Introduction
Kayenta Unified School District (KUSD) is a public school in northeastern Arizona deep within the borders of the Navajo Reservation. The school serves over 2,000 students from Kindergarten through 12th grade. The student population is approximately 99% Native Americans, mostly Navajo students. Kayenta USD serves students from 7 communities within a 50-mile radius of the town of Kayenta, Arizona. Some students have to catch the bus as early as 6 AM to make it to school on time. Approximately 30 buses run out to these communities and haul students to the school every day.
A majority of the students are bilingual, speaking both Dine Language and English Language. Those who are Native Dine Speakers are identified as English Learners based on what the family wrote on the enrollment form and the Primary Home Language Other Than English (PHLOTE) survey form. PHLOTE survey form is a form that families fill out to determine what language is spoken in the home. Parents who have written down Navajo or other languages as one of the languages spoken in the household are often placed in Structured English Immersion classes until they are assessed for English language proficiency. Most of these students are considered potential English Learners and assessed for proficiency in English using the AZELLA (Arizona English Language Learner Assessment). Students who fail to score proficient on their English Proficiency Assessment must be serviced in Structured English Immersion (SEI) classes. Students who test proficient on AZELLA are moved into mainstream classrooms. Of the 2,000 students in the Kayenta School District, less than 100 students are officially identified as English Learners at Kayenta Elementary School. The goal of SEI classrooms is to help students become fluent speakers, readers, and writers of the English Language so they can be reclassified into mainstream classrooms.
This curriculum unit will focus on developing reading comprehension skills for fourth grade, Stage III (3rd – 4th), English Learners. Reading comprehension has always been a challenge to teach to Navajo students, and it is especially hard for students who are English Learners. The students in my class have learned enough English to communicate in Basic English, but most of the students lack basic reading skills, and inadequate comprehension skills due to their limited vocabulary. Many English Learners have taken longer than mainstream students at the same grade level to develop basic speaking, listening, reading, writing skills, and language skills. Most EL students are still struggling with learning to read rather than reading to learn. At fourth grade, it is especially crucial for students to start developing reading comprehension skills. A lot of the state assessments use knowledge of informational texts and literature to assess for reading comprehension skills and reading strategies. In this unit, my goal is help my EL students develop reading comprehension skills and reading strategies using film and literature. I will focus on four reading skills: identifying and sequencing plot events, problems and solutions, cause and effect, and compare and contrast.
The unit will use the film Smoke Signals, a screenplay of the film, and one short story, “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” from the book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, all by Sherman Alexie. Using Film and Literature to teach reading comprehension is ideal because many of my students love to watch movies. They can recall and retell every detail and effectively sequence every event in a movie. In addition, I believe that using visuals will help students develop the skills and strategies necessary for reading comprehension.
The plan is to read the short story first with the students. The plot event has a beginning, middle, ending, a problem, and solution. One activity is to outline the plot by using a graphic organizer. With the aid of the graphic organizer, the students will create a storyboard to demonstrate their comprehension and abilities to visualize. The next step is to read the parts of the screenplay that correlate with the selected scenes. The selected scenes will be used for two reasons: to teach them to find the main idea and details, and to compare and contrast the journey of the characters. Then the students will see the parts of the film that correspond to the sections covered. The students will compare the film to the short story, and to the screen play. Are there differences, are there similarities? Are there sections that were included, and were there sections that were completely left out? Why do you think that happened?
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