Although as an ELA teacher, I am aware that pre-teaching vocabulary is a sound practice for all students, I also find it important to bring the word to “life” for students so that they experience the language in context. It is especially beneficial for language learners and students with special needs. Relying on videos, pictures, and art work help students create a connotation of words that they later will denotate using some of the vocabulary graphic organizers that help with vocabulary acquisition: The Frayer model, word map meaning organizers, picture dictionaries, and the vocabulary web wheel. Students will also benefit from using a dictionary to research definitions and be able to see the word in context. Before each lesson, vocabulary should be front loaded in the attempt to facilitate overall comprehension while activating schema. We activate schema by stimulating the students mind with visuals. Activating schema is a way to achieve a baseline comprehension before embarking on a lesson that may not reach some.
In order to continue teaching my unit, activating schema is always important because I need a starting point to begin my teaching. This schema activation will be annotated in a journal. Journal work is so important because students are able to organize their thoughts, how they learn best. Because I have such a vast group of students with different needs, this journal will contain the information they need to continue classwork and increase comprehension. They can choose to use visuals, drawings, key concepts, color schemes, connotations, and ideas in their native language. My end of year goal is to have students express themselves with more writing which is possible because they are using scaffolding techniques. The overall unit questions will be “Who am I as an individual, within my community and as a future problem solver? How can I impact my future and of those around me? What are some issues that I see around me that may not be equitable for some? Can I create a movement that will be noticed by policy change makers? How can I mobilize those around me who identify the same injustices as myself?
Following their journal entries, students will employ the Cornell note template. It is always beneficial when reading and annotating nonfiction texts. Students will formulate questions that they will answer after reading specific articles and literature. This method supports concise note-taking, efficient information storage, and helps in practicing summarization.
Emphasizing best practices, graphic organizers like KWL charts (What I Know, Want to Know, and Learned) and story maps are beneficial, especially for language learners and students with special needs. The graphic organizers are useful because they drive the students to really interact with the readings, thus helping them to recall important information for future use. These graphic organizers help students engage in meaningful dialogue surrounding the topic. Once completed the students can pair up based on what they want to learn and share amongst each other what they already know. This fosters focused classroom discussion, which students do not get enough of. The focus on what they want to learn helps guide their research and be specific to the topic. Story maps make it easier for students to read and keep track of what they are reading. This also serves as a good study guide because all the information is on one page and readily accessible. It also helps bolster confidence in students who do not participate much, because they are not being asked anything they do not know or something that is not on the organizer. Another useful graphic organizer is the Venn diagram. Students are always asked to find similarities and differences between topic and characters who may seem to have nothing in common. The Venn diagram is useful because it gives students the opportunity to compare and contrast, really looking deep into the concept and reasoning their answers to then be able to support them.
The model text also referred to as the core novel that I intend on using is The Giver. This novel is part of the current 8th grade curriculum. The Giver is a good example of dystopian literature set in a future society that is seemingly perfect, but this perfection comes at a great cost. The protagonist, Jonas, lives in a community that values sameness and predictability above all else. There is no war, pain, or suffering, but there is also no color, music, or emotion. At first it seems an ideal society because they have eliminated all the bad things that happen in society but upon closer analysis we discover that they have also eliminated all the good because the success of the community outweighs individual happiness.
The novel opens with Jonas's twelfth birthday, when he will learn the truth about his future. Jonas is selected to become the next Receiver of Memory, a highly respected and isolated position. The current Receiver, who becomes known as The Giver, is an elderly man who holds all of the community's memories from before the society was created. The elders in the community think that if people had memories of the past, they would commit mistakes and deal with pain and hurt, disrupting the “perfect” society they have created.
As Jonas receives memories from The Giver, he begins to experience emotions and see color, things that are not allowed in his society. He learns about pain, love, and war, and becomes increasingly unhappy with the sameness and lack of choice in his community. The Giver shares with Jonas the memory of a baby who was released from the community, which Jonas comes to understand means that the baby was killed. To add to Jonas’s horror, the baby was “released” by his father in a very emotionless, detached matter of fact way. At this point Jonas becomes angry and scared by the cruelty of his seemingly perfect society who see nothing wrong with this procedure.
Jonas decides that he must escape the community, and The Giver helps him to plan his escape. Jonas leaves in the middle of the night, taking with him a baby that was scheduled to be released. He travels through the wilderness with the baby, experiencing hunger and cold for the first time. Eventually, he comes upon a hill and sees the lights of a nearby town, giving him hope that he will find a new, better life beyond the boundaries of his old community.
The novels ending is unclear because we are left to wonder what happens to Jonas and the baby. We can infer that Jonas and the baby will face challenges and hardships, but that they will also be free to experience the full range of human emotions and live a life of true freedom.
Throughout the novel, the theme of the importance of individuality and the dangers of conformity is explored. The community in The Giver has chosen to eliminate all differences between individuals in order to eliminate conflict and suffering, but in doing so they have also eliminated joy, true love, and the full range of human experience. The novel suggests that true happiness and fulfillment can only be achieved through the freedom to make choices whether they cause pain because the message is that you cannot have one range of emotions without the other.
In the book The Giver, Lois Lowery develops the characters known as elders who control basic life events that we take for granted and they in turn control society. Family units are assembled, created by the elders. Babies have birth mothers, who upon giving birth have to hand the baby over to the nurturing center. These mothers are denied the process of bonding with the babies. The way families are created in The Giver go against what students recognize as family units and these elements in the novel inspire dialogue amongst students because it is a topic they can relate to and have knowledge about. This is an ideal starting point because the family unit is seen as a foundation of society. Students can relate to Jonas because they are the same age and throughout the novel, Jonas is questioning life around him much like the students in my class.
