Teaching Point of View According to Common Core State Standards

Teaching the Core Standards can be difficult to navigate. In this article, I chose a particular 2^nd grade reading standard to give examples on ways to address it in the classroom.

CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

How does one teach this standard in second grade? One way is to use literature to teach this skill. Read aloud two stories told from different points of view. Fractured fables are perfect for this. Take the traditional version of the Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs for instance. After reading both versions, have the students compare and contrast the versions using a Venn Diagram, Double-Bubble or a T-chart. The students can compare the plot/ content of the stories as well as the styles of the texts. Comparing and contrasting is a higher-level thinking skill and will meet the expectations for the standard. 

Another method to teach this standard is to ask the students which version they believe more and why. Have them cite evidence from the stories to back up their answers. When they cite evidence from the story, they are determining how the point of view of either the wolf or pig shapes the content of the story. In this case, is the wolf at the little pigs’ houses to eat them, or is he there to borrow a cup of sugar? 

An alternative way to teach CCRA.R.6 is to teach 1^st and 3^rd personal pronouns. A text will use 1^st person pronouns (I, me, my) when the story is told through the main character. A text will use 3rd person pronouns (he, she, they) when the story is told from a narrator’s point of view. After teaching the pronouns that go with each point of view, read the two versions of stories about the Three Little Pigs. Then read quotes from each story and ask the students who said the quote: the wolf (from The True Story of the Three Little Pigs), or the narrator (from the traditional version).

I hope you find these suggestions helpful and will implement them in your classroom. If you’d prefer to have these examples all laid out, you can find them in the book companion I created for The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. You can buy it at this link: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs book companion.