Analyze Development of Theme: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 | EL Education Curriculum

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ELA 2019 G7:M1:U1:L10

Analyze Development of Theme: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7

In this Lesson

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Focus Standards: These are the standards the instruction addresses.

  • RL.7.2, L.7.2a

Supporting Standards: These are the standards that are incidental—no direct instruction in this lesson, but practice of these standards occurs as a result of addressing the focus standards.

  • RL.7.1, RL.7.10, SL.7.1, L.7.6
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Daily Learning Targets

  • I can identify how themes in A Long Walk to Water have developed in chapter 7. (RL.7.2)
  • I can write an objective summary of chapter 7 of A Long Walk to Water. (RL.7.2)

Ongoing Assessment

  • Opening A: Entrance Ticket: Unit 1, Lesson 10 (L.7.2a)
  • Work Time A: Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 note-catcher (RL.7.2)
  • Work Time B and C: Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 (RL.7.1, RL.7.2)

Agenda

AgendaTeaching Notes

1. Opening

A. Engage the Learner - L.7.2a (5 minutes)

2. Work Time

A. Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 - RL.7.2 (10 minutes)

B. Analyze Themes: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 - RL.7.2 (15 minutes)

C. Write a Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 - RL.7.2 (10 minutes)

3. Closing and Assessment

A. Pair Share: Summaries (5 minutes)

4. Homework

A. Answer Questions: Students complete Homework: Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7.

B. Preread Anchor Text: Students should preread chapter 8 of A Long Walk to Water in preparation for studying the chapter in the next lesson.

Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

  • Repeated routines occur in the following:
    • L.7.2a – Opening A: Entrance ticket activity focuses on the use of punctuation (commas, parentheses, and dashes) to set off nonrestrictive and parenthetical elements.
    • Opening A: Students review learning targets.
  • New skills are introduced in the following:
    • RL.7.2 – Work Time A: Students analyze the expression of themes which recur throughout the novel by examining the author’s use of language in greater detail through a Language Dive.
    • RL.7.2 – Work Time B: Students analyze the development of a theme in chapter 7.
    • RL.7.2 – Work Time C: Students write a summary of chapter 7.
  • The Think-Pair-Share protocol is used in this lesson. 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. A protocol consists of agreed-upon, detailed guidelines for reading, recording, discussing, or reporting that ensure equal participation and accountability in learning.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

  • In Work Time A, allow students the opportunity to share work with partners and give and receive feedback before convening as a whole group. In Work Time B, students can also generate their own text-dependent questions to help guide discussion in their groups.
  • In Work Time B, invite students to track the development of other themes evident in chapter 7. (RL.7.2)

How It Builds on Previous Work

  • In the previous lesson, students began discussing theme in A Long Walk to Water as well as identifying the elements of an effective summary. In this lesson, students have the opportunity to expand their discussion of theme and write and share their summaries of chapter 7.

Support All Students

  • Students may need additional support during the Language Dive. If so, create groups of students with different strengths, and provide sentence frames to help them get started. For answering the text-dependent questions, create pairs or partners according to student strengths, and work with those students who may need greater support. ▲
  • The subject matter in this chapter includes severe illness of a child, wild animal attacks, and war. Continue to monitor students to determine if there are issues surfacing as a result of the content of this chapter that need to be discussed as a whole group, in smaller groups, or individually.
  • Pair students strategically for Work Time B.
  • Note there is a differentiated version of Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 used in Work Time B in the supporting materials download. ▲

Assessment Guidance

  • Listen and engage with students during the Language Dive activity to ensure that students are completing the activity effectively.
  • In Work Times B and C, circulate to support students as they complete their note-catcher and write their summaries. Collect completed handouts to review after the lesson to identify common issues with RL.7.2 to use as teaching points in the next lesson.

Down the Road

  • In the next lesson, students will build on their work analyzing themes in this lesson as they analyze chapter 8 of A Long Walk to Water for theme and practice writing a summary. This work builds toward an end of unit assessment in which students analyze the development of the theme in chapter 9 of A Long Walk to Water.

In Advance

  • Prepare strategic pairing for Work Time A with at least one strong reader per pair.
  • Ensure there is a copy of Entrance Ticket: Unit 1, Lesson 10 at each student's workspace.
  • Review Language Dive Guide: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44.
  • Post the learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

  • Work Time C: Word-processor program and device for writing summaries
  • Closing and Assessment A: Word-processing program and device for giving feedback

Supporting English Language Learners

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standard 7.I.B.6.

Important Points in the Lesson Itself

  • To support ELLs, this lesson provides opportunities to do a Language Dive and deepens students' understanding of theme in literary text and the processes of writing summaries.
  • ELLs may find the distinction between themes and summaries emphasized in this lesson challenging if they have not been exposed to these terms. The opportunity for modelling this distinction with a simple, well-known story, such as the one used in the previous lesson, should be useful.

Vocabulary

  • objective, subjective (A)
  • See previous lesson for domain-specific vocabulary (same chapter discussed).

Key

(A): Academic Vocabulary

(DS): Domain-Specific Vocabulary

Materials from Previous Lessons

Teacher

Student

  • Academic word wall (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening A)
  • Domain-specific word wall (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time B)
  • Criteria of an Effective Literary Summary anchor chart (one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 9, Closing and Assessment A)
  • Vocabulary log (one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening A)
  • A Long Walk to Water (text; one per student; from Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time C)
  • Common Themes in Literature handout (one per student and one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 9, Work Time B)
  • Model Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 6 (one per student and one for display; from Unit 1, Lesson 9, Closing and Assessment A)
  • Online or print dictionaries (including ELL and home language dictionaries; one per each small group of students)

New Materials

Teacher

Student

  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 1, Lesson 10 (answers for teacher reference)
  • Language Dive Guide: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 (for teacher reference) 
  • Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 note-catcher (for teacher reference)
  • Red and blue markers
  • Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 (example for teacher reference)
  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 1, Lesson 10 (one per student)
  • Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 note-catcher (one per student and one to display)
  • Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 sentence chunk strips (one per pair of students)
  • Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 (one per student and one to display)
  • Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 ▲
  • Homework: Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 (one per student; in unit download)

Assessment

Each unit in the 6-8 Language Arts Curriculum has two standards-based assessments built in, one mid-unit assessment and one end of unit assessment. The module concludes with a performance task at the end of Unit 3 to synthesize students' understanding of what they accomplished through supported, standards-based writing.

Opening

Opening

A. Engage the Learner - L.7.2a (5 minutes)

  • Repeated routine: students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 1, Lesson 10.
  • Repeated routine: follow the same routine as with the previous lessons to review learning targets and the purpose of the lesson, reminding students of any learning targets that are similar or the same as in previous lessons.
  • With students, deconstruct the word objective (not influenced by personal feelings; factual). Ask if students are familiar with the term subjective and how these two words might be related. (Subjective has to do with the personal, or first-person, whereas objective has to do with objects, or the outside world.) Add objective and subjective to the academic word wall with translations in home languages where appropriate, and invite students to add the words to their vocabulary logs.
  • Focus students on the entrance ticket question. Use a total participation technique to select a student to add the correct punctuation to the sentence and to explain why the sentence needs that punctuation: 

"He clung to Uncle like a baby or a little boy, hanging on to hand or shirttail whenever he could, never letting Uncle get farther than an arm's length away."

  • Briefly review how the phrase between the two commas could be taken out and the meaning of the sentence would remain the same. The phrase between the commas adds a description of how Salva clung to his uncle.

Work Time

Work TimeLevels of Support

A. Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 - RL.7.2 (10 minutes)

  • Review the appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

"I can identify how themes in A Long Walk to Water have developed in chapter 7."

  • Tell students they will now participate in a Language Dive to improve their abilities to read closely, break down sentences, and learn new vocabulary words. Explain to students that the Language Dive allows them to analyze, understand, and use the language of academic sentences, which can sometimes seem difficult to understand but become clearer with practice.
  • Ask students to retrieve their copies of A Long Walk to Water and turn to page 44. Reread the first paragraph as they follow along.
  • Focus students on the sentence:

"Every time Salva delivered a load of reeds, he would pause for a few moments to admire the skills of the boat builders."

  • Distribute the Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 note-catcher and Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 sentence chunk strips. Guide students through the Language Dive Guide: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 (for teacher reference). Refer to the guide for how to implement the Language Dive and note-catcher and the Language Dive: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 note-catcher (for teacher reference) for possible student responses. Remind students that the Language Dive allows them to analyze, understand, and use the language of academic sentences, which can sometimes seem difficult to understand but become clearer with practice.
  • Use the Language Dive Guide: A Long Walk to Water, Page 44 to facilitate the conversation with questions about specific meaning and language structures.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.

For Lighter Support

  • During the Language Dive in Work Time A, practice the structures, extending them with additional connecting or modifying structures. For example, in the Practice Focus Structure section, where students work with the sentence frame "I admire the skills of _____," have them initially complete the sentence with the name of a character or a group of characters in A Long Walk to Water (e.g., Nya, the Jur-chol people whom Salva meets). Then ask them to add a reason to the end of their sentence with the addition of the conjunction because (e.g., "I admire the skills of the Jur-chol people because they know how to find honey."). Extending a clause with a conjunction is useful to ELLs because it shows them how to build and extend the meaning of their ideas in English by linking clauses with particular conjunctions.

For Heavier Support

  • During the Language Dive in Work Time A, students deconstruct by responding to questions about the gist of the sentence and chunks, assisted by visuals, acting out, sketching, and sentence frames.

B. Analyze Themes: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 – RL.7.2 (15 minutes)

  • Review the appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

“I can identify how themes in A Long Walk to Water have developed in chapter 7.”

  • Remind students that in the previous lesson, they discussed theme (the message of the story, a lesson or truth that can apply to the story itself and to the world outside of the book). They also examined a model summary and identified criteria to add to the Criteria of an Effective Literary Summary anchor chart.
  • Remind students that when something develops, it builds over time, and to see how a theme develops, it’s important to track the theme across the novel to see how it builds from chapter to chapter.
  • Invite students to retrieve their Common Themes in Literature handout and to remind themselves of the themes they marked or added.
  • Invite students to work in pairs to identify a theme they saw in chapter 7. They can briefly reread the chapter if necessary.
  • Display and distribute Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 and Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 ▲ as necessary for students who need extra support. The differentiated note-catcher supports students’ analysis with sentence starters. ▲ Read the directions for Part I and review the note-catcher with students to make sure they understand how and why they are completing it.
  • Think-Pair-Share:

“What are you going to record in the first column? How does that information connect to the information in the second column? How do the rows relate to each other?” (Possible response: I will record evidence of a theme in the first column. Then in the second column, I will explain how the evidence shows the theme and how the theme has changed from the evidence in the row before.)

  • Then invite students to work in pairs to choose one of the themes in chapter 7 of which they have seen evidence in multiple chapters of the novel.
  • Invite students to identify evidence of their chosen theme in the novel so far, including chapter 7, recording the evidence in the first column on their note-catcher. Tell students to ignore the second column for now.
  • After 10 minutes, refocus the whole group. Invite students to read the column header of the second column: How has the author developed the theme from the last time it was evident? How has the way the theme has been conveyed changed from the last example?
  • Invite students to work in pairs to complete the second column of their note-catcher, thinking about how the author has developed the theme by conveying it differently from chapter to chapter. Emphasize that this analysis is new, so students should try their best for now.
  • After 5 minutes, refocus the whole group. Use total participation techniques to select students to share their theme and their thinking about how the author has developed that theme with the whole group. Refer to Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 (example for teacher reference) for an example of what to listen for. If students are far off course, use the example provided as a think-aloud, and invite students to go back to their second column and try again based on their new learning.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.
  • N/A

C. Write a Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7 - RL.7.2 (10 minutes)

  • Review the appropriate learning target relevant to the work to be completed in this section of the lesson:

"I can write an objective summary of chapter 7 of A Long Walk to Water."

  • Focus students on the final question of the handout Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7, and invite them to retrieve and refer to the Model Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 6 to briefly review against the criteria on the Criteria of an Effective Literary Summary anchor chart.
  • Invite students in their pairs to label themselves A and B. Set a 30-second timer. Tell students that each student will orally summarize chapter 7 in no more than 30 seconds to their partner, with B going first. Repeat with partner A.
  • Remind students as they write their summaries, where appropriate, to use punctuation (commas, parentheses, dashes) to set off nonrestrictive and parenthetical elements. Remind students also of the link between theme and summary.
  • Circulate to support students as they write their summaries, and identify common issues to use as teaching points for the whole group.
  • Repeated routine: invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.
  • N/A

Closing & Assessments

Closing

A. Pair Share: Summaries (5 minutes)

  • Invite students to share their summaries with a new partner and to provide feedback to their new partner using the criteria on the Criteria of an Effective Literary Summary anchor chart. For example, "I notice that you state the theme in your summary, but I'm not sure there is a brief overview of what happens in the chapter."

Homework

Homework

A. Answer Questions 

  • Students complete Homework: Themes and Summary: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 7.

B. Preread Anchor Text

  • Students should preread chapter 8 of A Long Walk to Water in preparation for studying the chapter in the next lesson.

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