Carolyn L. Streets
The classroom activities below are ideas teachers can use in their instruction in support of student learning. They specifically seek to support struggling readers by presenting alternative forms to “traditional” reading. By using various media, students can be supported in connecting their lives to the context of the stories they read and help bring clarity to the essential, larger understandings and purposes. The activities are structured weekly during reading and writing workshop. I provide my students with organizers like timelines, a list of our readings, objectives, assignments, and homework so that they have a clear roadmap of what is expected to be accomplished. It is important to note that I intend to integrate this unit during the second quarter of the school year because students will have already read our ELA required text
When Elephants Fight
. These are vignette-like mosaics of survival stories as told by the children living in areas engulfed in civil wars and political instability. During this time, students will engage in learning objectives related to the goal of this unit and will hopefully see the connections between all of the objectives. I am fortunate to work in a school that supports and expects integrated units of study in addition to the NHPS curriculum, so implementing this unit should be seamless. Also, keeping the calendar in mind and that this book can literally span several quarters, I have learned some useful tips in keeping with a manageable current of lessons. First, I use the provided audio book to help students with their fluency. For struggling readers, I may do small group instruction or focus on chunked sections of the book. I also assign the section entitled “The Conflict” for homework if students wish to read in more detail about the geopolitical issues alluded in the stories.
Building confidence with strategies: (Week one):
Before delving into the lesson, I will first support students with clear understandings of how to effectively use the strategies associated with this unit. Therefore, I will use the Gradual Release of Responsibility model commonly known amongst teachers as the I Do, You Do, We Do model. This is an example of scaffolded instruction and has earned national recognition as a highly effective approach for moving instruction from teacher dependent-whole group-student independent practice. During the course of the unit, students will be expected to move from the novice stage reliant upon teacher modeling, through practitioner stage requiring teacher support, to expert or mastery stage where little or no teacher intervention is required. I have found this to be a way to set students up for success; so during this time, students will be taught how to use the QAR, Frayer Model, and didactic journals. I will present them with teacher modeled examples on each strategy by using a short excerpt from the Tedtalk titled
The Danger of a Single Story
told by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Students will see this video again in its entirety during the initiating activity described below. I will also allude to how we will use the intersection between texts and how we interpret their relevance through other forms. I will explain to students that we will use multiple sources in both print and film. I believe this will get students excited about what they will be learning and counterbalance any anxieties associated with the task of using multiple sources at once.
Initiating Activity (Week Two):
I am inspired by the Tedtalk titled
The Danger of a Single Story.
Adichie’s suspicion of the “singular story” resonates throughout this unit, that when we reject the single story, we realize that there is never a single story about any one person or place. I plan to play this talk and ask students to relate their background knowledge about any stories they may have read in their lifetime to what they may deem are the big ideas in the Tedtalk and in
When Elephants Fight
. Given that initial learning involves transfer that is based on previous experiences and prior knowledge, this initiating step is needed. Given our work on
When Elephants Fight
presents multiple stories around themes and traits like bravery and resilience for example, and having already received instruction with our core text, students will have context to reach back to. I intend to have students use their core text to activate their understandings of the Tedtalk. I will prompt them (when necessary) to infer that we will be engaging in other texts to help make stronger connections. Students will engage in a turn and share session where they will talk to their partners about any possible connections. I will place the guiding question on the board: Why does the author believe a single story can be dangerous? to help anchor the discussion. I believe this is a unique way to get students thinking.
Reading Workshop: To get the most out of the video, we will watch it at least three times. First review will be used to help students get the gist of the talk and make connections back to our learnings from week one. The second review will call for students to use the QAR method I previously taught to capture their initial understandings. Students will engage in a “turn and share” activity where they will articulate their QAR to others in efforts to share ideas.
Writing workshop: The NHPS curriculum uses the Writing Workshop model as a time for students to engage in purposeful writing and may engage in various writing activities to explain how they use their writing to support their thinking. During this time students will use their QARs to complete a brief-write on what they have gleaned from the video (brief-writes are a term used throughout NHPS curriculum. These are short sometimes informal writing pieces done by students evidencing their thinking. These are usually done in their notebook as an abbreviated form of journaling or a less formalized version of paragraph writing). They will be encouraged to connect to their prior readings as well. Note, students already know how to do brief-writes as standard classroom practice. This is reiterated throughout all grade levels. Students will peer-conference, add to, or revise their brief-writes during this time.
Connections to text (Week Three):
The Arrival
and
Brooklyn
Reading Workshop: Students will watch a visual narrative of Shaun Tan’s book
The Arrival
. I chose this for several reasons. Contextually, it is an immersive narrative around the theme of belonging--a theme that is interwoven throughout all the stories we will read for this unit. This is short a graphic novel with no words that can be digested in one-two days. These types of novels are of high interest to many of my reluctant readers. Most importantly, the photorealist drawings underpin the implied theme in an impactful way. The third reason why I chose this book is because of its ability to help students make textual connections. The images provide a narrative into the life of its characters--some characters have fled from a dangerous homeland--and visually tells of their struggle to assimilate in a strange new land. I will then ask students to compare frames from the film version of the book
Brooklyn
. I will select two frames: one will be from when the main character first gets on the boat departing from her native country to America and the second will be from when the main character goes through the halls of Ellis Island. I will ask students to infer the emotion of the frame by directing them to focus on the character’s facial expressions. These two frames are reminiscent of the emotions expressed by the characters in
The Arrival
. Students should make connects between the frames as they will be asked to chart or diagram the expressions they notice that help them make connections to both stories. Although it is set in the 1950’s, students can make connections to the fears and struggles of the character as she leaves her homeland and family to make a new life for herself in America. These frames will focus on the main character’s emotions as she leaves her homeland and arrives in America. Here, student may rely on the obvious differences. I will challenge them to go beyond what is explicit. To help them, I will incorporate excerpts from the book. For example: “She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything,” (p.67). Students will be asked to connect the excerpt to the images in both stories and compare what they determined as they charted in their notebooks. As we explore the book, I will place guiding questions on the board. Students will use these questions as a springboard to generate connections between what they have already read. Students will be challenge to write a narration for any section that speaks most to them. They will turn and share, and then transfer the big ideas from discussion to their notes.
Writing Workshop: During our examination of the book, we will start the Frayer Model to connect content specific vocabulary. During this time, I will provide several vocabulary words that students should incorporate into their narratives. Some examples are: 1. Refugee, 2. Immigrant, 3. Assimilation, 4. Jeopardy, and 5. Ancestor, 6. Citizen, and 7. Naturalization. I will then challenge students to create their own versions of the Frayer Model to independently generate words based on the connections made as they read. These words should be incorporated into a revision of their narratives produced during reading workshop.
Analysis of Author’s Style (Week Four):
Home of The Brave
Reading Workshop: This will be the anchor text for this unit. This story is similar to
The Arrival
as its main character is relocated from his war-torn homeland and struggles to assimilate to America. We learn that his family is slain, with the exception of his mother who is reunited with her son by the end of the novel. As students read, they will focus on the literary style of the author. This book is written in prose and easily read, although the prose has deeper meanings which calls for students to draw inferences about the larger implicit ideas, focusing on why the author chose specific language will help with this skill. I plan to provide daily questions and excerpts to help students focus their thinking as they read. These questions will range in complexity but will mostly be higher-level and open-ended qualitative questions seen and practiced during their QAR work. I will use their daily brief writes on these questions to spark critical discussions and help to integrate the students’ perspectives about the emerging enduring understandings presented in the story. I plan to give them excerpts from different parts of the novel, for example:
A man I helped to settle here
taught me a saying from Africa.
I’ll bet you would like it:
A cow is God with a wet nose. (p. 14)
As students read further and learn how the main character assimilates, students will be directed back the book
Brooklyn
. I will provide additional excerpts like “She thought it was strange that the mere sensation of savoring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that is must be the prospect of home,” (p. 131). Here they will make connections between the two by comparing how each character’s struggle is interwoven.
Writing Workshop: Here students will use their didactic journals. I will look for how students articulate their learning through their personal responses, ideas about themes, and any emerging ideas about universal understandings. Students will codify their thinking in order to organize and present their thoughts: Students will record the narrative they generated during their reading on the left side of their notebooks. On the right, they will respond to their own ideas using the following codes: (Q) Questioning-ask about what is unclear to you, (C) Connect-describe the connections made from your like, world, or other texts, (P) Predict-anticipate what will occur in as you read or what may happen in the next anticipated novel you will read, (CL) Clarify- answer any questions generated from peer conferencing or make adjustments in predictions, (R) Reflect- think broadly about the universal themes in the text. Describe any emerging enduring understandings you have, and (E) Evaluate-make judgements about what you think is the author’s implied intentions. I plan to read and respond to each of their journals and encourage them to respond back. This will be accomplished during peer conferencing time.
Culminating Activity (Week Five):
This part of the unit will focus on students demonstrating their understandings through our culminating activity. My first thought was to have them create mini documentaries about their personal stories in the style of the authors we have studied. These documentaries should tie back to the notion that there is no one single story explored during the initiating activity and throughout this unit. However, this may be quite ambitious since securing resources may be a challenge. Therefore, I will leave this idea open to further exploration. Students will, however, create narratives based on their own lives in connections to the stories explored. First, students will go back to any of the texts, a piece of their journal, or notes and select something that speaks to them. Second, they will incorporate this selection into their work. Next, students will be asked to consider their audience. This can be open to the school community, peers, family, or it can be private and only for them (and the teacher for assessment purposes). Then, they will write one clear sentence about the topic their selection. This topic sentence should capture why it is important to them. During this unit, students learned that each author had a different way of communicating ideas (using short or long prose and visual imagery). As they compose their work, students will be encouraged to “write in the style” of one of the authors. Here I will encourage student choice. They can decide if they want to use the form of short or long prose, or visual imagery. Or they can draw or sketch images complementary to
The Arrival
. Students will also be challenged to write a rhetorical question that touches upon the enduring understandings. Students will either answer their own question or (to the level of their personal comfort) give their narrative to a peer to answer as a statement of overall meaning.