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Title of Unit Curriculum Area

Reading Comprehension Reading

Grade Level Time Frame

7 2 weeks

Identify Desired Results (Stage 1) Content Standards

Tennessee Content Standard: 1.0 The student will develop the reading and listening skills necessary for word recognition, comprehension, interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and appreciation of print and non-print text. AASL Standards: 2.1.1 Continue and inquiry-based research process by applying critical-thinking skills to information and knowledge in order to construct new understandings, draw conclusions, and create new knowledge. 2.1.3 Use strategies to draw conclusions from information and apply knowledge to curricular areas, real-world situations, and further investigations.

Understandings
Overarching Understanding Students will understand that They must use active comprehension strategies to make inferences, understand cause and effect, derive meaning while reading and check for understanding after reading. In order to understand print or non-print materials, they must be able to determine the main idea, make inferences and predictions, and come to conclusions based on the information. One can use context or foreshadowing to decipher the meanings of new words and to predict outcomes. The Big 6 can be used to identify, solve, synthesize, and evaluate a problem. Related Misconceptions -

Essential Questions
Overarching What is the Big 6 Strategy? How can pre-reading facilitate comprehension? What is the authors purpose for writing his or her selection? How does an author support his or her argument? How can a reader comprehend things that the author does not say outright? How do events in a reading passage relate to each other? How can a reader make predictions about what might happen in a work of writing? After you are done reading a work, what meanings or ideas can you Topical How can the Big 6 Strategy be used to find answers to questions? What is pre-reading? What is a main idea? What are details? How does one make inferences? How does one establish cause and effect in a reading sequence? What is foreshadowing and how can it be used to make predictions? Are there other ways besides foreshadowing that allow readers to make predictions? How can a reader draw

2 Students mix up topic and main idea Students confuse cause and effect Students apply their own life experience too much when answering questions about a text draw from it? conclusions and why is it important?

Knowledge
Students will know 1. How to use the Big 6 to define a problem and obtain the information needed. 2. What a main idea is and why it is important. 3. How to identify a main idea 4. The authors purpose for writing and the readers purpose for reading a selection. 5. That an author uses details to support his or her argument 6. They can use pre-reading to facilitate comprehension. 7. How to make predictions about the outcome of a given passage 8. How to make inferences about a passage 9. The relationship between cause and effect 10. That authors use foreshadowing to give the reader clues as to what will happen 11. Readers can make predictions about passages 12. How to formulate clarifying questions for use before, during, and after reading 13. How to decode unknown grade level words in context, using previously learned strategies or context clues. 14. How to draw conclusions about a reading passage

Skills
Students will be able to 1. Define and utilize the Big 6 Strategy 2. Employ pre-reading strategies to facilitate comprehension. 3. Read and listen to print and non-print texts and use their skills of word recognition, comprehension, interpretation, analysis, evaluation, to understand and appreciate print and non-print text. 4. Read to develop fluency, expression, accuracy, and confidence. 5. Use context or previously learned strategies to decode new words. 6. Use active comprehension strategies to derive meaning while reading and to check for understanding after reading. 7. Read independently for a variety of purposes. 8. Experience and explore the elements of various literary and media genres. and sustain a motivation for reading. 9. Formulate clarifying questions 10. Adjust predictions made while pre-reading based on information gained 11. Predict outcomes and draw conclusions based on prior knowledge and information gained while reading. 12. Make inferences and recognize unstated assumptions. 13. Recognize and state the main idea / central element in a given reading selection noting details that support the main idea / central element. 14. Identify the authors purpose and determine if it has been met. 15. Analyze cause and effect relationships. 16. Demonstrate an understanding of implied themes and identify themes that commonly recur in literature. 17. Reflect upon comprehension strategies utilized to make meaning from texts 18. Apply and analyze comprehension skills and strategies to informational text in the content areas.

Assessment Evidence (Stage 2)

Performance Tasks: Topic worksheet Main idea worksheet Identify a writing topic Reading Comprehension worksheet In-class collaborative essay Five paragraph essay Other Evidence: Exit ticket Before leaving each class, students will be asked a question and they have to write an answer before going on to their next class Teachers observations of student performance in class TCAP test results which will be returned late in the semester

Learning Plan (Stage 3)

Day 1: Students will be introduced to the objectives for the unit and day. -Along with the instructor, students will engage with an interactive PowerPoint that models the various themes of reading comprehension. The PowerPoint consists of an I do, you do, we do model. Day 2: Students will watch a Web 2.0 presentation called Paragraph Attack. -http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=209541 - Teacher will introduce the concept of the Big 6: Strategy. -Teacher will review the concepts of pre-reading and topic with students. -Students will complete a topic worksheet. Day 3: Teacher will review the concept of main idea with students. -Students will be given a main idea worksheet. -Students will be asked to think of a topic about which they could write a paper. Day 4: Teacher will review the concepts of supporting details, cause and effect, foreshadowing, predictions, inferences, and the conclusion. Day 5: Students will read a passage on a worksheet and identify: The authors purpose for writing, the topic, the main idea, supporting details, cause and effect, foreshadowing, predictions and inferences, and the conclusion. Day 6: Teacher will give a topic and the class will use the smart board to write an essay together using the various themes addressed in the unit using the Big 6 method. Day 7: Students will be assigned a five paragraph essay on a topic of their choosing in which they must include examples of the reading comprehension topics which were covered in class. They must use the Big 6 method. Students will spend the period in the library to research and write. Day 8: Library Day Day 9: Library Day Day 10: Students will share their papers with their classmates.

Unit Pathfinder:
http://7thgradepathfinder.weebly.com/

Reflection:

For my role as an instructional partner, I worked with a seventh grade Special Education teacher at Karns Middle School. She taught reading and I talked to her about areas of weakness that her students had with regards to information literacy on a standardized test. She said that most of her students were on about a third grade reading level and that made it difficult for them to comprehend concepts like topic, main idea, making inferences, cause and effect, and drawing conclusions. According to the Tennessee state standards for the seventh grade, these students should know how to read and identify these important components to comprehend the material and answer questions about it.

I met with the teacher several times and we also corresponded by e-mail. I first identified the state standards and pulled the pertinent ones out for my Understanding By Design Lesson Plan. I also searched for pertinent AASL Standards. I consulted with her about what they did not understand and misconceptions that they had. I then searched the internet for Web 2.0 applications, videos, and graphic organizers that we could use to effectively deliver and assess the lesson.

I decided to create a two week unit to give students sufficient time to learn the material, apply their knowledge, and be assessed to see if learning had taken place. The teacher and I delivered the first part of the lesson together. I showed a video from TeacherTube called "Paragraph Attack." This brief video told students how to break down a passage to identify important components and then answer questions. The teacher then went through an interactive PowerPoint with the class over Topic and Main Idea. (Due to time constraints, she had to implement my plan a little differently than I laid it out, but that was in order for the unit to be authentic.) I then gave the students two different work sheets to review the Topic and Main Idea. The students did well identifying that one worksheet's topic was sharks. They struggled a little bit identifying the second topic as butterflies. They had a hard time identifying the main idea for both worksheets. But, it was a good chance for the students to review and practice the material.

Using information from websites that I put in my pathfinder, the teacher also covered the concepts of supporting details, cause and effect, foreshadowing, predictions, inferences, and conclusions. The students were able to practice the material and were assessed on it with worksheets that I obtained from www.education.com and two writing examples. For the first writing task, the class worked together as the teacher used the active board to help them construct a five paragraph essay using the components listed above. They had to use the "Big 6" Strategy. The students struggled with writing the passage. The teacher had to help a great deal to

model and remind them what each component was and what it meant. During the second week, the students were allowed to choose their own topics to write a five paragraph essay. They had three days to use the library to do any research necessary and to type on the computers as there were no computers in their classroom. On the last day, the students shared their papers with their classmates. Once again, they had to use the "Big 6" strategy.

The class had active imaginations and came up with interesting topics and stories. However, it was clear that they still did not catch onto all aspects of the seventh grade reading standards in which they had a deficit. I corresponded with the teacher about the outcome. The students had a pretty easy time with topic and they got a lot better at understanding how to identify a main idea, but they had a hard time with the other components involved in the reading standards. The writing assessment indicated that they still had problems with most of the important aspects of reading comprehension.