Marlene H. Kennedy
"Jewels of Endurance" has been created to meet the diverse educational needs of a sixth grade class within an urban, fifth through eighth grade inner-city school with a population of about 600 students. Nearly 98 percent of the student population is African-American, with the remaining two percent consisting of students from a variety of backgrounds, including Vietnamese, Caucasian, Hispanic, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Native American, and Mexican.
Classrooms are heterogeneously inclusive, containing students with special needs and learning disabilities that require adaptations to the curriculum. Students have a variety of learning levels and socio-economic demands within their lives which affect the way they view the importance of education.
The response to literature component of the unit, featuring the historical novel
Dear America
,
Early Sunday Morning
,
The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows
,
Hawaii
,
1941
, by Barry Denenberg, is designed to operate with three to four heterogeneously grouped literature and reading circles, so students of all learning levels and abilities experience the benefits of working together (and thus fulfilling state and local curriculum standards and goals). By heterogeneously grouping the literature and reading circles, students are able to read silently or aloud to one another to complete the novel. Teachers may take the approach of assigning the reading of 10 pages per day over 12 days, in class or among the groups, or they may elect to assign the reading as homework.
Dear America
,
Christmas After All
,
The Great Depression Story of Minnie Swift
,
Indianapolis, Indiana, 1932
, by Kathryn Lasky, which is used for the process in writing component of the unit, may be assigned over the December vacation as independent reading. When students return, they are assessed on the reading through the process in writing assignment. Students also discuss
Christmas After All
, before beginning the writing assignment.
