• Begin Reading. Remember this IS a grade!
• I will pass out materials. Helpers are no longer needed.
• Everyone take out a sheet of paper and head it:
• Name
• Date
• Period
• Reading Strategies
Clarisse Frazier Cedar Grove
Middle School 2007

8 th grade ELA

• Activate Schemata
• Visualize
• Question
• Determine Importance
• Make Inferences
• Synthesize
• Monitor for Meaning

Text to Text
Text to Self
Text to World

• Text to text> This reminds me of the book
Ferdinand when he was bullied by the other bulls because he was different.
• Text to self>This reminds me of a time in 7 th grade when I was bullied for being dark skinned.
• Text to world> This reminds me of how many kids are getting bullied right here at Cedar Grove today.
• Darrell Mercer, a 9th grader at
Bluford High, is at the center of this story. Darrell and his mother move to the Bluford area in the middle of the school year.
Physically smaller than his peers,
Darrell quickly becomes a target for Tyray Hobbs, the freshman class bully.

Come up with a mental picture of what is happening or what is being described in the text

Physically smaller than his peers, Darrell quickly becomes a target for Tyray Hobbs, the freshman class bully.
• I imagine that when Tyray bullies
Darrell this is how he feels.

Ask questions while you read help to build understanding and understand
Author’s purpose

Darrell and his mother move to the Bluford area in the middle of the school year.
• I wonder why his mom decided to move?
• How come Darrell was so small?
• Why did they have to move in the middle of the year?
• Where is Bluford?

Physically smaller than his peers, Darrell quickly becomes a target for Tyray Hobbs, the freshman class bully.
• This is really important because…
– Darrell is the main character.
– The title of the book is The Bully.
– I can tell the theme would probably be centered around bullying.
– There should be evidence about what happens to Darrell as I read.

Using evidence in a text to come up with logical conclusions. Use prior knowledge to understand a story.

o Text-based: information the author supplies in the text.
o Knowledge-based: knowledge that each of us have about the world.

…Physically smaller than his peers, Darrell quickly becomes a target for Tyray Hobbs, the freshman class bully.
Tyray is probably a bully because he has been bullied himself sometime in his past.

• the pulling together of ideas or information to develop a common framework for understanding or to create a new idea;

Darrell and his mother move to the
Bluford area in the middle of the school year.
• Forming new ideas….
– Darrell’s mother got a new job.
– Its hard to adjust to a new school in the middle of the year.
– Darrell could make friends with some of the other kids that Tyray has bullied in the past.
– Darrell should learn to defend himself.

Readers try to figure out meaning before, during, and after they read.
As you read, you will need to use several different strategies to figure out the word.
Readers use the pictures, their schema, words within and around the text to figure out the word meaning.
Remember to listen to your inner conversation as you read. Is it telling you, this doesn’t make sense? If it is, what will you do to make sure it makes sense?

Excerpt from Tears of a Tiger, by Sharon Draper
So, we get n the car…yeah, Andy’s car, and we start drivin’ around, you know, just foolin’
Around, havin’ a good time, yellin’ out the window at old white ladies—it always freaks
‘em out…Yeah, we was drinkin’—all ‘cept B.J.—he don’t drink. We had put about four six’ packs in the trunk of Andy’s car before the game. Since the weather’s been so cold, puttin’ ‘em in the trunk was as good as a cooler, so they was nice and frosty by the time we got to ‘em…Yeah, all of us was drinkin’, ‘cept B.J., like I said, but Andy probably had the most. He was in a real good mood ‘cause this girl named Keisha had started goin’ with him and he was goin’ over to her house after he took us home.
Then, all of a sudden, like outta nowhere, this wall was in front of us, like it just jumped out in front of the car, and Andy was trying to find the brakes with his foot, and then there was glass everywhere and his crunchin’, grindin’ sound. My door flew open, and I rolled out. I remember I was cryin’ and crawlin’ around on my hand and knees—that’s the only thing that got hurt on me—I got glass in my hands and in my knees.

• In groups you will use the excerpt
From Tears of a Tiger to…
• Visualize
• Question
• Activate Schema