Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• Repeated routines occur in the following:
• Opening A: Students review learning targets.
• Work Time A: Students read the next chapter, noting unfamiliar vocabulary and the gist of the chapter.
• New skills are introduced in the following:
• L.7.4 – Opening A: Entrance ticket activity is to practice determining the meanings of words in context and to check their ideas in a dictionary.
• RL.7.3 – Work Time B: Students analyze how setting shapes character and plot as they answer text-dependent questions.
• RL.7.6 – Work Time B: Students analyze how the author develops and contrasts Nya’s and Salva’s points of view as they answer text-dependent questions and write a QuickWrite. This releases students to work more independently in preparation for the mid-unit assessment in the next lesson.
• 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.
• In the chapter of A Long Walk to Water read in this lesson, Marial shows he understands Salva’s loneliness and need to find his family, demonstrating empathy.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• Release more responsibility more quickly to students as they comprehend the tasks or concepts. For example, during Work Time B, release some students to read the chapter independently and record a gist and take notes about setting, character, plot, and point of view in their reading notebooks. These students may also begin to answer the text-dependent questions if they have enough time after finishing the reading and taking notes.
• Invite students to analyze other points of view in the chapter—for example, Marial’s—and to compare them to Salva’s point of view. (RL.7.6)

How It Builds on Previous Work

• In the previous lesson, students read chapter 4 of A Long Walk to Water and noted vocabulary and the gist of the chapter. They also launched independent research reading, which grows their background knowledge about the setting and historical events surrounding the characters in A Long Walk to Water. In this lesson, students continue reading and analyzing the novel. Students also continue their independent research reading for homework.

Support All Students

• Students may need additional support with vocabulary acquisition throughout the lesson. Provide ELL and home language online or print dictionaries to support students throughout the lesson. Students may also need support revising sentences in Work Time A. Provide models and guided practice along with gradual release to small group or partner work to support students. Also, students who need support with writing may need to use dictation software or a word processor throughout the lesson. 
• At this point, students should be reading the text independently. However, if some or all students need more support, read several pages aloud and then release students to read independently, in pairs, or in small groups.
• The subject matter in this chapter includes war, separation from family, and the threat of wild animals. 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.
• Note there is a differentiated version of Text-Dependent Questions: A Long Walk to Water, Chapter 5 used in Work Time B in the supporting materials download. ▲

Assessment Guidance

• During and after the lesson, check students’ responses to text-dependent questions and QuickWrites to identify common issues to use as teaching points.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will complete their mid-unit assessment, focusing on using strategies to determine unfamiliar vocabulary and analyzing how setting shapes character and plot and how the author develops the points of view of different characters.