Throughout my unit, there will be a strong underlying thrust aimed at building student literacy, a primary goal of our school and the entire New Haven School System. Besides the obvious emphasis on reading, pupils will write, talk, listen, and sing about the topics we study. Activities related to these areas will follow the techniques used in the systems basic approach to improving student literacy. The unit will be presented through an integrated approach, involving primarily the areas of reading, language arts, and social studies. In all activities, the underlying academic focus of most material will be on developing reading and writing skills. Comprehension and related reading skill lessons will be developed from stories we cover. Writing activities will revolve around summarizing, conveying impressions, recognizing parallels from their own situations, and imagining themselves in similar situations. I will develop individual worksheets which will focus on the skills developed in Degrees of Reading Power, a system which develops the use of context clues and is an important part of New Haven's reading skills program. I have included an example in my section on specific lesson plans.
As I implied previously, I suggest a number of films which focus on the areas we shall cover in our written material. Suggestions for the involvement of student's family members are made where it seems appropriate.
