51

Well standardized testing is halfway finished and then there is only three weeks left of school. So, the big question from my students is "Are we going to learn after testing is over?" My snarky response is "How you can be in the same room with such a great teacher as me and not learn?" Of course, that is a rhetorical question~I don't really want to hear what my seventh-graders have to say to that.

While I won't tell them so, that is a question that teachers struggle with. What meaningful, but short-lived, lessons can we have in the last few weeks of school before our summer vacation?


This year, I'm going to try to get a leg up on Common Core State Standards and teach a historical fiction book: Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction by David Macauley. This is a short book about the fictional construction of a cathedral in France. The illustrations enhance the text with vocabulary and sentence structures that will challenge even the most reluctant reader.

While I'm still working on the lesson plan, I do intend to introduce them to the book by having them look at a list of vocabulary words that I've already pulled from the text and make a prediction about what book we're going to read. I will probably have this displayed in a word splash that I create on Wordle. 

I will give the students a list of constructed response questions as a guide for developing their purpose for reading. Since we have a classroom set of these books, the students will read the text silently and then respond to the questions. The text is so short that the students can have this text read in approximately one hour or slightly less. 

After reading the book, the students will discuss the book with their classmates, then respond to the questions independently and submit as a summative assessment. Afterwards, the students will work in pairs to create a timeline of the construction of the text.

I'm excited about trying something new for a whole group activity. If time allows, I may have the students do an independent research activity related to some aspect of the book.

Melissa Reese Etheridge





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Scout's Honor" by Avi

Image
I've created a learning resource to go along with the short story that you can find in my shop. My students have been telling me that it's quite difficult. We've done two pages per day as part of our reading workshop minilessons. They're writing the notes and responses in their journals. The grammar connection on infinitives really threw them for a loop~it was the first time that they've encountered this verbal. Melissa
Read more

Back to School Bumper Sticker Activity and Printable

Image
Here in Middle Tennessee, we go back to school in two weeks, so it's the perfect time to begin thinking about icebreaker activities.  My Back to school Bumper Sticker Printable and Activity includes 20 different bumper stickers, 10 color and 10 black and white. There are 2 bumper stickers per page. Use this as an icebreaker in the following way: Students brainstorm some bumper stickers that they've seen and what those bumper stickers say about the person driving the car. Then, the students will write down several bumper sticker sayings that represent them and their ideas or beliefs. Show students some examples of completed bumper stickers. Afterwards, give each student a copy of the bumper sticker template. Each student designs and creates a bumper sticker that represents him or her. After students have created their bumper stickers, they walk around the room reading each other's bumper stickers. This activity is a fun and creati
Read more

LSV: Writing Book Reviews Lesson Plan

Image
You will need the following for this lesson: Examples of  book reviews written by adults and students Check out this site for some great examples. Highlighters, markers, pens, and pencils Copies of close read questions for the reviews Copies of a short story or narrative poem for students to read and review A book review is an in-depth, insightful analysis of a book. An effective review explains what the book is about and usually offers the reviewer's opinion. Begin the lesson by having students do a cold read of a book review. After students have read the book review, ask them to discuss what the book review does for the reader? What is the purpose of the book review? After the students have read and discussed the book review, have students go back through the review and annotate it . Let the students share their annotations with their classmates. The typical book review includes the title of the book, the author's name, a
Read more