Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

• Repeated routines occur in the following:
• Opening A: Entrance ticket activity invites students to determine the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary.
• Opening A: Students review learning targets.
• Work Time A: Students read the next chapter of the text, noting unfamiliar vocabulary and the gist of the chapter.
• New skills are introduced in the following:
• RL.7.2 – Work Time B: Students identify themes in A Long Walk to Water. Students define theme and identify and discuss the ones present in the novel as well as how they are developed. In these lessons, theme is defined as “the message or main idea relevant to the real world that the author wants the reader to take away from reading the literary text.” In other words, theme is a statement about life, not a one-word topic nor the central idea of a passage. However, theme is often related to central idea. For example, if the central idea is collaboration, then the theme might be “Through collaboration, people can survive adversity.”
• RL.7.2 – Closing and Assessment A: Students analyze a model summary. Students continue working with the chapter they’ve read in class to analyze a model summary and brainstorm the components of effective summaries, noting how summaries begin with the central idea, use concise details to explain it, and end with theme (if possible).
• 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, Nya’s family works together to decide how best to help her sick sister, showing collaboration and its effectiveness for solving problems. The group that Salva and his uncle are traveling with also demonstrate the effectiveness of collaboration when they work together to build boats to cross the Nile.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

• Encourage those students identifying themes with ease in Work Time B to begin discussion of how they are developed. Also, students can begin experimenting with connecting theme to other elements of the story that help to develop themes, such as character and setting. (RL.7.2)
• In Closing and Assessment A, invite students to write a summary of chapter 6 without analyzing a model and then to revise their first attempt after analyzing the model and generating criteria. (RL.7.2)

How It Builds on Previous Work

• Now that students have read seven chapters of A Long Walk to Water, this lesson gives them the opportunity to begin discussing theme as it is developed over the course of the text. Students have already done focused work on characters, setting, and point of view, which are all elements an author uses to develop theme. With the addition of theme into the discussion, students have another, more panoramic, lens through which to analyze the book effectively.

Support All Students

• 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 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.
• In Work Time B, students may need additional support in identifying what a theme is in the abstract. Depending on students’ needs, the theme discussion can begin with a shorter piece of text rather than the book in general so students who do not have as firm a grasp on the events of the book overall can more productively engage with the discussion. If the discussion of the text as a whole is not fruitful, use a text excerpt to determine theme. For example, the final few pages (42–44) of chapter 7 exemplify the necessity of everyone relying on one another to survive. Ask students to volunteer familiar stories in order to discuss what a theme is in more concrete terms. ▲
• Note there is a differentiated version of Common Themes in Literature handout used in Work Time B in the supporting materials download. ▲
• If students need additional support understanding the concept of theme, find a video online that illustrates and explains theme.
• Use sentence frames for those students who need support in discussing theme and analyzing a model summary in Work Time B and Closing and Assessment A. ▲

Assessment Guidance

• Monitor student progress as they note their vocabulary and record the gist for the chapter. Circulate to ensure that students are using the Common Themes in Literature handout effectively.

Down the Road

• In the next lesson, students will return to chapter 7 of A Long Walk to Water for a more in-depth analysis of the language and theme in the chapter. Students will answer text-dependent questions related to the themes in the chapter and write their own summaries of the chapter as well. Students will continue to build on these skills throughout the unit in preparation for the end of unit assessment.