This is the first lesson in Unit 3. However, students began their research for the performance task in Unit 2, Lessons 18 and 19. Students are work on finishing their research and begin planning their free verse narrative poem.
This lesson signals the transition from students’ very short research project to the writing of their poems. Students analyze two poems from the novel using the same note-catcher they used in Unit 1 to analyze word choice in order to make them aware of the use of language in an effective poem.
In this lesson, students draft their “Inside Out” poems as the mid-unit assessment.
This lesson follows a similar format as Lesson 3. Students draft their “Back Again” poems for the end of unit assessment.
In this lesson, students peer critique the first drafts of their “Inside Out” and “Back Again” poems using the Stars and Steps process. Students then use this feedback to revise their poems.
This lesson launches students’ study of To Kill a Mockingbird. Students first encounter the novel through Story Impressions, a pre-reading activity in which students make predictions about a piece of literature through reading phrases from the novel or connected to the novel and then developing an “impression” of the text.
This lesson provides additional scaffolding for students as they learn how to take notes using the structured notes format while reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
Although this lesson is in Unit 2, it is actually the kickoff for Unit 3. This is to give you time to look over the draft end of unit assessments before handing them back to students with feedback in Lesson 18. Before this lesson, use the exit ticket from Lesson 15 to analyze students’ favorite character choices and assign characters to students.
This activity emphasizes the importance of teaching reading and writing strategies for students to use with informational text.
Jigsaw is a strategy that emphasizes cooperative learning by providing students an opportunity to actively help each other build comprehension. Use this technique to assign students to reading groups composed of varying skill levels. Each group member is responsible for becoming an "expert" on one section of the assigned material and then "teaching" it to the other members of the team.
Students will work together to find textual evidence of literary elements.
The following series of activities for the classroom allow students to explore and interact with poetry by writing letters to poets.
Listen-Read-Discuss (LRD) is a comprehension strategy that builds students' prior knowledge before they read a text. During the first stage, students listen as you present the content of their reading through a lecture, often paired with a graphic organizer. Next, students read the text and compare what they have learned during the lecture to their understanding of reading the text on their own. Finally, students discuss their understanding of the text with other students in their small/large group.
In this lesson, students will use the individual experience of Mary McLeod Bethune to analyze choice, its affects on social equality, and impact on their own life experiences.
In this lesson students examine how imagery is used to represent ideas, themes, periods of history, and make cultural connections to poem, "Still I Rise." Students will reflect through written expression how resiliency is in their lives, school, and community.
The students will explore reading strategies using the think-aloud process as students investigate connections between the life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The unit, which begins with an in-depth exploration of “The Raven,” then moves students from a full-class reading of the poem to small-group readings of Poe’s short stories (“The Black Cat,” “Hop-Frog,” “Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”). The unit concludes with individual projects that explore the readings in more detail.
In this unit students practice writing to an essential question, using context clues and root words to determine word meaning, close reading with the aid of a glossary, taking notes with graphic organizers, re-reading to answer text dependent questions; and summarizing.
The Paragraph Shrinking strategy allows each student to take turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the main points of each paragraph. Students provide each other with feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.
Students will watch and discuss video clips that show how two men in Chile coped with being prisoners in concentration camps during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Each student will then create a non-fiction picture book that tells the story of one of these men and provides historical context.
This lesson is one part of a four lesson unit on Shakespeare Stealer. This theater and language arts lesson offers intellectual, creative and interpretive opportunities. Students will analyze and compare the puns and word play in selected scenes from the plays, The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Students will then read scenes from each play in groups and interpret their meanings to prepare for a performance of the scene. The lesson culminates with students writing a short essay explaining how the playwrights used puns and word play to give their characters wit.