Curriculum+Literacy

Week of 2/18/13

Collection 3: Do The Right Thing (pp.190-191) In the stories in this third collection, the main characters or characters around them have a common problem; they need to choose between right and wrong. You may not always agree with the choices the characters make. I encourage you to examine the reasons behind the characters’ choices and the motivations for their decisions.

Strategy of Week: Attacking Strange Words [Context clues] Element of Literature: Foreshadowing [Interactive Worktext T-Chart (p.74)]; Situational Irony Grammar Link: Don’t Leave Your Modifiers Dangling (p.151) Words to Own: egotism, intricate, simultaneously, dismally, habitual

Meet the Writer: O. Henry (p.197)

Shared Reading: After Twenty Years (pp.191-199) [Fiction]

Summary: On a cold, rainy night inNew York City in the early 1900’s, a man explains to an approaching policeman that he is waiting to meet an old friend, Jimmy Wells. Two decades earlier, the pair agreed to meet in the same spot in exactly twenty years. Assured that the man will stay until Wells arrives, the officer moves on. Twenty minutes later another man arrives, at first identifying himself as Wells but then announcingthat he is a policeman. After arresting Bob as “Silky” Bob, a wanted criminal. He hands Bob a note from the first patrolman. The note reveals that the patroleman is Wells. He could not bring himself to arrest hi old friend and “got a plainclothes man to do the job”.

Foreshadowing: The use of clues to hint at events that will happen later in the story.

Irony: A contrast between expectation and reality.
 * Situational Irony: Occurs when what happens is very different from what is expected to happen.
 * <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">Dramatic Irony: Occurs when the audience or the reader knows something a character does not know.
 * <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">Verbal Irony: Involves a contrast between what is said or written and what is meant.

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">In our second theme, we will be reading stories about how characters view themselves or the way other people view them. We will look into how a person views their identity.
 * <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">Collection 2: Who Am I? (p.102) **

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;"> “I am myself, <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">Of all my atom parts I am the sum. <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">And out of my blood and my brain <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">I make my own interior weather, <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">My own sun and rain. <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">-Eve Merriam (American Poet)

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Strategy of Week:** Distinguishing Fact from Opinion: Checking it Out [p.104] {T-Chart} <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Element of Literature:** Autobiography and Biography: Who’s Telling? [p.104] {Concept Web} <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Language Link:** Style: Shades of Meaning-Denotation and Connotations (p.120) <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Words to Own:** glowering (adj.), flustered (adj.), rickety (adj.), sauntered (ptv.) <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Meet the Writer:** Jean Fritz (p.117) <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">//**Homesick**// (pp.104-118) [Autobiographical Incident]
 * <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">Shared Reading: **

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%;">**Summary:** In this chapter of her autobiography, Fritz relates how she longs to be inAmerica. She feels out of place in both theBritishSchool she attends and the Chinese community, Hankow, in which she lives. When Ian Forbes, the school bully, threatens Jean if she refuses to sing, “God Save the King”, Jean plays hooky for a day and explores her Chinese neighborhood. At home she is scolded for cutting school. Later, her father helps her solve her dilemma at school by telling her to use the words to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” while her British Schoolmates sing their lyrics to the melody.

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">**Strategy of Week:** Elimination**/** Making Gneralizations: It Says...I Say...Therefore...

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">**Element of Literature:** Theme/Symbol/Point of View <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">**Language Arts:** Subject-Verb Agreement <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">**Words to Own:** ambled, delved, finicky, incredulously, and sentries


 * <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">Shared Reading: **

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">**//The Runaway//** (pp.2-15) [Poetry] <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">Summary: The speaker of the poem, along with his unamed companion, encounters a Morgan Colt out alone in a mountain pasture during the first snowfall of the year. At first the speaker thinks the colt is playing in the snow. Soon, however, he realizes that the colt is terrified and trying to run away from the snow. The worried, angry speaker comments to his companion that the owner of the colt ought to be told to bring him in.

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">Meet the Writer: Robert Frost (p.26)

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">//**Song of the Trees**// (pp.24-38) [Fiction] <span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">Summary: This poignant story is set inMississippi during the Great Depression. Its first-person narrator, eight-year old Cassie Logan, describes her close-knit African American family’s struggle to survive. She also describes her joy in the family’s forest, where the trees “sing” to her. While playing in the woods with her three brothers, Cassie learns that Mr. Andersen, an unscrupulous businessman, plans to pay theLogans a small fee for the forest and then cut down all the trees and sell the lumber for his own profit. The eldest brother, Stacey, rides off to bring Papa, who has to leave home to find work,. Papa returns and wires the trees with explosives, threatening to blow up the enitre forest unless Mr. Andersen leaves immediately. Realizing that Papa is willing to risk his own life to defend his family and his trees, Mr. Andersen backs off and leaves the forest.

<span style="color: #570daf; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 170%;">Meet the Writer: Mildred D. Taylor (p.41)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 180%;">Cycle 1 Weeks 1-2 9/6/2011-9/16/2011 Building a Foundation for Success in Literature (pp.xxix-xl) The first two weeks of school will focus on "Reading Matters" and metacognitive thinking, (thinking about thinking), as we begin to build critical thinking skills that will lay the foundation for seventh grade and beyond. Reading Matters is broken down into five strategy lessons that students can use to help them master reading informational and literary texts. Students will be reviewing each strategy as we model it in class, then be expected to apply the strategies using a variety of selected passages. Each strategy will be revisted throughout the school year as we read passages in our Elements of Literature textbooks as well as outside sources. Students should refer back to this section of their textbook whenever we revisit a specific strategy in order to become stronger readers. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Strategy Lesson I: Summarizing the Plot (xxx-xxxi) Retelling <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Strategy Lesson II: Understanding How Character Affects Plot (xxxii-xxxiii) If...Then... <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Strategy Lesson III: Uncovering Theme (xxxiv-xxxv) Most Important Word <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Strategy Lesson IV: Analyzing Point of View (xxxvi-xxxvii) Somebody Wanted But So <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Strategy Lesson V: Identifying Cause and Effect (xxxviii-xl)

Collection 6: This Old Earth (pp.418-419) Each piece in this collection is about the relationship between humans and some aspect of the natural world. Some selections focus on the earth's beauty and its nurturing qualities, while other selections are concerned with destructive forces of nature, such as

**Eligible Content:** Read and respond to nonfiction and fiction including poetry **1.3F (p.50)**; Describe figurative language **1.3C (p.44);** Describe sound techniques **1.3C (p.44)**; Compare and Contrast Texts **1.1G (p.30);** Support opinions and positions with evidence from text **1.1G (p.30);** Expand vocabulary by differentiating between literal and figurative meanings of words **1.1E (p.26;**

**21st Century Learning Applied Skills:** Teamwork/Collaboration; Creativity/Innovation; Understanding Diversity **__PSSA Innersession:__** **__PDE Sampler I__**__:__ (2008-2009), A **//String of Sausages//** **No Open-Ended w/ this sampler so I created one** R7.B Interpretation and Analysis of Fictional and Nonfictional Text R7.B.1.1.1 Interpret, compare, describe, analyze, and/or evaluate the relationships among the following within fiction and literary nonfiction: Theme: Interpret, compare, describe analyze, and/or evaluate the theme of fiction or literary nonfiction. Interpret, compare, describe, analyze, and/or evaluate the relationship between the theme and other components of text.

__PSSA Coach__ **Chapter 8: Figurative Language (pp.149-161)** R7B.2.1.1 Identify, interpret, describe, and/or analyze the examples of personification, simile, alliteration, metaphor, hyperbole, and imagery in text R7.B.2.1.2 Identify, interpret, describe, and/or analyze the author’s purpose for and effectiveness at using figurative language in text Standard 1.3.8.C Analyze the effect of various literary devices (sound techniques) like rhyme, rhythm, meter, and alliteration and figurative language like personification, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and allusion

__PSSA Coach__ **Chapter 9: Other Literary Devices (pp.162-169)** R7B.2.1.1 Identify, interpret, describe, and/or analyze the examples of personification, simile, alliteration, metaphor, hyperbole, and imagery in text R7.B.2.1.2 Identify, interpret, describe, and/or analyze the author’s purpose for and effectiveness at using figurative language in text Standard 1.3.8.C Analyze the effect of various literary devices (sound techniques) like rhyme, rhythm, meter, and alliteration and figurative language like personification, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and allusion

__PSSA Coach__ **Chapter 7: Graphics (pp.135-146)** R7.B.3.3.2 Identify content that would fit in a specific section of a text R7.B.3.3.3. Interpret graphics and charts, and/or make connections between text and the content of graphics and charts

__Shared Reading__ **Collection 6: This Old Earth (T418-419)** **//Maggie and Milly and Molly and May//**** (pp.460-461) **__Elements of Literature__:** Kinds of Rhyme: Slant Rhyme (T460)
 * Read and Interpret the poem {Poetry Analysis Organizer}
 * Analyze exact and slant rhymes {T-Chart}
 * Making the Connections/Theme (T462){Reader’s Response using TAG}
 * Making Meanings (T463) {Open-ended responses using TAG in Reading Notebooks}
 * Meet the Writer: E.E. Cummings (p.462)

**Summary**: Four girls go to the beach one day. Each girl discovers an object that reflects something about herself.

**//I am of the Earth//; //Early Song//** (pp.464-465) **__Elements of Literature__:** Personification (T464)
 * Read and Interpret the poem {Poetry Analysis Organizer}
 * Identify and Analyze personification {T-Chart}
 * Making the Connections/Theme (T467){Reader’s Response using TAG}
 * Making Meanings (T467) {Open-ended responses using TAG in Reading Notebooks}
 * Meet the Writer: Anna Lee Walters (p.466)

**Summary:** The speaker of, "I Am of the Earth" thinks of the earth as a mother. She has raised, fed, and cared for the speaker, and will evetually embrace the speaker in death. The speaker of "Early Song" gives thanks for the beautiful day, for the people he considers brothers and sisters, for the earth, and for the blood that links humanity to the earth. **//A//****//ntaeus//** (pp.468-477) **__Elements of Literature__:** Allusion (T468) **__Strategy of Week:__** Elimination/TAG **__Words to Own:__** resolute, domain, contemplate, shrewd, inert, dilating, desecrated, esoteric, sterile, descended
 * Analyze Allusion (myth) {T-Chart}
 * Identify Purpose {Concept Web}
 * Making the Connections/Theme (T477){Reader’s Response using TAG}
 * Making Meanings (T479) {Open-ended responses using TAG in Reading Notebooks}
 * Meet the Writer: Borden Deal (p.477)

**Summary:** The first-person narrator of this story is an unnamed young city boy who hangs out with a group of friends. When T.J. moves into his building from the rural South, the narrator invites him to join the gang. T.J. wants to plant a field in his new home. He and the other boys agree to plant grass in their secret place-an unused flat roof of a neighborhood factory. They haul earth up to the roof and plant stolen seeds. One day, as they look at the sprouting grass, the factory owner discovers them and orders "all that junk" removed. After protesting, the boys follow T.J.'s lead and destroy their garden themselves. T.J. leaves the city; he is found two weeks later, heading home to Alabama. None of the boys ever returns to the roof.

**__Differentiation: Independent Intelligence in the Hive__**
 * Various leveled Independent Assignments (Guided Reading)
 * Vocabulary Boosters
 * Independent Work Packets to accompany Stories-of-week
 * Listening Center
 * Study Island (Tiered) Computer center
 * Achieve 3000: Leveled Non-fiction articles

**__Stations:__** #1: Guided Reading w/ Ms. Pringle #2: Study Island #3: Vocabulary Center #4: Figurative Language Center #5: TAG center #6: TeenBiz3000 Center

**Allusion:** **Who Was Antaeus?** Antaeus, son of Gaia and Poseidon, was a Libyan giant whose strength appeared invincible. He challenged all passers-by to a wrestling match that he invariably won. Upon winning, he slaughtered his adversaries. That is, until he met Hercules. **Antaeus Challenges Hercules:** Hercules had gone to the garden of the Hesperides for an apple. (The Hesperides, daughters of Night or the Titan Atlas, took care of the garden.) On Hercules' way back, the giant Antaeus challenged the hero to a wrestling match. No matter how many times Hercules threw Antaeus off and tossed him to the ground, it did no good. If anything, the giant appeared rejuvenated from the encounter. **Strength of Antaeus from His Mother Gaia:** Hercules eventually realized that Gaia, the earth, Antaeus' mother, was the source of his strength, so Hercules held the giant aloft until all his power had drained away. After he killed Antaeus, Hercules proceeded safely back to his task master, King Eurystheus. Incidentally, the modern American hero and demigod Percy Jackson, in the eponymous series, written by Rick Riordan, also defeats Antaeus by suspending him above the earth.

**Collection 5:** **//Living in the Heart//** (pp.336-337)

Each of the stories and poems in this collection is about an unusual and unforgettable person. Several of the selctions focus on the love and care these special people share with others. As you read the selections in collection 5, look for qualities that mke each of the unusual characters so hard to forget!

"If you live in my heart, you live rent free." -Irish proverb

Collection 5: Living in the Heart (T336) Tag: “Breakin it Down”: (305: Ivyn, Aaron); (304: Minyaun) PSSA Test Taking Strategies: [Buckle Down] Author’s Purpose (305); Text Structure (304) Literature Circles: The Phantom Tollbooth (305: Red Group; Green Group)
 * 21st Century Learning Applied Skills:** Teamwork/Collaboration; Creativity/Innovation
 * __Vocabulary__**__:__ Review Figurative Language and Sound Device terminology
 * __Writing:__** Persuasive: Supporting a Position (T260-264)
 * __Shared Reading__**
 * //The Highwayman//** (pp.340-347)
 * Read and Interpret the Poem (T338){Poetic Devices: Graphic Organizer}
 * Identify and/or describe narrative poetry with main elements (character/setting/plot) {Story mapping}
 * Monitor Comprehension {Dialogue with Text: Interactive Readers}
 * Making the Connections/Theme {Reader’s Response using TAG}
 * Making Meanings (T348) {Open-ended responses using TAG in Reading Notebooks}
 * Meet the Writer: Alfred Noyes (p.347)
 * //Annabel Lee (//**pp.350-352)
 * Read and Interpret the Poem (T338){ Sensory Images: Graphic Organizer }
 * Identify repetition of words and sounds (T350){ Poetic Devices: Graphic Organizer }
 * Making the Connections/Theme {Reader’s Response using TAG}
 * Making Meanings (T354) {Open-ended responses using TAG in Reading Notebooks}
 * Meet the Writer: Edgar Allan Poe (p.353)
 * __Guided Reading__**
 * Previewing Multiple choice questions
 * Previewing Constructed response
 * Previewing text
 * Elimination Strategy
 * Highlighting
 * Note Taking in the Margins
 * The Watsons Go To Birmingham (304: Red Group)


 * __Reading Skills and Strategies:__** Dialogue with Text (T340; 350)
 * __Elements of Literature__:** Narrative Poetry: Stories in Verse (T340); Repetition (T350)
 * __Words to Own__: //The Highwayman://** //galleon, claret, rapier, plaiting, wicket, ostler, harry, casement, priming; **Annabel Lee:** sepulcher, seraphs, coveted, dissever//
 * __Differentiation: Independent Intelligence in the Hive__**
 * Various leveled Independent Assignments (Guided Reading)
 * Vocabulary Boosters
 * Independent Work Packets to accompany Stories-of-week
 * Listening Center
 * Study Island (Tiered) Computer center
 * Achieve 3000: Leveled Non-fiction articles

//** The Highwayman: **// (Alfred Noyes) The highwayman promises to return by moonlight to his love, Bess, the landlord's daughter. Tim, the inn's ostler, (stableman), in love with Bess, overhears the lovers and, presumably, betrays his rival to the authorities. The next night soldiers arrive, tie Bess to her bed with a musket beneath her breast, and wait for the highwayman. When Bess hears his horse on the road, she pulls the triggerto warn her lover. The highwayman gallops off, but when he learns of Bess's death, he returns in a rage and is shot down by the soldiers.

//**Annabel Lee**//: (Edgar Allan Poe) This lyric poem expresses the passionate love of the speaker for his bride. He says she was first taken from him by her family and then killed by a cold wind sent by angels who envied the lovers' earlthy bliss. The speaker says that their love will nedure even though death seperates them physically.

**Review Study Guide Due: Wednesday, October 26, 2011**
**Shared** **Reading****:** =**//A Day’s Wait//** (pp.46-61) [Science Fiction Fantasy]=

**Summary:** The story’s narrator, a father, notices one morning that his nine-year-old son is ill. A doctor visits the home, notes that the boy’s temperature is 102˚, and leaves some medicines. The doctor assures the father that there should be no danger if the fever does not go above 104˚. The father tries to read to his son, but because the boy seems detached, staring strangely at the foot of the bed and refusing to go to sleep, the father goes hunting. When he returns, the boy seems anxious and preoccupied and eventually asks, “About what time do you think I’m going to die?” Questioned by his father, the boy reveals that while at school inFrance he heard that a person cannot live with a temperature over 44˚. Since his is 102˚, he has spent the enitre day convinced he was about to die. The father explains the difference between the Farenheit and Celsius scales. The boy, having faced his ordeal with dignity and courage, gradually relaxes. According to his father, the following day the boy cries about unimportant things, signaling a return to a normal life.

**Background:** = = The events in this story really happened to Hemingway and his nine-year-old son, Bumby. (In this story Bumby is called Schatz, a German word meaning “treasure”.) Hemingway and his family lived inFrancefor many years; in this story they are back in theUnited States.

The son in the story is suffering from influenza, or “the flu”. Illnesses such as influenza and pneumonia, which are treated routinely today, often proved fatal in the past. This story takes place before antibiotics were developed. = = Also, to understand this story, you have to know that there are two kinds of thermometers, each using a different temperature scale. On the Celsius thermometer, used inEurope, the boiling point of water is 100 degrees. On the Farenheit thermometer, used in theUnited States, the boiling point is much higher, 212 degrees.

**Collection 2:** **//Who Am I?//** (p.102)

In our second theme, we will be reading stories about how characters view themselves or the way other people view them. We will look into how a person views their identity.


 * //“I am myself,//**
 * //Of all my atom parts I am the sum.//**
 * //And out of my blood and my brain//**
 * //I make my own interior weather,//**
 * //My own sun and rain.//**

-Eve Merriam (American Poet)


 * Strategy of Week**: Distinguishing Fact from Opinion: Checking it Out [p.104] {T-Chart}
 * Element of Literature**: Autobiography and Biography: Who’s Telling? [p.104] {Concept Web}
 * Language Link:** Style: Shades of Meaning-Denotation and Connotations (p.120)
 * Words to Own:** glowering (adj.), flustered (adj.), rickety (adj.), sauntered (ptv.)
 * Meet the Writer:** Jean Fritz (p.117)
 * Shared** **Reading****:**
 * //Homesick//** (pp.104-118) [Autobiographical Incident]


 * Summary:** In this chapter of her autobiography, Fritz relates how she longs to be inAmerica. She feels out of place in both theBritishSchool she attends and the Chinese community, Hankow, in which she lives. When Ian Forbes, the school bully, threatens Jean if she refuses to sing, “God Save the King”, Jean plays hooky for a day and explores her Chinese neighborhood. At home she is scolded for cutting school. Later, her father helps her solve her dilemma at school by telling her to use the words to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” while her British Schoolmates sing their lyrics to the melody.

//**The Smallest Dragonboy**// End-of-Story Assessment Wednesday 10/19/11 Independent Work Packets Due Wednesday 10/19/11 = **Cycle 1 Week 7 10/17-10/21** =

**Collection 1:** **//Out Here on My Own//** (p.1)

In our first theme we will be reading about characters who must solve problems by themselves and be independent thinkers. There will be 5 main stories and five connection stories/passages within this thematic collection. **Strategy of Week** : Making Inferences: Finding Clues [p.80] = = **Element of Literature**: Character [Character Analysis Concept Web] = = **Grammar Link:** Dialogue (Language Handbook Rules 14C-14I) = = **Words to Own:** detached (adj.), poised (p.t.verb), commenced (p.t.verb), slack (adj.) = =

= = **Meet the Writer:** Ernest Hemingway (p.84) = =

= = **Shared** **Reading****:** =**//A Day’s Wait//** (pp.46-61) [Science Fiction Fantasy]= = = **Summary:** The story’s narrator, a father, notices one morning that his nine-year-old son is ill. A doctor visits the home, notes that the boy’s temperature is 102˚, and leaves some medicines. The doctor assures the father that there should be no danger if the fever does not go above 104˚. The father tries to read to his son, but because the boy seems detached, staring strangely at the foot of the bed and refusing to go to sleep, the father goes hunting. When he returns, the boy seems anxious and preoccupied and eventually asks, “About what time do you think I’m going to die?” Questioned by his father, the boy reveals that while at school inFrance he heard that a person cannot live with a temperature over 44˚. Since his is 102˚, he has spent the enitre day convinced he was about to die. The father explains the difference between the Farenheit and Celsius scales. The boy, having faced his ordeal with dignity and courage, gradually relaxes. According to his father, the following day the boy cries about unimportant things, signaling a return to a normal life. = = **Background:** = = The events in this story really happened to Hemingway and his nine-year-old son, Bumby. (In this story Bumby is called Schatz, a German word meaning “treasure”.) Hemingway and his family lived inFrancefor many years; in this story they are back in theUnited States. = = The son in the story is suffering from influenza, or “the flu”. Illnesses such as influenza and pneumonia, which are treated routinely today, often proved fatal in the past. This story takes place before antibiotics were developed. = = Also, to understand this story, you have to know that there are two kinds of thermometers, each using a different temperature scale. On the Celsius thermometer, used inEurope, the boiling point of water is 100 degrees. On the Farenheit thermometer, used in theUnited States, the boiling point is much higher, 212 degrees. = =

= =

= **Cycle 1 Week 6 10/10-10/14** =

**Collection 1:** **//Out Here on My Own//** (p.1)

In our first theme we will be reading about characters who must solve problems by themselves and be independent thinkers. There will be 5 main stories and five connection stories/passages within this thematic collection.

**Strategy of Week**: Making Generalizations [It Says…I Say…Therefore… chart]

**Element of Literature**: Conflict [Thematic Connection T-Chart]

**Grammar Link:** Keeping Verb Tense Consistent (p.63)

**Words to Own:** confrontation, alleviate, goaded, perturbed, imminent

**Shared** **Reading****:**

**//The Smallest Dragonboy//** (pp.46-61) [Science Fiction Fantasy]

**Summary:** This science-fiction fantasy takes place on the planet Pern, an imaginary world where dragons help protect the inhabitant. Each year, when new dragon eggs are about to hatch, new dragonriders are selected from the eligible young people on the planet. Each newborn dragon selects its own rider through a form of telepathic communication called, “Impression”. The hero of the story is Keevan, a boy who is facing the first Impression ceremony. Small for his age, Keevan must work twice as hard as the other boys and endure their taunts and teasing, especially those of the bully Berterli. Goaded into a fight with Berterli, Keevan is badly injured, and it seems he will not be able to participate in the Hatching. However, he uses all his courage and determination to hobble his way to the Hatching, where he is chosen by the bronze dragon, the highest honor a dragonrider can achieve.

**Background:**

McCaffrey conceived the planet Pern as a former colony of Earth that had lost much of its knowledge of science and history. In this world, according to critic Debra Rae Cohen, “social structure, tensions, legends, and traditions are all based on the fundalmental ecological battle” against the Thread “and on the empathetic kinship between dragon and rider” who together fight the Thread. The Impression Ceremony on which the story focuses is thus the most important event in Pern society.

**Meet the Writer:** Anne McCaffrey (p.60)

**Cycle 1 Week 3 9/19-9/23**

**Collection 1:** **//Out Here on My Own//** (p.1)

In our first theme we will be reading about characters who must solve problems by themselves and be independent thinkers. There will be 5 main stories and five connection stories/passages within this thematic collection.

**Strategy of Week**: Monitor Comprehension: Dialogue with the text [Interactive Worktext]

**Element of Literature**: Conflict: Internal vs. External

**Shared** **Reading****:**


 * //Riki-Tiki-Tavi//** (pp.2-15)

**Summary:** In this famous “monster-slaying” story, a little mongoose is taken in by a British Family living inIndia, around 1900. His name, Rikki-tikki-tavi, comes from the sound he makes, which Kipling calls his “war cry”. When the mongoose learns from other animals that two cobras, Nag and his wife, Nagaina, live in the family garden, he knows he must kill them, and thus the conflict begins.

Meet the Writer: Joseph Rudyard Kipling (p.16)


 * //The Dinner Party//**: **//An Urban Legend//** as retold by Mona Gardner (pp.17-18)

**Cycle 1 Weeks 1-2 9/6/2011-9/16/2011** The first two weeks of school will focus on "Reading Matters" and metacognitive thinking, (thinking about thinking), as we begin to build critical thinking skills that will lay the foundation for seventh grade and beyond. Reading Matters is broken down into five strategy lessons that students can use to help them master reading informational and literary texts. Students will be reviewing each strategy as we model it in class, then be expected to apply the strategies using a variety of selected passages. Each strategy will be revisted throughout the school year as we read passages in our **//Elements of Literature//** textbooks as well as outside sources. Students should refer back to this section of their textbook whenever we revisit a specific strategy in order to become stronger readers. Strategy Lesson I: Summarizing the Plot (xxx-xxxi) Retelling Strategy Lesson II: Understanding How Character Affects Plot (xxxii-xxxiii) If...Then... Strategy Lesson III: Uncovering Theme (xxxiv-xxxv) Most Important Word Strategy Lesson IV: Analyzing Point of View (xxxvi-xxxvii) Somebody Wanted But So Strategy Lesson V: Identifying Cause and Effect (xxxviii-xl)
 * Building a Foundation for Success in Literature ** (pp.xxix-xl)