Our Heroes!

Each year, the fourth graders at Asa Adams do a hero unit in Language Arts. In reading, we break into small groups and read one of the following books: Lost on a Mountain in Maine, The Courage of Sarah Noble, and Abbie Burgess. As we read, we answer questions in response journals and chose words to study for vocabulary.

The writing piece of this unit is a biography of a person that each student chooses as their hero. We have a wide variety of heroes that were chosen. Some are moms, dads, uncles, pastors, and grandparents. The students have been working very diligently and through their writing, it's obvious that they respect and admire their heroes. As a culmination activity, we will invite our heroes in for a special reading of the biographies that the students composed. The date for the presentation has not been set as we're still working very hard on writing.

As a lead up to our hero unit, we read books about and discussed heroes such as Nelson Mandela, Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King Jr., and Amelia Earhart. Since we've also been reading stories from Greek mythology, we discussed heroes such as Odysseus, Perseus, and Heracles. The students had very interesting insights about heroes. They decided that some people are heroes, some people are noteworthy, and some are just famous. We discussed character traits of heroes, as well which many of the students have also included in their biography writing.

We are very much looking forward to celebrating our heroes and will keep everyone updated as to when this celebration will take place.