their journals.
Since the ending comes as a bit of surprise,
this strategy is good for students to use and
practice because it shows how to use
context clues and main ideas from the two
perspective to make predictions.

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington
Drama

1. A
Christmas
Carol (the
play
version)

Charles
Dickens,
1843

2. Alice

Lindsay
Price, 1995

3. Box

Lindsay
Price, 1995

Jessi

A Christmas Carol is a story that many

students may already be familiar with. In
the classroom, students will assume the
roles of the characters and read the play
aloud in class. The perspectives of the three
Christmases are what the students will be
paying close attention to and will be
referring to throughout the story. After they
have finished reading the play, students will
be grouped into groups of Christmas past,
Christmas present, and Christmas future. In
these groups, students will be instructed to
pick a scene from their Christmass section
and act it out. The purpose of this activity is
to have students analyze the piece they are
going to act out in order to give and
accurate representation of their Christmas.
In this play, the perspective has been
switched from third person to first because
it is from Alices perspective directly. In
class, the students will read this play and
compare it to the movie version of Alice in
Wonderland. While reading the play,
students will take notes on what they think
is important, then they will watch the
Disney movie version of Alice in
Wonderland. After the movie, students will
transfer their notes on the play to a Venn
diagram detailing the similarities and
differences between the two. Their focus will
be set on the differences in the story found
through two different perspectives. Once
the Venn diagrams are complete, students
will be prompted to write a journal reflection
on how the story changed from being told
from Alices perspective to being a third
person narrators perspective.
This play is a simple play on the perspective
we have of ourselves. The way or box can
be defined is not only through ourselves,
but other people such as our peers or our
parents. To use this in the classroom, the
students would read the paly aloud in class.
Then, the teacher would have students
reflect on their personal perspective of
themselves. Students would then be

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Jessi

instructed to complete the writing prompt:

What would your box be? Explain. After they
have written their reflection, students will
be given boxes to decorate to show how
they perceive themselves. They will present
these boxes to the class with a brief
description of why they decorated their box
the way they did.
Childrens stories carry so much significance still in middle school. I chose to use
five because student can be introduced to new topics using childrens books since
they tend to be easier to understand. To help students understand that different
perspectives writers can chose, childrens stories can help to simplify a topic that
could be difficult for students to fully grasp. Childrens stories carry so much depth
that students could analyze and tap into that will help them when it comes to
reading pieces that are written for their age group.
Childre
1. Brave Girl Michelle
This childrens story would be useful to align
ns Lit
Markel,
with Social Studies when the students are
2013
learning about immigration, because it is
from the perspective of an immigrant girl.
Clara, the immigrant girl, moves to the
United States and is immediately put to
work. She did not know that she would have
to work long hours instead of getting an
education, but she worked hard and went to
night school. After seeing and experiencing
mistreatment, Clara leads the largest walk
out of women workers in United States
history. This is a powerful story and
important for students to read because it
shows the perspective of immigrant workers
and the hardships they had to face when
they came to the United States. In order to
summarize the main ideas of this story,
students would be instructed to fill out a
Somebody Wanted But So chart, from Beers.
Since the story is short, they will be able to
extract the main ideas, but they will also be
able to summarize the deep meaning found
within the story.
2. Peters
Ezra Jack
This childrens story is about sibling rivalry.
Chair
Keats, 1967 Peter sees aspects of his life changing
around him, such as his crib being painted,
as his parents prepare the arrival of his
baby sister. Peter and his dog Willie decide
to run away when his parents want to paint
his chair. This book would be effective in the

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

3. No, David

David
Shannon,
1998

4. The True
Story of the
Three Little
Pigs

Jon
Scieszka,
1989

Jessi

classroom for students to identify

underlying messages. In this story, the
underlying message is that Peter is not
ready or excited for change in his life.
Having students fill out a Most Important
Word chart, from Beers, would be a way for
them to document the underlying message.
Students would be given the word change
to look at through the story. Through each
section of the chart, they can analyze how
change is seen through out the story and
how it affects Peter. This would be good
practice for students before they encounter
a more difficult work with a harder to define
most important word.
No, David is about a little boy who loves to
cause a little trouble around his house and
his mothers adventures in disciplining him.
Each scene in the book depicts a different
depicts something that David has done that
his mother is not happy about. Students will
be instructed to find the page they like the
most fill out a 4 square argument chart,
from Gallagher, statement of their own.
They will fill out the chart with two
examples from Davids perspective and why
he should not be told no. On the other side,
they will assume the mothers perspective
and give to reasons why David should be
told no. After they have written their
arguments, students will share in class what
page they chose and what their arguments
where for both sides. This would be effective
in the classroom because it will teach
students how to look at both perspectives
when making an argument.
This childrens story takes an old fairytale
that many students would know and
switches the perspective to that to the Big
Bad Wolf. This childrens story would be
used in comparison to the original story of
the Three Little Pigs, and students would be
instructed to find the differences that the
perspectives bring. They would begin by
reading the The True Story of the Three
Little Pigs and creating an ABC chart, pulling

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Non
Fiction

5. Horton
Hears a
Who!

Dr. Seuss,
1954

1. Diary of A
Young Girl

Anne Frank,
1947

Jessi

out key words that fit each letter. Students

will then read the Three Little Pigs and fill
out their ABC chart from Beers according to
the key words from this version of the story.
Students will then use their different
perspectives found from the stories to write
a brief summary explaining how the change
in perspective changed the story.
This childrens book is told from the
perspective of Horton and the Whos that
are on the dust speck. The multiple
perspectives show the effect that one action
can have on another. When Horton protects
the dust speck from being destroyed, he
saves their lives and from their perspective,
Horton is a hero. However, the animals
surrounding Horton do not believe him to be
a hero, he is one from the perspective of the
Whos. Students would analyze the
difference in perspective and opinion of
Horton between the Whos and the animals
around Horton. They would put these
differences in a Venn diagram to show the
perspectives of the two. These perspectives
would be used to show how one side of the
story or situation looks differently to the
other. The animals look at Horton and the
Whos as bothersome, while the Whos see
Horton as a hero and the other animals as
evil.
This nonfiction novel covers the detailed
events of Anne Franks life during the
Holocaust. Through her innocent
perspective, she gives a first hand account
on what it is like being a Jewish girl during
Hitlers reign and life in concentration
camps. This novel would be effective to
teach while the students are learning about
the Holocaust in their history class. Since
the novel covers the historical events, the
student can apply what they have learned in
history and also see the first hand
perspective of a girl in the Holocaust. As a
way to tie in writing, history, and
perspective, the students will be instructed
to write a class diary entry about their

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Art

2. Brown
Girl
Dreaming

Jacqueline
Woodson,
2014

3. Warriors
Dont Cry

Melba
Pattillo
Beals, 1994

1. Gala
Contemplati
ng the
Mediterrane
an Sea

Salvador
Dali, 1976

Jessi

political surroundings and future. The

students will be using their own ideas and
perspectives to come to an agreement on
what should go into the class diary, and
they will be writing with an innocent
perspective just like Frank.
This is a book in verse that discusses the
authors childhood experiences. Through
detailed accounts, she describes growing up
in South Carolina and then New York in the
1960s and 70s in verse. Told through the
authors perspective, the main character
Jackie remains hopeful, even when facing
racism and prejudice. Having students read
this book is important because it is written
in a different style than books they typically
read in class. After having students analyze
Woodsons perspective in the novel, the
teacher could challenge students to write a
journal in verse. Rather than having them
write a book, the teacher can have students
write 5 consecutive poems, following
Woodsons style, and have them write from
the perspective themselves if they were
thrown back in time to the 1960s and 70s.
This book is about a group of students
called the Little Rock Nine. There were the
first African American students to be
integrated into a previously all white public
school. This story is told through a
flashback, and the perspective of the story
is from the authors own experiences being
part of the Little Rock Nine. After the class
finishes reading this novel, the teacher
would conduct a Socratic seminar. Since the
novels perspective is from a young girl
facing adversity, the teacher could pull
questions from the text to have students
think about and answer during the seminar.
The perspective in which you look at the
painting changes what image you see. From
one perspective, students may see a
pixilated painting of Van Gough, and from
the other, they may see a woman looking at
the Mediterranean Sea. Paired with Birds of
a Feather, these two painting could be

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Media/
CE

2. Birds of
a Feather

Oleg
Shuplyak,
2009

3. Zoom

Istvan
Banyai,
1995

1. Inside
Out

Pixar, 2015
Sadness
Anger
Joy

Jessi

used as a hook to show them the

differences in everyones perspective. While
one student may see one image, another
might see something completely different.
The teacher could use these images to show
students the physical differences in
perspective.
In this painting, the observer either sees
two birds or one bird and leaves. Pairing
this painting with Dalis Gala
Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea, the
painting could be used as a hook to show
the students the differences in everyones
perspective. While one student may see one
image, another might see something
completely different. The teacher could use
these images to show students the physical
differences in perspective.
This book features only pictures depicting
the depth of perspective. After the hook, the
teacher could give students a dictionary
definition of perspective and then fully
explain this definition by showing students
this book. Students would be instructed to
look at each picture and reflect on the
changing images on a piece of paper. At the
end of the book, the teacher would ask the
students to reflect again on what they saw
and offer their observations to the class.
After this, the class will come up with a class
definition of perspective based on their
understanding of the book Zoom.
Each of these clips shows the perspectives
of the characters Sadness, Anger, and Joy. In
the movie, each of these characters play a
key role in the life of their human Riley. The
characters have their own perspectives and
characteristics that make them unique.
These would serve as the hook for my
lesson, and students would watch the clips
at the very beginning of class when they
come in. These characters and their
different perspectives would be used in my
classroom to introduce perspective. Since
the perspectives of the characters are easy
to see and understand, these clips would be

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

2.
Morton
Narrative
Teachers,
Perspective 2010
Click here

3.
Northernvis
Historical
ta, 2012
Perspective Click here

Jessi

useful in introducing perspective because of

the simplicity of the differences of the
characters.
In this video, the creators explain how the
narrative perspective is used in literature.
The purpose is to inform students on how to
properly identify the narrative perspective
of the author when reading. The video
covers factors such at dialogue and
narration to serve as starting points for
students to understand the authors
narrative perspective. This video would be
most helpful to student when beginning a
longer reading. In longer stories, the
perspective that the author is trying to
convey can get lost because students are
trying to remember other details about the
story. This video would help students
remember the cues to look for when reading
and serve as a reference for when students
go back and reread. The teacher could ask
the students to write a reflection on the
authors perspective in the narrative, and
they could re-watch or remember the skills
from the video in order to help them identify
the true perspective of the narrative.
This video is a how to on analyzing texts
from a historical perspective. Through
interactive slides, the video details the best
practices when analyzing and evaluating
papers from a historical perspective. In the
classroom, this would be shown towards the
beginning of the unit to explain the different
perspectives writers and evaluators can
use. This video would be used again at the
end of the unit as part of a writing prompt.
To challenge students ability to apply
perspective in multiple ways, they will be
asked to analyze a piece of literature from a
historical perspective. Serving as practice
with different perspectives, they will read
and analyze the text and write a reflection
about what they learned using a historical
perspective.

You must have 3 titles for each category and 2 additional titles for two
categories. For your two categories with 5 titles, include a brief rationale of

Knowledge Menu Part 3: Perspective

Covington

Jessi

why they are were your targeted categories (why they needed more
examples). Also include Works Cited list, if necessary.