Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: “David’s Old Soul” | EL Education Curriculum

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Focus Standards: These are the standards the instruction addresses.

  • RL.7.2, RL.7.4, RL.7.5

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.

  • L.7.4

Daily Learning Targets

  • I can analyze how the structure of "David's Old Soul" contributes to its meaning. (RL.7.4, RL.7.5)
  • I can determine the meaning of figurative language in "David's Old Soul." (RL.7.4) 
  • I can determine a theme and trace its development over the course of "David's Old Soul." (RL.7.2)

Ongoing Assessment

  • Opening A: Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 4 (RL.7.4)
  • Work Time A: Analyze Poetry note-catcher (RL.7.2, RL.7.4, RL.7.5, L.7.5)
  • Closing and Assessment A: Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: "David's Old Soul"  (RL.7.2, RL.7.4, RL.7.5, L.7.4)

Agenda

AgendaTeaching Notes

1. Opening

A. Engage the Learner - RL.7.4 (5 minutes)

2. Work Time

A. Read and Analyze "David's Old Soul" - RL.7.5 (25 minutes)

3. Closing and Assessment

A. Practice Synthesis Questions - RL.7.2, RL.7.4, RL.7.5 (15 minutes)

4. Homework

A. Respond to Poetry: To deepen their understanding and connection to the poetry read today and in preparation for their performance task, students choose a new line from a Harlem Renaissance poem and use it to create a poem, illustration, dance, song, or a personal reflection paragraph.

B. Independent Research Reading: Students read for at least 20 minutes in their independent research reading text. Then they select a prompt and write a response in their independent reading journal.

Alignment to Assessment Standards and Purpose of Lesson

  • RL.7.4 – Opening A: On an entrance ticket, students read a mystery quote from the poem they will read in today’s lesson and respond with their thoughts and how it relates to work they’ve read previously.
  • RL.7.5 – Work Time A: Students read and analyze “David’s Old Soul,” focusing on how the structure and figurative language of the poem develops its meaning.
  • RL.7.2 – Closing and Assessment A: Students determine a theme and trace its development over the course of “David’s Old Soul.
  • RL.7.4 – Closing and Assessment A: Students analyze how language contributes to the meaning in “David’s Old Soul.” 
  • RL.7.5 – Closing and Assessment A: Students work independently to answer selected and constructed response questions to analyze the structure in “David’s Old Soul.”
  • In this lesson, students focus on becoming effective learners by reading and answering questions independently in preparation for the mid-unit assessment.
  • 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 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 poem “David’s Old Soul,” read in this lesson, the speaker demonstrates perseverance and initiative as he finds the inner strength to support his younger siblings.

Opportunities to Extend Learning

  • Release more responsibility more quickly to students as they comprehend the tasks or concepts. For example: 
    • Allow those students who are identifying the gists of the stanzas and other elements quickly the opportunity to identify figurative language in the text and share out examples during Work Time A.
    • Allow those students who are answering the synthesis questions more quickly to move on to creating responses to the poem they read in class today.

How It Builds on Previous Work

  • In previous lessons, students have focused on reading and analyzing poems from One Last Word as a class and in small groups. Students continue that work in this lesson by reading and analyzing “David’s Old Soul” individually.

Support All Students

  • Group together those students who may have difficulty understanding the poem, and offer more readings for comprehension, as well as support finding the gist or basic meaning of the words. ▲
  • Students may need additional support identifying and interpreting figurative language. Remind students of the work they did in the Units 1 and 2, interpreting language that was made to stand in for or convey another idea. Guide small groups or partners who are struggling to identify and analyze this language. ▲
  • The subject matter in this poem includes mention of an absent father. Continue to monitor students to determine if issues surface from the content of this chapter that need to be discussed as a whole group, in smaller groups, or individually. To support students in processing this content, ask: “What habit of character did you use as you read and discussed this poem?” Students may need to draw on perseverance, empathy, and compassion as they read and discuss this content, being sensitive to their own and others’ reactions to the information presented.
  • Note that there is a differentiated version of the Analyze Poetry note-catcher used in Work Time A in the separate Teacher's Guide for English Language Learners. Note that the blank differentiated note-catcher is provided in Lesson 2. ▲

Assessment Guidance

  • Review students’ Analyze Poetry note-catchers to ensure that students understand how the author structures the text and uses figurative language to develop themes.

Down the Road

  • In the next lesson, students will demonstrate their skills in analyzing poetry during the mid-unit assessment.

In Advance

  • Ensure there is a copy of Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 4 at each student's workspace.
  • Post the learning targets and applicable anchor charts (see Materials list).

Tech and Multimedia

  • Continue to use the technology tools recommended throughout previous modules to create anchor charts to share with families; to record students as they participate in discussions and protocols to review with students later and to share with families; and for students to listen to and annotate text, record ideas on note-catchers, and word-process writing.

Supporting English Language Learners

Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standards 7.I.A.1, 7.I.B.5, 7.I.B.6, 7.I.B.8, 7.I.C.10, 7.I.C.12, and 7.II.A.1.

Important Points in the Lesson Itself

  • To support ELLs, this lesson includes a whole-class review of the independent analysis that students will conduct of the structure, figurative language, and themes in the poem "David's Old Soul" by Nikki Grimes.
  • ELLs may find it challenging to gradually release from the class and small group analysis to independent analysis. Assure students that they will have a chance to review their responses as a class. As necessary, build in time for students to review their responses with a partner before the class review to give students more confidence with their responses and more practice with speaking skills.

Vocabulary

  • N/A

Materials from Previous Lessons

Teacher

Student

  • Academic word wall (one for display; from Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 1, Work Time A)
  • Harlem Renaissance Themes anchor chart (one for display; from Module 3, Unit 1, Lesson 3, Closing and Assessment A)
  • One Last Word by Nikki Grimes (text; one per student; from Module 3, Unit 1, Lesson 1, Closing and Assessment A)
  • Vocabulary log (one per student; from Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 2, Opening A)
  • Independent reading journal (one per student; begun in Module 1, Unit 1, Lesson 6, Work Time B)
  • Analyze Poetry note-catcher ▲ (from Module 3, Unit 3, Lesson 2, Work Time A)

New Materials

Teacher

Student

  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 4 (example for teacher reference)
  • Analyze Poetry: "David's Old Soul" note-catcher (example for teacher reference) 
  • Harlem Renaissance Themes anchor chart (example for teacher reference)
  • Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: "David's Old Soul" (answers for teacher reference)
  • Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 4 (one per student)
  • Analyze Poetry: "David's Old Soul" note-catcher (one per student)
  • Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: "David's Old Soul" (one per student)

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

OpeningLevels of Support

A. Engage the Learner - RL.7.4 (5 minutes)

  • Repeated routine: Students respond to questions on Entrance Ticket: Unit 3, Lesson 4.
  • Once students have completed their entrance tickets, invite several volunteers to share their responses.
  • 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.

For Lighter Support

  • To promote independence on the entrance ticket, challenge students to record their responses first and then as necessary share them with a partner. Grappling first will increase students' confidence and success on independent tasks such as assessments.

For Heavier Support

  • To promote independence on the, challenge students to use the words in the questions to form sentence frames to answer the questions. Then they can answer them independently. As necessary, students can then share their frames and responses with a partner. Grappling first will increase students' confidence and success on independent tasks such as assessments.

Work Time

Work TimeLevels of Support

A. Read and Analyze “David’s Old Soul” – RL.7.5 (25 minutes)

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

“I can analyze how the structure of ‘David’s Old Soul’ contributes to its meaning.”

  • Inform students that in this lesson they will look at another poem pairing in their anchor text, One Last Word, and analyze Grimes’ poem in detail. First, they will read the poem that Grimes draws her line from for the Golden Shovel technique. Next, they will read the new poem she writes. Ask students to retrieve their anchor texts One Last Word and open to the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes.
  • Read “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” aloud for students. Ask for student volunteers to recall the themes they discussed for this poem. (Black people have a long, rich history that continues into the present. Black people are connected to a rich history and draw strength and wisdom from it.) If necessary, display the Harlem Renaissance Themes anchor chart.
  • Remind students that they will read the new poem several times through before analyzing it. Ask students to turn to “David’s Old Soul” in their anchor texts. Read aloud the poem, asking students to close their eyes and listen. Read the poem aloud a second time, asking students to follow along. Finally, read the poem aloud chorally as a class.
  • Distribute copies of the Analyze Poetry: “David’s Old Soul” note-catcher and Analyze Poetry note-catcher ▲ as necessary. The differentiated note-catcher supports students in writing about structure, figurative language, and themes with sentence starters. ▲ Note that it is the same note-catcher they have used throughout the module to analyze poetry. Review the different sections as necessary.
  • Invite students to Turn and Talk with a partner.

“Who is the speaker in this poem, and what is he talking about?” (The speaker is a boy or a young man named David discussing the responsibilities he has in his family.)

“How is the poem organized—in stanzas, rhyming couplets, etc.?” (The poem is organized into one stanza. It uses the Golden Shovel technique to take one line from the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and use the words from that line to end each line of the new poem.)

  • Point out to students that unlike the poems they’ve read previously, it is possible to infer the name of the speaker from the title. Ask:

“What phrase from the title and the poem help us infer the speaker of the poem?” (Both the title and the body of the poem have the phrase “old soul.” And since the title of the poem says that the old soul belongs to David, we can infer that the speaker’s name is David.)

  • Tell students that because this poem is much shorter than the last one they studied, they will write the gist of every few lines. Use a total participation technique to determine the gist of each part of the poem. Model how to follow the poet’s use of periods when determining the gist. For example, to analyze lines 3–4, explain that it is okay to include the completion of the thought in line five: “into a man.”
    • 1–2: David’s mother calls him an “old soul”
    • 3–4: understands now that he is a man
    • 5–6: listens to the whisper in his ear to “dig deep”
    • 7–8: tries to support his “baby brothers”
  • Inform students that in preparation for the mid-unit assessment in the following lesson, they will now work independently to use their Analyze Poetry note-catchers to look more closely at how the stanza is structured and how the poet uses figurative language to develop ideas within it.
  • Invite students to work individually to fill out the “Structure,” “Language,” and “Theme” boxes of their note-catchers. Circulate and support students as necessary.
  • Once students complete their independent analysis, lead students in a whole-class discussion of the structure, language, and themes they identified, using the questions below to guide student thinking. See Analyze Poetry: “David’s Old Soul” note-catcher (example for teacher reference).

“How is this poem structured? How does the use of the Golden Shovel technique add to the poem’s meaning?” (The poem is structured in one stanza with each line ending with a word borrowed from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Grimes structures the poem using the Golden Shovel technique while also conveying a similar message to the words she has selected from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The speaker comes to a greater understanding of what it means to have a soul that is “deep like the rivers,” to be an old soul.) See Analyze Poetry: “David’s Old Soul” note-catcher (example for teacher reference).

“What are some instances of figurative language you see in the poem? How do they help develop ideas in the poem?” (“Tree my baby brothers can lean on” (7): shows how he provides strength for others. “Raft that helps carry them” (8): shows how he carries his siblings through difficult times.) See Analyze Poetry: “David’s Old Soul” note-catcher  (example for teacher reference).

“What is a theme in the poem? How does the author develop it?” (“David’s Old Soul” develops the theme that we can find deep strength within ourselves to help others. The writer structures the poem using a line from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes. In that poem, Hughes connects the speaker’s history to the history of all black people and how it is possible to draw strength from the past. For David, the speaker of “David’s Old Soul,” strength is found deep within himself. He is told that he has an “old soul” (2). He learns what that means by looking inside himself and learning to be strong. The author uses figurative language such as comparing David to a “tree my baby brothers can lean on” (7) to show how he uses this strength in himself to help others. Like the speaker in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” David’s soul has “grown deep like the rivers,” so he can help others.) See Analyze Poetry: “David’s Old Soul” note-catcher (example for teacher reference).

“What is the connection to ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’?” (The poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” develops the theme that people can draw strength from their past. The poem “David’s Old Soul” takes the idea of finding strength in the past and applies it to a personal situation. The speaker in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” was showing the rich history and strength of black people. In “David’s Old Soul,” the speaker finds strength “deep” within himself to help others. From Hughes’ poem, Grimes uses the line “my soul has grown deep like the rivers.” This line shows how people can be connected to something deep within them and to the past. It seems that David has found the strength within himself. That strength might also come from the people before him.) See Analyze Poetry: “David’s Old Soul” note-catcher (example for teacher reference).

  • Invite students to work independently to finish filling out their note-catchers, including the synthesis paragraphs and connections to other works. Allow several minutes for volunteers to share their responses. Record responses on the board or a displayed copy of the note-catcher to support students with specific language structures and a visual record of the responses. ▲
  • Ask students to Think-Pair-Share:

“What habits of character did you see in this poem? Who demonstrated them? What did they look/sound like?” (Responses will vary, but may include: The speaker of the poem demonstrates perseverance and initiative as he finds the inner strength to support his younger siblings.)

  • Repeated routine: Invite students to reflect on their progress toward the relevant learning target.

For Lighter Support

  • In Work Time A, circulate and note whether students need more support in completing the note-catcher. If so, allow them several minutes to share, correct, or solidify their responses with a partner before the whole class share.

For Heavier Support

  • Before Work Time A, consider whether students need to use the Analyze Poetry note-catcher that was distributed in Unit 3, Lesson 2. This resource includes sentence frames that support students in comprehension and writing about the structure, language, and themes in the poems. If students do not need the scaffold, remove it to promote independence and ensure success on the assessment.
  • In Work Time A, circulate and note whether students need more support in completing the note-catcher. If so, allow them several minutes to share, correct, or solidify their responses with a partner before the whole class share.

Closing & Assessments

ClosingLevels of Support

A. Practice Synthesis Questions - RL.7.2, RL.7.4, RL.7.5 (15 minutes)

  • Distribute the Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: "David's Old Soul" and explain that these are the kinds of questions student will answer on the assessment in the following lesson. Ask students to answer the questions independently. Circulate to support students as necessary, using the Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: "David's Old Soul" (answers for teacher reference).
  • Several minutes before the end of class, use total participation techniques to review student responses. Consult the Analyze Structure, Language, and Theme: "David's Old Soul" (answers for teacher reference) as necessary.
  • Invite students to reflect on the habits of character focus in this lesson, discussing what went well and what could be improved next time.

For Lighter Support

  • To promote independence on the selected and constructed response questions, challenge students to record their responses first and then as necessary share them with a partner. Grappling first will increase students' confidence and success on independent tasks such as assessments.
  • At the end of the lesson, collect students' note-catchers and responses to questions to review them as a formative assessment to ensure that students are ready for the mid-unit assessment in the following lesson. If not, consider spending another lesson on analyzing the structure, figurative language, and themes of "David's Old Soul."

For Heavier Support

  • At the end of the lesson, collect students' note-catchers and responses to questions to review them as a formative assessment to ensure that students are ready for the mid-unit assessment in the following lesson. If not, consider spending another lesson on analyzing the structure, figurative language, and themes of "David's Old Soul."

Homework

HomeworkLevels of Support

A. Respond to Poetry

  • To deepen their understanding and connection to the poetry read today and in preparation for their performance task, students choose a new line from a Harlem Renaissance poem and use it to create a poem, illustration, dance, song, or a personal reflection paragraph.

B. Independent Research Reading

  • Students read for at least 20 minutes in their independent research reading text. Then they select a prompt and write a response in their independent reading journal.

For Lighter Support

  • Before students leave class, encourage them to share how they plan to respond to their reading and analysis of Harlem Renaissance poetry, especially based on their experience of the previous lessons' homework. Prompt students' planning with questions such as
    • Do you want to try a new form or continue with the form you have been working on? Why? How will you relate their poem, illustration, dance, song, or a personal reflection paragraph to the poems read in this lesson? 
  • The choice and asset-based nature of this homework assignment will increase students' engagement with the Harlem Renaissance themes and topics. 
  • In the next lesson, students will participate in a Language Dive using a sentence from Nikki Grimes' poem "The Sculptor." Provide ELLs with the Language Dive sentence ahead of time. Invite students to predict some of the questions that the Language Dive may ask. This will improve students' metacognition and challenge their awareness of the most interesting or meaningful elements of the sentence.

For Heavier Support

  • Before students leave class, encourage them to share how they plan to respond to their reading and analysis of Harlem Renaissance poetry, especially based on their experience of the previous lessons' homework. Prompt students' planning with questions such as
    • Do you want to try a new form or continue with the form you have been working on? Why? How will you relate their poem, illustration, dance, song, or a personal reflection paragraph to the poems read in this lesson? 
  • The choice and asset-based nature of this homework assignment will increase students' engagement with the Harlem Renaissance themes and topics. 
  • In the next lesson, students will participate in a Language Dive using a sentence from Nikki Grimes' poem "The Sculptor." Provide ELLs with the Language Dive sentence ahead of time. Encourage students to independently reflect on this sentence and its meaning before the next lesson. Students may also wish to use dictionaries to add any unknown vocabulary and meanings to their vocabulary logs.

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