Playing With Language: Tall Tales and Codes

Students will discover that language evolves and can even be invented. By exploring their own language development from babyhood to middle school, they will see that language is a tool used for a variety of things, and at a variety of skill levels. Then, by studying folktales — including some classic American tall tales — students learn that just as words are tools, stories too can be like tools, used to convey secret messages, moral lessons, and history. Students' new understanding of language as a tool or code is reinforced with an introduction to cryptology, where language is used as a code. This unit incorporates knowledge from various curriculum areas and can be team-taught by social studies, math, and language arts teachers cooperatively.

OBJECTIVE
Students will:

Utilize brainstorming techniques
List ways people communicate
Read and create a timeline
Interpret and identify the elements of folktales, with an emphasis on tall tales
Read for literacy experience
Write to express personal ideas to an audience
Present their writing to the class
Discover and identify cryptology used in everyday life
Apply knowledge to create and cracking a secret code
Develop a dictionary of eponyms

LESSONS FOR THIS UNIT
Lesson 1: Language Development: Yours and Humankind's
Lesson 2: American Folktales and Tall Tales
Lesson 3: Create Your Own Coded Language

REPRODUCIBLES
Language Timeline (PDF)
Cryptology/Codes (PDF)

CULMINATING ACTIVITY

Now that they've learned that language is invented and developed over time, the students get to invent their own language! The unit will culminate with the students creating their own dictionary of eponyms. Each child will introduce one or more of their eponyms into the vocabulary of their family and friends.

SUPPORTING BOOKS

Books to Teach and Motivate the Study of Communication

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Supplementary Collection | Grade 6