The students were supposed to read the first two chapters of Night over the weekend. To review the text and to analyze why Wiesel introduces his ideas and story this way (RI.9-10.3), I will ask students to work with their Faulkner squares to discuss five themes from these two chapters (SL.9-10.1 and RL.9-10.2). I will provide the themes for the students to look at as a way of scaffolding their learning. By providing the themes, I am hoping that they will be able to have a more focused discussion. By working in groups, I'm hoping that they will be able to not only look for specific textual support their interpretation of what the text says explicitly and implicitly (RI.9-10.1), but also talk through sections of the text that might have been confusing. I will give the students a note-catcher for this work. Night is a pretty simple book to read in regards to complexity, but has very difficult ideas to digest. Much of my instruction with this book will be designed with student discussion and individualized time for emotional response in mind. I'm hoping that these initial discussions will support this kind of thinking. While we might not come back to these specific themes in later discussion/analysis, I hope that providing them with some sample thematic lenses will help them to think thematically as they continue to read and as they write in their reading response journals. On a side note, you may notice that I am tagging to both of the reading strands in these lessons. Night is an interesting text to use to address the reading standards. Technically, it is an informational text because it is a memoir, but as a piece of literary non-fiction, it can be used to meet many of the reading informational text standards as well. I find that my classroom often has overlaps like these and I like that my students have to use overlapping skills when they read, regardless of what kind of text they are reading.