Underlined words below are lesson vocabulary words that are emphasized and written on sentence strips for my Reading & Writing word wall. I pull off the words off the wall for each lesson, helping students understand this key 'reading and writing' vocabulary can be generalized across texts and topics. The focus on acquiring and using these words is part of a shift in the Common Core Standards towards building students’ academic vocabulary. My words are color coded ‘pink’ for literature/’blue’ for reading strategies/’orange’ for informational text/'yellow' for writing/’green’ for all other words)
Get students engaged:
Bring students to the same learning point
The Core standards are shifting to students doing more literary analysis, including reading complex literary text and recognizing character development (RL.2.6). This includes acknowledging differences in the point of view of characters, which this lesson builds towards. The lesson also asks students to make connections to characters and will build towards a later lesson that helps students distinguish between deep and shallow connections. A big difference with the Common Core in making connections is that the connections must be based on the text. Although connecting to outside information and experiences may enrich a students' understanding of a text, such connections are useful only insofar as they help a student understand an author's words. As we push students to make connections that are deep, we need to keep helping them understand the difference between deep, text-based connections and distracting, shallow connections. The process starts here in this lesson and builds throughout the unit.
Explain connecting:
** I used kinds of connecting with the students to demonstrate how to make these deeper connections. This chart evidences the 3 kinds that I use: text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world. Here are the lessons where we discuss these other kinds of connecting - ‘Connecting to the Text' and 'Connect to the World'.
Model demonstrating a point of view
Guided Practice:
Explain task:
Guided practice:
Independent practice:
Students Share Ideas
Scaffolding & Special Education: This lesson can be scaffolded up and down, depending on student ability.
For my Special Education students, I read the text out loud to them, emphasizing the voices in the beginning. Later in the text, I read the quotes and let them repeat with a voice that demonstrated perspective. I gave them prompts on the whiteboards at their desks for the worksheet so they could offer connections to the text. They were more connected to the pictures, which gave a nice contrast to the students who were more connected to the text.
Understanding perspective and point of view is an excellent skill for students of higher ability to learn. Although their language is higher, they still need to be challenged to connect to the text, perhaps with more sophisticated text based connections. Using an appropriate voice to read the perspectives and making deeper connections (I have a green shirt vs I remember a time when I could not get my parents to the store either.)