Great Valley School District
Course Title: Strategic Reading
Unit 1: Reading Self and Society: Narrative
Grade Level(s): 8
Time Frame: One forty minute periods, 6 days a
cycle for one marking period.
Stage 1: IDENTIFY DESIRED RESULTS
Pennsylvania Content Standards
1.1. Learning to Read Independently
1.3 Reading, Analyzing and Interpreting Literature
Major Learnings
Reading =Knowledge=Power
Active readers purposefully construct meaning and understanding by employing various strategies and tools.
Active readers use reading, writing, listening and speaking as tools to deepen their understanding of content.
Active readers use reading as a vehicle to establish and enhance relationships.
Active readers understand and that narration expresses real or imagined events presented in the form of a
story.
Effective readers use writing to communicate their understanding of text.
Essential Questions
Guiding Questions
Why do we read?
How does reading help us gain information about ourselves &
others?
What makes a good reader?
What habits do good readers exhibit?
What are effective comprehension strategies?
Who am I as a reader?
What is my reading history?
What are my strengths?
What do I need to improve?
Why is reading important to me?
What are my literacy goals for this year and beyond?
How is understanding achieved by a reader’s use of
strategies and tools?
How do you describe a strategy?
How do you describe access tools?
Created: 8/2008
A1
Great Valley School District
What are effective comprehension strategies?
How will comprehension strategies help me reach my goals?
How do good readers monitor their understanding of the text?
How is metacognition used to comprehend, reflect upon, and
critique reading and writing?
How can readers use schema to increase comprehension of
the text?
How do mental images help readers make sense of what the
words are saying?
How does asking questions about the text before, during, and
after reading help readers understand the author’s message?
How do readers use information in the text and prior
knowledge/schema to make an inference?
How does a reader identify what strategies and tools are best
suited to the needs of the specific texts?
How do readers determine what is important when they read?
How do readers synthesize information to create new thinking
about what they read?
How can active word learning help readers and writers to
understand the text, increase background knowledge, and
improve communication?
How do literary elements and dramatic structure help
readers to understand a story?
[i.e. character, setting, plot, theme, genre, tone
(mood), point of view, style, exposition, rising action,
climax, falling action, resolution]
How does conflict impact relationships within a story?
What role does voice play in a story?
Knowledge/Skills
Students will know (knowledge):
Students will be able to (skills):
1. how to talk to the text
2. 60 literacy vocabulary terms for effective
reading
3. metacognitive processes (Question,
Visualize, Connect, Infer, Predict, Conclude)
1. internalize the importance and power of
reading
2. identify their individual strengths and needs as
a reader
3. identify personal literacy goals and plan of
Created: 8/2008
A2
Great Valley School District
through teacher modeling
4. how to take risks in a safe classroom
environment
4.
5.
6.
7.
Created: 8/2008
A3
action
begin to record metacognition while reading
self-select SSR materials
read daily for various purposes
respond verbally and in writing to their reading
Great Valley School District
Stage 2: DETERMINE ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE
Summative Assessments:

Post Read Aloud Assessment: book test on
The Contender by Robert Lipsyte (mimicking
PSSA)
Formative Assessments:







reading survey
literacy history (timeline)
conference sheets
record keeping for independent reading
reading log
writing log
portfolio (binder/folder): reading
response, journal, book reviews,
metacognitive logs
 PSSA formatted passage/multiple
choice/constructed response
 MAP standardized assessment
Learning Plan STAGE 3: DEVELOP LEARNING PLAN
Resources: Bridges to Literature, Academic Workout, Read Aloud Novel: The Contender by Robert Lipsyte,
Why Don’t Cats Like to Swim?

Class will establish a climate that promotes risk-taking and develop a sense of safety by agreeing on
rules, procedures, and protocols
 Class will take a literacy survey in order to understand themselves as readers and assist in individual
goal setting
 Class will complete readers’ timelines in order to better understand self as a reader
 Class will use data to set personal goals and create action plans
 Class will learn academic vocabulary and prefixes
 Class will begin discussions about metacognition and will explore talking to the text, creating
connections, questioning, inferring, visualizing, predicting, summarizing, synthesizing, and evaluating
 Class will learn about the use of and begin using metacognitive reading logs
 Class will choose SSR books based on knowledge about themselves as readers and individuals
 Class will experience The Reading Minute as modeled by teacher
Created: 8/2008
A4