Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• RI.6.3 – Opening A: Students complete an entrance ticket in which they reflect on how the narrator of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William, is introduced in the prologue.
• RI.6.1 – Work Time B: Students fill in a note-catcher, using evidence from the text to support their ideas about William’s character.
• RI.6.3 – Work Time B: Students use a note-catcher to analyze the methods used in chapter 1 to introduce and develop the readers’ understanding of William.
• RI.6.3 – Work Time C: Students use a note-catcher to analyze the methods used in the TED Talk to introduce and develop the readers’ understanding of William.
• In this lesson, the directions for routines that are repeated from previous lessons have been pared down and noted with “Repeated routine.” For the detailed outline of how to facilitate this part of the lesson, please refer back to previous lessons.
• The lesson begins with students reflecting on the module guiding questions. This is not mandatory—students share their reflections only if they want to do so. The main point students should understand by the end of this module is that the design process thinking is a scientific and systematic practice of inquiry that allows for creativity and innovation; students can harness that creativity and innovation to contribute to a better world by helping their school, community, and the environment.
• In this lesson, students engage in a protocol. A protocol consists of agreed-upon, detailed guidelines for reading, recording, discussing, or reporting that ensure equal participation and accountability in learning. Protocols are an important feature of our curriculum because they are one of the best ways we know to engage students in discussion, inquiry, critical thinking, and sophisticated communication. Students engage in the following new protocol in this lesson (instructions for which appear at the first point of use in the lesson and in the Classroom Protocols document online; see the Tools page: http://eled.org/tools):
• Back-to-Back and Face-to-Face provides a method for sharing information and gaining multiple perspectives on a topic through partner interaction. It can be used for reviewing and sharing academic material, as a personal ice breaker, or as a means of engaging in critical thinking about a topic of debate.
• In this lesson, students focus on working to become ethical people by showing respect and empathy as they share reflections on the guiding questions in Opening A.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• Challenge students to create original sentences using their newly acquired vocabulary, while adding context clues to demonstrate their understanding of the definition. ▲
• While looking up definitions, draw students’ attention to the etymology of the vocabulary, noting especially those words that include a Greek root.
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind describes life in a small African village in Malawi. As students learn more about William’s community, it may be necessary to remind them that Africa is a vast, heterogeneous continent, and that not all of its countries and communities have the same struggles. Have students locate Malawi on a map of Africa. Then, pair students and assign each pair another African country or major city (e.g., Johannesburg, South Africa; Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). Ask students to find images of their given locale on Google images and then compare and contrast their images with those of other pairs. This activity may be especially affirming for ELLs or international students who come from Africa. ▲
• To extend learning, consider inviting students to analyze how other individuals referenced in chapter 1 are introduced.

How It Builds on Previous Work

• In the previous lesson, students were introduced to the module topic by looking at resources in the Infer the Topic protocol and discussing the module guiding questions. Students will continue their discussion of the guiding questions during during Opening A of this lesson.
• They will continue to build background knowledge on the module topic by watching William Kamkwamba’s first TED Talk. This will also reinforce their understanding of the prologue, which was read in the previous lesson. In this lesson, students continue in the anchor text, reading an excerpt from chapter 1 of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

Support All Students

• Note that there are differentiated versions of the entrance ticket used in Opening A and the Analyze Key Individual: William note-catcher used in Work Time B in the supporting materials download. ▲
• In Work Time A, students read an excerpt from the first chapter of the text. Note that although The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is generally sensitive to and affirming of cultural difference, there are occasional descriptions or allusions that may be upsetting to some students. In the first excerpt of chapter 1, characters in the text are said to feel sorry for the protagonist William because he has only sisters and no brothers. Comments that reference boys’ elevated status over girls are frequent throughout the text; this, when considered in conjunction with the fact that there are no main characters who are female, may feel exclusionary to female students. Be sensitive to this when teaching the novel and validate students’ concerns. Refer back to ideas about point of view that surfaced in Module 1; by assigning perspectives to the narrator or characters in the text, students can better distance themselves from potentially offensive attitudes presented in the text. Additionally, consider ways to amplify the voices of female characters (e.g., through a writing exercise in which scenes are rewritten through the perspective of William’s mother or sisters).
• Additionally in chapter 1, the local, non-Western medicine preferred by those in William’s community is conflated with the concept of “witch doctors.” Descriptions like these, present throughout the novel, may feel alienating to students from cultural environments where holistic or alternative medicinal approaches may be common. As a way to validate alternatives, consider facilitating a short discussion in which students brainstorm different kinds of medicinal or therapeutic options available when people get sick (e.g., a doctor’s visit, acupuncture, counseling, change in diet).
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind includes dialogue spoken in other languages, namely Chichewa, the language of William’s community. Recognizing and celebrating the inclusion of other languages in the text may be a good way to indirectly affirm the diverse linguistic identities of ELLs. ▲
• Extracting important ideas from information presented in various modes (e.g., a TED Talk, the first chapter of the anchor text) may pose a special challenge for ELLs, who might not have yet developed the language skills necessary to effectively shift attention across media. Encourage all students to simply enjoy the TED Talk without feeling compelled to understand every word or detail. Students’ cognitive energy should be saved for comprehending the first half of chapter 1, which introduces many important characters, including the protagonist, William. ▲
• Note that William Kamkwamba is featured in two TED Talks. Ensure that, for this lesson, students are focused on the first talk in which he is interviewed. At a strategic point in the module, view the second TED Talk with students. Compare and contrast how William is depicted in each; connect this discussion to the work around illustration and development of a key individual.

Assessment Guidance

• Refer students back to the Author’s Methods anchor chart to ensure that they are identifying a method listed there as a means of developing a key individual.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will read the second half of chapter 1 and continue analyzing how a key individual, William, is elaborated on in the text.
• Students also practice determining the central idea of a text using a “What?” and “So what?” visual strategy.