Blog Post #2

Language Standards: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use (4) (pg. 71)

Reading Standards for Informational Text 9-10: Key Ideas and Details; Craft and Structure (pg. 48)

Speaking and Listening Standards 9-10: Comprehension and Collaboration; Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas (pg. 53)

The bolded standards above are found in the Alaska ELA and Mathematics Standards, adopted June 2012.

Reflection:  In my English 9 classes last week we worked on a Ray Bradbury story – The Pedestrian – which addressed the standards above. This is the second Bradbury story the kids have read this year. I like his short stories because they are very short, yet extremely evocative and dramatic, with humanistic/futuristic themes that often resonant more today than when they were written.

I started off the class with a game of hangman using vocabulary taken from the story. Language Standards: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use (4) (pg. 71)

Next, I read the story aloud while the kids followed along. Then, I played a youtube clip of another narrator reading the same story while storyboard drawings played, thereby giving the visual learners a cognitive hook. (Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas #5)

Then, I passed out posters to the table groups with different questions based on the text. Every group had different questions. They had to work in their groups to come up with answers and write them down (Speaking and Listening Standards 9-10: Comprehension and Collaboration) (Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure).

Finally, the following class period I passed out a sheet of all the questions that had been on the posters. Then the table groups presented their answers orally to the rest of the class (Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas). I would lead a short discussion or clarification of the table groups chosen answers. The rest of the class was required to fill out the sheet, so they had to pay attention to all of the presented answers. (Key Ideas and Details; Craft and Structure) Then I collected the sheets and the posters.