Strategies
Many of my students are struggling readers who have difficulty decoding words, lack phonemic awareness, and who have limited vocabularies. By incorporating literacy skills, visual representations, and auditory examples of the devastation caused by the breeching of the levees into each lesson, my students will have a more firm understand the racial and socio-economic impact of public policy decisions. Among the strategies that I will use in my unit are:
Blogs
The teacher-created online journal or blog and will be used to facilitate discussion about the materials presented. Students and parents may also post questions that they have about the topic presented. Pictures from unit activities will also be posted to illicit parental feedback and participation.
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers will be used to make comparisons to the events that took place in both Richmond and New Orleans. I will also use Venn diagrams and Double Bubble Maps to make comparisons about various items in the texts.
Cooperative Reading Groups
Students of mixed reading abilities are grouped together in my classroom for CRG. Within these groups, students take on different roles:
- Discussion Director - This person designs and discusses questions about the reading.
- Passage Master - This person shares the main idea or topic of each passage with the team and helps summarize the reading.
- Connector - This person makes connections between the reading and real life (student's real life or anything the connector knows about).
- Word Wizard - This person defines or discusses interesting or confusing words found in the texts.
Students must work together on the reading assignment presented; however they have their own personal reading goals that they must also fulfill.
K-W-L Charts
I will use a K-W-L chart to assess student's knowledge about the events that surrounded both Katrina and Gaston. Students will identify what they already know, what they would like to know, and what they have learned at the conclusion of this unit.
Double Bubble Map
A double bubble map is a graphic organizer that will be used to facilitate a comparative analysis of New Orleans and Richmond. The city names will be listed in the larger center circles and characteristics are listed in the smaller circles. Circles that are connected to both of the larger center circles identify the commonalities of each.
Differentiation
Instruction will be differentiated based on the learning styles and cognitive abilities of each student. Assignments will be modified according to the student's accommodations and modifications as outlined in their IEPs or 504 plans.
Interviewing
This could be considered more of a skill than a strategy, but interviewing will certainly be a necessary part of at least one of the activities I am planning for the unit. Students will interview family members about their recollection of Tropical Storm Gaston and the impact that it played on their lives when it hit Richmond in 2004. Students will create their own interview questions for a homework assignment.
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