Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 7–10 Professional Commentary: This lesson provides opportunitites for students to engage in thoughtful discussions using questions with "no easy answers" as the basis for conversations. After reading Ilunga's Harvest, students identify and explore the challenging questions the story provokes by making connections between the author's experience, the story's content, and their own lives.... 2 Myth and Truth : The "First Thanksgiving" Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–7 Professional Commentary: Behind every myth are many possible truths. As they read and discuss the pilgrims, and the first Thanksgiving, students think critically about commonly believed myths regarding native people in colonial America.... 3 Expository Escapade: Detective's Handbook Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: This lesson combines the reading of detective fiction, a subgenre of mystery, with writing an expository analysis. Mysteries engage students, allowing them to use critical thinking, deductive reasoning, and logic to explore and predict the events in the story as it unfolds.... 4 Seeing Integration from Different Viewpoints Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grade 6 Professional Commentary: This lesson uses The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles, which describes the court-ordered desegregation of an all-white school in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960, as a basis for a Directed Reading–Thinking Activity. A prereading strategy captures students' interest and provides an opportunity to make predictions about the story.... 5 A Directed Listening–Thinking Activity for "The Tell-Tale Heart" Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grade 8 Professional Commentary: In this lesson, students listen to a read aloud of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Telltale Heart while recording their answers to prediction questions using a Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DLTA). Following a discussion of the story, they respond by using online interactives to create either a comic strip or an acrostic poem that summarizes the story.... 6 Making Personal and Cultural Connections Using A Girl Named Disaster Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: This lesson is intended to help students experience both "efferent" (reading for information) and "aesthetic" (reading as a personal, emotional experience) responses to the story A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer. Students work as a whole class and with partners to explore the main character Nhamo as she struggles to survive in her extended family... 7 NAEP Assessment Item, Grade 8: Bargain: Three key mistakes in writing an ad Resource Type: Assessments Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 7–8 Professional Commentary: Students use information from the text to make predictions. This is a sample constructed response test item used in a past National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) assessment (for more information, see About NAEP).... 8 Bud, Not Buddy: Teacher Resources Resource Type: Lessons Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 4–7 Professional Commentary: This web-based thematic unit has a wide range of resources and activities for grades 4-7. An overview of the unit, lesson outlines, and links to student activities are provided.... 9 NAEP Assessment Item, Grade 8: Lost People: Title Page Impression- Mystery Resource Type: Assessments Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: After reading a nonfiction piece, students use information from the text to make an interpretation. This is a sample multiple choice test item used in a past National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) assessment (for more information, see About NAEP).... 10 NAEP Assessment Item, Grade 8: Thank You: Do you think this story is believable Resource Type: Assessments Discipline: Reading Grades: Grades 7–8 Professional Commentary: For this question, students determine if the events in the story are believable. This is a sample constructed response test item used in a past National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) assessment (for more information, see About NAEP).... |