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GIST Summaries

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GIST is a strategy to help students write brief, accurate, and complete summaries of material they read. In this lesson students work together summarizing larger and larger portions of text, but keeping their summaries at 25 words or fewer. Students will be able to summarize portions of informational or literary text. Students will be able to work in small groups to think critically about and discuss text.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Grade 5 ELA Module 2B

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In this eight-week module, students learn about new or improved technologies that have been developed to meet societal needs and how those inventions have changed people’s lives. They conduct authentic research to build their own knowledge and teach others through writing. In Unit 1, students read the graphic novel Investigating the Scientific Method with Max Axiom, Super Scientist by Donald B. Lemke as well as several informational articles about inventions that have been developed to meet people’s needs. Students learn about and analyze structures and visual elements authors use to convey complex ideas. Then, they will write a short opinion paragraph about which of the inventions they learned about has been most important to people and why. In Unit 2, students will read The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull, focusing on how the television was invented to meet societal needs.

Material Type: Module

Grade 3 ELA Module 2A

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In this module, students will use literacy skills to become experts— people who use reading, writing, listening and speaking to build and share deep knowledge about a topic. (This focus on research intentionally builds Module 1, in which students explored the superpowers of reading.) The module will begin with a class study of the bullfrog, an example of a “true frog,” that exhibit quintessentially froggy characteristics. In Unit 2, students will form research groups to become experts on various “freaky” frogs—frogs that push the boundaries of “froginess” with unusual adaptations that help them to survive in extreme environments throughout the world. Students will build their reading, research, writing and collaborative discussion skills through studying their expert frog. Throughout the module, students will consistently reflect on the role of literacy in building and sharing expertise. Students will demonstrate their expertise through a “freaky frog trading card”—a research-based narrative that highlights their research and educates others about the amazing diversity of frogs with a focus on how their freaky frog survives.

Material Type: Module

Grade 12 ELA Module 2

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Over the course of Module 12.2, students practice and refine their informative writing and speaking and listening skills through formative assessments, and apply these skills in the Mid-Unit and End-of-Unit Assessments as well as the Module 12.2 Performance Assessment. Module 12.2 consists of two units: 12.2.1 and 12.2.2. In 12.2.1, students first read “Ideas Live On,” a speech that Benazir Bhutto delivered in 2007. Next, students analyze the complex ideas and language in Henry David Thoreau’s essay, “Civil Disobedience.”

Material Type: Module

About Writing: A Guide

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This writer’s reference condenses and covers everything a beginning writing student needs to successfully compose college-level work, including the basics of composition, grammar, and research. It is broken down into easy-to-tackle sections, while not overloading students with more information than they need. Great for any beginning writing students or as reference for advanced students!

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Robin Jeffrey

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Unit

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Throughout this unit on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, students practice the same six skills with greater scaffolding and modeling at the beginning, and more independence toward the middle and end. The tasks include: 1. writing to an essential question to access background knowledge; 2. using context clues and root words to determine word meaning; 3. close reading with the aid of a glossary; 4. taking notes one of two graphic organizers (sequence of events and/or empathy map); 5. re-reading to answer text dependent questions; and 6. summarizing the chapter.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Grade 6 ELA Module 2B

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In this eight-week module, students explore the idea of adversity of people across time and place, and through multiple modes of writing. Students begin this module with a research-based unit on the Middle Ages. They read informational articles about various aspects of medieval life, learning and practicing the skills of summarizing an article, analyzing how ideas are developed across a text, and describing how a part of a text contributes to the whole. Students then break into expert groups to read closely about one demographic group. They practice the informational reading skills they have learned and explore the adversities faced by that group. In the second half of Unit 1, students write an informational essay based on their research as their end of unit assessment. In Unit 2, students use their background knowledge built during Unit 1, but move to reading literature: Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village. This is a book of monologues told from the perspective of children living in the same village during the Middle Ages. Students have dual tasks: First, they identify the various adversities faced by this cast of characters; secondly, they examine the author’s craft, specifically by identifying and interpreting figurative language in the monologues as well as analyzing how word choices affect the tone of the text. In the second half of Unit 2, students write a literary argument to address the question “Do we struggle with the same adversities as the people of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!?” In Unit 3, students move into modern voices of adversity by reading concrete poems in the books Blue Lipstick and Technically, It’s Not My Fault. These concrete poems highlight adversities faced by the speakers of the poems, an adolescent girl and her younger brother. Students apply the same reading skills they learned in the reading of Unit 2, but this unit is discussion-based, allowing teachers to assess students’ speaking and listening skills in small group discussions about the texts. For their performance task, students choose a writing format—narrative, like the monologues of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, or concrete poem—and write their own text about adversities faced by sixth-graders. Students then perform their writing for a group of their peers.

Material Type: Module

Grade 5 ELA Module 1

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What are human rights, and how do real people and fictional characters respond when those rights are challenged? Students will develop their ability to read and understand complex text as they consider this question. Students will begin to build knowledge about human rights through a close read of the introduction and selected articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), paired with short firsthand accounts of people around the world who currently face human rights challenges. In Unit 2, students will do an extended study of Esperanza Rising (740L) by Pam Muñoz Ryan, applying their new learning about human rights as one lens through which to interpret the character and theme in this rich novel—a complex coming-of-age story set in Mexico and rural California during the early 1930s. Through close reading, interpretation, and analysis of fiction and nonfiction texts, students will synthesize their understanding of human rights. The specific literacy focus is on supporting understanding through quoting directly from text, inferring theme, and comparing and contrasting how different texts address the topics and themes of human rights. Students will write an analytical essay in which they describe how a character in the novel responds to challenges. In Unit 3, students will continue to revisit the text and themes of the UDHR and Esperanza Rising as they read, write, and ultimately perform Readers Theater. Students will compare novels and Readers Theater as two forms of narrative writing. They will then select specific articles of the UDHR that relate thematically to the novel and reread key passages of the novel with that theme in mind. They will write individual and small group scripts based on these key passages and on phrases from the UDHR. Students will revise, rehearse, and ultimately perform their group Readers Theater scripts for their class and/or school or community members.

Material Type: Module

Picture This: Combining Infographics and Argumentative Writing

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OVERVIEW Students need to practice all types of writing, and oftentimes argumentative writing is ignored in favor of persuasive writing. In fact, students may not even understand there is a difference between these two types of writing. In this lesson, students examine the differences between argumentative writing and persuasive writing. After choosing topics that interest them, students conduct research which becomes the foundation for their argumentative essays.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Reading and Writing Arguments

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In this lesson, students read informational pieces about whether or not schools should teach cursive writing. They will evaluate the arguments presented and then choose a side of the issue. Finally, they will write their own arguments expressing their points of view.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

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