Reading Lesson Planning Guide-Literary | Seventh Grade
Reading Process Throughout the Year
Strand 1: Reading Process
Concept 6: Comprehension Strategies
PO1. Predict text content using prior knowledge and text features (e.g., illustrations, titles, topic sentences, key words).
PO2. Confirm predictions about text for accuracy.
PO3. Generate clarifying questions in order to comprehend text.
PO4. Use graphic organizers in order to clarify the meaning of the text.
PO5. Connect information and events in text to experience and to related text and sources.
PO7. Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
GESDPO8. Reformat elements and/or content in an appropriate graphic organizer.
GESDPO9. Summarize a written selection including the main idea(s) and relevant details.
Instructional Period 2
Topic: Literary Text Comprehension - Prose and Poetry
Strand 2: Literacy Text Comprehension
Comprehending Literary Text identifies the comprehension strategies that are specific in the study of a variety of literature.
Concept 1: Literary Elements
Students need to identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure and elements of literature.
Essential Questions: How did the author develop the characters? Why did the author write this? Does the setting influence the story? What type of conflict is present? How
does this story/poem connect to my own life? Is this story like any other story that I have read or seen?
Big Idea: Authors weave stories with the artful use of the elements.
Performance
Objective
S2C1PO2.
Recognize
Analyze multiple
themes in works
of prose, poetry,
and drama.
1
Process Integration
(skills to use)
R-S1C6PO2.
Confirm predictions about text for
accuracy.
Explanation:
Examine, question and/or explore the theme in a variety of
pieces – prose, poetry, and drama.
R-S1C6PO5.
Connect information and events in text
to experience and to related text and
sources.
Content Knowledge:
There are also multiple themes within a piece of text. These
can be linked to subplots, problem/solution, and/or character
action.
R-S1C6PO7.
Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing
conclusions, determining cause and
effect, making inferences, sequencing)
to comprehend text.
Common Topics for Themes – Readers Handbook pp. 377
Courage
Family
Death
Hate
Friendship
Prejudice
Explanations and Examples
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Resources
Assessment
Introduction Lessons:
 Reader’s Handbook:
Focus on Theme, pp.
376-382
 McDougal Littell
Anthology: Reader’s
Workshop on
Understanding
Theme - Unit 3, pp.
304 – 309
 McDougal Littell
Standard’s Lesson
File: Literature, pp.
111- 122
Supplemental Literature:
Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane
McDougal Littell:
Assessment File
Unit and
Benchmark Tests
 Unit 3, Test A:
Questions 9,
11, 23
 Test B/C:
Questions 6,
10, 21
Benchmark Test 2:
pp. 246 – 252,
Questions 22, 26
Question Stems:
 What are
Reading Lesson Planning Guide-Literary | Seventh Grade
-
trust
Yolen
specific
elements of
the story that
helped you
infer the
theme?
Step for Understanding Theme:
1. Find the big ideas
2. Find out what the characters do or say
3. Make a statement about the message
Available in Readers Handbook p.377
Key Vocabulary:
Theme :
 message of the story
 the overall idea of what the author is trying to relate to the
reader
 the lesson or moral of the story
 a general or universal statement
 a writer’s message about the topic
 no abstract or vague words
 avoid using character names
Topic: can be summed up in one or two words
Universal: can be used or applied to more than one text or
situation
What
universal
themes are
there in the
story?

How are the
themes in the
story
connected?

How does the
theme in the
story connect
to your
personal life
themes.
Prose: writing that resembles everyday speech; straight
forward; literal
Sentence
Frames:
Symbol: something that represents something else (heart
symbolizes love)
The ___________,
_______________
___________ and
_______________
______ in the story
supports the theme
of_____________
________.
Examples:
Starter:
Define theme using attributes in key vocabulary.
Then sort examples differentiating between topic and theme
2

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When I think about
the____________
____theme I
wonder
Reading Lesson Planning Guide-Literary | Seventh Grade
_______________
_______________
_______________
about my own life.
Using the below steps model for students the process of
identification, comparing and critiquing a themes.
An Analysis Frame for Theme (further details in McDougalLittell Best Practices Toolkit pp D34-35)
Steps:
Examine theme
Collect elements to help infer theme (plot, setting,
characters)
Identify Symbols and tell what it represents
Identify universal themes
Compare and Connect
Identify similarities and differences of other story themes
Evaluate and Critique
Question
Think Aloud:
Today we are going to return to the story
__________________I have put only the text of the story on
the Smart board and what I would like you to do is observe
what I say and do in order to analyze the themes in this story.
As I’m reading I notice that _______________,
______________ and ______________(choose a literary
element that identifies the topic) all tell me that that the topic of
the story is _________________. I know that this is part of the
theme because the theme is a message that the author has
about the topic of the story. It also is a common or universal
theme that I have seen in other stories (see universal themes
in Reader’s Handbook p376). I can also see that the author
has represented his idea about ________________ using the
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The theme
_______________
_______________
___ reminds me of
the story
_______________
_______________
_____ because
_______________
___________.
Reading Lesson Planning Guide-Literary | Seventh Grade
symbol _______________________. I know that authors use
symbols for important concepts in the story. Now that I have
examined the story I can make a statement about what I think
the theme is by him saying __________________ and using
______________________; I think the theme is
__________________________________________.
This theme reminds me of other themes I have encountered.
From the universal theme ________________ that I have
seen in the book ___________________________. I can see
many connections. Both have
________________________________________ and
_______________________________________. However,
_________________________ doesn’t have
_______________________________________________.
Looking back at both of these themes I can see that the author
of _____________________ does a great job of
__________________________________________.
Reoccurring themes in life –
Quick write about your first day of school. Students will write
their topic of their quick write on a sticky note. Then students
will mix-match-group with similar topics. Students stay in their
groups and write out their theme using the 3 step process in
Content Knowledge.
Once Students have an understanding of Theme:
Choose a play broken into scences or acts. Students read the
story as a class. Small groups break story into scenes and
figure out the theme within their scene. Have students use the
steps in analyzing theme as modeled in their small groups.
Students act out their scene. Discussion at the end of each
scene and how the theme develops within the story.
McDougal Littell Anthology – A Christmas Carol, pp. 388-412
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Reading Lesson Planning Guide-Literary | Seventh Grade
S2C1PO7.
Identify the
characteristics
and structural
elements of
poetry (e.g.,
stanza, verse,
rhyme scheme,
line breaks,
alliteration,
consonance,
assonance,
rhythm,
repetition,
figurative
language) in a
given selection.
R-S1C5PO1.
Read from a variety of genres with
accuracy automaticity (immediate
recognition), and prosody (expression).
Explanation:
Analyzing the characteristics and structural elements of poetic
forms other than free verse.
R-S1C4PO1.
Determine the meaning of vocabulary
using linguistic roots and affixes (e.g.
Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Latin).
Key Vocabulary:
Simile: comparing using like or as
R-S1C4PO3.
Use context to identify the intended
meaning of words with multiple
meanings (e.g., definition, example,
restatement or contrast).
R-S1C4PO4.
Determine the meaning of figurative
language, including similes, metaphors,
personification, and idioms in prose
and poetry.
R-S1C6PO6.
Apply knowledge of the organizational
structure (e.g. chronological order, time
sequence order, and cause and effect
relationships) of text to aid
comprehension.
R-S1C6PO7.
Use reading strategies (e.g. drawing
conclusions, determining cause and
effect, making inferences, sequencing)
to comprehend text.
A. V.
Verse
Line break
Metaphor: comparing without using like or as, a direct
comparison
Hyperbole: over exaggeration
Personification: giving an inanimate object or animal a human
quality
Onomatopoeia: words that are an actual sound (drip, boom,
slam)
Alliteration: repeated initial sound
Assonance: a repeated vowel sound
Consonance: the repeating of a consonant sound either
internally or at the end of a word
Stanza: the paragraph of poetry
Verse: one of the lines of a poem, or a repeated section of a
song
Rhyme scheme: the rhyming pattern in a poem
Imagery: Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any
combination of senses.
Personification: A figure of speech which endows inanimate
objects with human traits or abilities.
Repetition: the repeating of words, phrases, lines, or stanzas.
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Introduction Lessons:
Reader’s Handbook:
 Elements of Poetry,
pp. 446-468
 Reading Poetry, pp.
407-421
McDougal Littell
Anthology:
 Unit 5 Reader’s
Workshop Appreciating Poetry,
pp. 542-547
Standards Lesson File:
 Literature – Structure
of Poetry, pp. 149160
Supplemental
Resources:
 Alliteration,
Consonance,
Assonance website:
www.sterlingschools.org/s
hs/stf/jbarnh/poetry/eop14.
htm
Literature:
 Out of the Dust by
Karen Hesse
 Witness by Karen
Hesse
 Monster by Walter
Dean Myers
 Love that Dog by
Sharon Creech
McDougal Littell:
Assessment File,
Unit Benchmark
Test
 Unit 5 Test –
Entire Test
 Benchmark 3
Test:
Questions 18,
19, 20, 21, 22,
23, 24, 27, 28,
30, 34
McDougal Littell
Anthology:
Assessment
Practice, pp. 616619 (Entire Test)
Best Practice
Toolkit: Evaluating
a Poem, D19 w/
transparency D66
Question Stem:
Where in the poem
is an example of
___________?
Sentence Frame:
_______________
is an example of
_______________
__ because
_______________
____.
Reading Lesson Planning Guide-Literary | Seventh Grade
Rhyme: The similarity of ending sounds existing between two
words.
End Rhyme: The last word in 2 or more lines rhyme (have the
same ending sounds)
Internal Rhyme: 2 or more words in the SAME line rhyme
(have the same ending sounds)
Example:
Pick any song by a famous artist – child friendly/appropriate.
Have students identify the structural elements specific to the
song using a graphic organizer.
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