After discussing the meaning of cause and effect, the teacher will write the signal words on the whiteboard. The teacher tells the class about an event that happened to her or something that happened at school. The students will identify the cause of the event, then the effect or effects of the event. The students will be instructed to write about an event that happened to them at school, home or elsewhere. Each student will read her event aloud and the class will decide the cause and the effects together.
Give each student a paper with two herringbone graphs. Read a paragraph from a third-grade-level library book or create your own. The graphs will have places to write up to four causes and a large circle at the end of the herringbone for the effects. Fill in the first graph together as a class. Allow the students to fill in the second graph without help after the second paragraph is read.
Example paragraph: Mrs. Jones was cooking dinner when the phone rang in the living room. She answered the phone and talked for 10 minutes. As she hung up the phone, her doorbell rang. Mrs. Jones' next-door neighbor asked if she could come outside and help her get her cat out of the tree. It took 15 minutes to get Felix to come down safely. As Mrs. Jones was walking back to her house, a young man selling magazines approached her. She looked at the choices he was selling and ordered two magazines. They entered her house together so Mrs. Jones could pay the young man. The kitchen was filled with heavy smoke from a skillet of chicken left on the burner for 35 minutes. The chicken had burned and the skillet caught fire. Mrs. Jones put the fire out by covering the skillet with a lid and turning the burner off. She opened all the windows to let the smoke out. Mrs. Jones realized the kitchen walls and ceiling would have to be re-painted. Five minutes later, Mr. Jones arrived. He asked, "What is for dinner?" Mrs. Jones began to cry.
The teacher reads a fairytale, such as "Pinocchio." The teacher will ask questions about cause and effect. The class will discuss each question and arrive at one answer. Include questions like, "How did the author use visual images to show cause and effect? What lesson did the author try to teach by the story? Can a story have a cause without an effect? Can a story have many causes and effects?" Engage all students in the discussions, asking direct questions of those who normally do not participate in class activities.
Assign each student a partner. One student will write a cause on the whiteboard, then his partner will finish the sentence with an effect. Allow anything written as long as it makes sense. Example: Student A: Susie left the dye on her hair too long; Student B: And all of her hair fell out. Leave all sentences on the board until each pair of students have participated. Have the class vote on which sentence was the funniest, which was the strangest, and so on. Place a gold star by the names of both students in each pair whose sentence was found to be the best, the funniest and so on.
Give each student a cause-and-effect worksheet with 12 to 20 multiple choice answers to a fill in the blank sentence. Give at least three answers to choose from. Example: Since Memorial Day is a Federal holiday ---------------closed.
A. the post office is always
B. the post office can be opened or
C. the post office is never
D. my local pool is always
Have each student trade papers with the student next to her. Each student will grade the paper he has swapped for. Have each student sign the paper she grades and turns in all papers to the teacher. Give each student two grades: one for his own paper and one for the paper he graded. This way you will figure out how well the students understand cause and effect.