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ENGLISH..LANGUAGE..ARTS
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Curriculum Resource Guide Components
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At a Glance
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STANDARDS: Grades 7 & 8 Alignment
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Individual Behaviors/Classroom Practices
| NYS ELA Indicators |
NYC ELA Indicators |
| Writing |
Writing |
| Students will: |
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| • Write at least 1000 words per month across all content areas. |
• E2 – The student produces a report, a response to literature, a narrative account, a narrative procedure and a persuasive essay. |
| • Use tone and language appropriate for audience and purpose. |
• E2 – Students produce a report that creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose, audience and content. |
| • Identify the intended audience. |
• E2 – Students produce a report that creates an organizing structure appropriate to purpose, audience and context. |
| • Use prewriting activities, for example: brainstorming, free-writing, note-taking and outlining. |
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| • Use the writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revising, proofreading and editing). |
• E4b – Students analyze and subsequently revise work to clarify it or to make it more effective in communicating the intended messages or thought. Students’ revisions should be made in light of the purposes and audiences. |
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LESSON STRUCTURE
Essential Question:
An essential question is open-ended to engage students in focused and active inquiry/study. Students address the essential question within each lesson/session because the question is a focus that is woven throughout the Learning Experience.
Context:
The context identifies the title, the grade level and the subject of a Learning Experience. It also describes prerequisite knowledge (information that students must have in advance of the Learning Experience), which enables students to fully understand the Learning Experience.
Rationale:
The rationale describes the significance of this learning experience that includes an explanation of why a teacher selected this specific content and skills and its importance for students.
Standards:
The standards that are addressed are highlighted in each Learning Experience. At a glance, a teacher will know specifically what standards and skills have been addressed and embedded in the lessons/sessions.
Time:
The time segment includes both how many lessons/sessions and their length as well as the total number of lessons/sessions per week.
Instructional Resources:
All resources needed to replicate this Learning Experience are stated so that a teacher may replicate it. |
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Learning Experience: An Author Study of Edgar Allan Poe
Session: 3
Focus: Point of View
Whole Group/Direct Teaching
Discuss the previous session’s homework assignment. Ask someone in the class to briefly tell the story of the three little pigs. Read aloud “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” by Jon Scieszka (or any story that tells a familiar tale from another point of view). Ask the students why the story is different and how it is different. Chart the comparisons and contrasts on a Venn diagram. (Refer to the Venn diagram in the instructional practices section of the book). Elicit both the positive and negative aspects of a story told from a first-person point of view. |
Reflection/Thinking
Having a student retell a fairy tale guarantees that majority of students will know the story. Even though fairy tales are traditionally used in lower grades, they are extremely effective vehicles with which to teach and motivate middle school students. |
Small Group/Independent
Distribute chart paper to each group.
Choose a current event or a well-known event from the past (such as the O.J. Simpson case, the Elian Gonzalez case, or the 2000 Presidential Election) and assign each group one person who was involved in the story (George W. Bush, Albert Gore, and Ralph Nader). The group will discuss how that particular person viewed the event and record their ideas on chart paper. The teacher should guide groups that have difficulty beginning the task and/or have not focused on the assigned point of view. |
Reflection/Thinking
Point of view is often a difficult concept
for students. Most of the time when students are asked questions regarding point of view, they have trouble distinguishing between their opinion and that of a character, author, or narrator. They also have difficulty expressing supporting details for point of view. They usually respond with, “I don’t know why,“ or “because” when asked to support their answers. Accessing their prior knowledge about a well-known event helps them to better understand the point of view of a story. |
Whole Group/Reflection
Have the students share and discuss the event from their point of view.
Homework: Choose a story currently in the news and describe at least two different points of view (one paragraph each). |
Reflection/Thinking
Since point of view is so important to most of Poe’s works, the homework should be collected to check your students’ comprehension of this concept. |
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UNDERSTANDING LITERACY
Reading is a process of constructing meaning from text using cues from different sources: visual, prior knowledge, letter-sound connection, the structure of the language system, and making sense while engaging with text. The Cue System is what clues there are in- and around the text — that assist the student to unpack meaning.
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GLOSSARY
ACCOUNTABLE TALK – Accountable Talk is a way to describe a class discussion where students build on each other’s ideas as a way of constructing meaning together. Talk is accountable when it is clearly connected to the thoughts presented. Students must carefully listen to each other by adding to, refining, or challenging each other’s concepts. Accountable Talk is one of the nine principles of learning as delineated by the University of Pittsburgh.
ACTIVE LISTENING – Active Listening is when students listen carefully to what their partner or other classmate said with the intent of giving a response.
ALLITERATION – The repetition of an initial consonant sound.
ALLUSION – References to something outside the realm of the writing piece.
ALPHABET SQUARES – The Alphabet Squares strategy can be used as a pre-reading, during reading or post-reading activity. As a pre-reading activity, students fill in the boxes with any words or terms that are important to what they have read, or they can fill the Alphabet Squares with words or terms that they find confusing. This could be used as an individual activity or students can work in pairs or groups. After students have completed their own Alphabet Squares Chart, a class chart can be generated. This may lead to a class vocabulary list.
APOSTROPHE – Figure of speech in which a non-person, absent person, or deceased person is addressed.
ASSESSMENT — An evaluation of a student’s comprehension of concepts , skills and knowledge of material. In addition, assessment is a way for teachers to not only see students a readers, but it helps to guide their teaching as well. By using running records, information reading surveys, miscue analysis, observations, standardized tests, and students’ self-assessment, we can get a picture of the reader as a whole.
BIG IDEA – The main idea or an important idea.
BOOK CLUBS – In the past many teachers equated literature circles to book clubs; however, Lucy Calkins, founder of the Reading Writing Project at Teachers College, helps us to differentiate between the two. Calkins maintains that book clubs are long lasting groups with students reading many books together. The idea behind maintaining the same students in the book club is that these students will build a context from book to book, in addition to a community of readers. Since these are long lasting it is crucial that the students read at approximately the same level. |
INTERNET SITE BIBLIOGRAPHY
More than thirty years ago, computers were first introduced into schools. The emphasis then was on teaching computer programming. Thus, the teacher had to assume the role of a computer scientist. Labs were set up and whole classes were introduced to and developed programming skills.
Today, the role of computers has changed from that of a programming tool to a teaching and learning tool. Computers are used by teachers and students to present, manage, and create information in order to develop critical thinking skills and stretch the imagination. The educational community can access primary sources of information, communicate with teachers and students around the world, visit online museums, speak directly to authors, artists, scientists and specialists in content fields of study from their classrooms.
Valuable information is available to all that seek knowledge. Whatever the age level or subject matter there are resources available. There are no limits as to where students and teachers can search and learn with these available tools. The following Web sites are available to educators.
Bibliography
Awesome Library is an organized a web site with 15,000 carefully reviewed resources for K-12 teachers. http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/English/English.html
Big Chalk offers homework help, research tools, teacher resources, online fieldtrips and standard-based curriculum information. http://www.bigchalk.com
B.J. Pinchbeck offers a wide range of Internet links, homework help, lesson plans, in all content areas for grades K-12. http://www.school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/bpinchbeck/bjenglish.html
Busy Teacher’s Web site K-12 offers extensive resources for teachers across curriculum areas. www.ceismc.gatech.edu/
Collaborative Lesson Archive is a database of units and resources for lessons across content areas. http://faldo.atmos.uiuc.edu/CLA |
ASSESSMENT - RUBRICS
Assessment is used to inform teachers’ instructional plans. Instructional plans include decisions about instructional activities and appropriate and effective teaching practices to support the
diverse learning needs of students.
Rubrics are authentic assessment tools utilized in the ongoing process of teaching and learning by both teachers and students to assess and evaluate student performance on a specific objective assignment or project.
CRITERIA
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EXPERT=
Exceeding the Standard
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PRACTITIONER=
Meeting the Standard
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APPRENTICE=
Approaching the Standard
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NOVICE=
Need to Meet the Standard
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Organizational
Structure
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• material is clearly organized for the reader to understand
• use of paragraphs
• excellent organization of the material presented
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• material is organized for the reader to understand
• easy to read
• use of paragraphs
• some organization of the material presented
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• material is somewhat organized for the reader to understand
• little use of paragraphs
• difficult to read
• little organization of the material presented |
• material is not organized for the reader to understand
• no use of paragraphs
• difficult to read
• no organization of the material presented |
Supporting Details
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• facts are important accurate
• contains 6 supporting details |
• most facts are important and accurate
• contains 3 supporting details |
• some facts are important and accurate
• contains 1 or 2 supporting details |
• facts are not stated or accurate
• contains no supporting details |
Language Use and
Conventions
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• clearly written
• uses vivid language
• uses complete sentences
• makes few or no errors in mechanics |
• clearly written
• uses interesting language
• uses mostly complete sentences
• makes few or no errors in mechanics
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• some confusion in the writing
• uses age appropriate language
• some complete sentences
• makes errors in mechanics that interfere with ideas |
• not clearly written
• uses repetitive language
• few complete sentences
• makes errors in mechanics that seriously interfere with ideas |
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