KCKPS MATCHING READERS TO TEXT
This form was created to help Professional Learning Communities reflect on how they are going to utilize a specific core text chosen.
The seven areas below are meant to promote forward planning in order to anticipate student success as well as student struggle.
School and PLC Members: Brian Dolezal
Title of Text: To Kill a Mockingbird
Cognitive capabilities
Does this text contain enough supports to
move the student’s learning forward? What
supports will be needed?
Some supports will be the vocabulary the author uses. Harper Lee does a masterful
job of telling a point of view from a child to an adult but the students may struggle with
this leap. Readers may need to know when it is the adult speaking versus the child.
The jump from adult perspective to child perspective may cause some confusion
because the transitions are very subtle an sometimes unperceivable.
Motivation
How will the text be relevant to the reader and
maintain student attention?
Does the reader have the opportunity to
exercise choice?
There are many relevant themes to this text that unfold throughout the story. The
themes and characterization of the individuals in the book are prime for engagement
with gender, race, and class. Students may exercise choice in which theme to
explore while reading the text finding evidence of the theme they are most interested.
Knowledge
What knowledge will the reader need to
possess to understand text? Do the readers
have this knowledge?
Written in the South and during a time period of racial tension, teachers may feel
tempted to frontload much of the background knowledge of the time period. Yet,
there are enough supports in the text for students to make several inferences and
draw conclusions as to what the atmosphere and setting portrayed through character
thought, action, and dialogue. The background knowledge can be ascertained
through the reading without too much difficulty. It will be tempting to frontload much
of this but much of that frontloading will take away from the very skills that students
need in reading a text, which is gathering meaning from print rather that from teacher.
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. Modified from Doug Fisher Figure 4.1 Checklist for Matching Readers to Text
Experiences
What other texts have the student read. Are
they more complex or less complex than this
text?
How will these texts reflect the experiences of
Diverse Learners?
● Cultural Diversity
● English Language Learners
● Readers at/above/below grade level
In the 8th grade year, City of Ember had been read in our class and it was fairly
straightforward with very little complicated vocabulary. We also read October Sky,
which in its length is rather intimidating. This text will more than likely is the pinnacle
of the 8th grade year in regards to complexity. The book can reflect several
experiences in regards to gender role in society, the loss of innocence, the treatment
of people different than that of the mainstream, the childish yet adult like look upon
the world provides enough experiences that can relate to all learners. Struggling
readers may need help with some of the vocabulary but on the whole, the
connections to the text are vast regardless of time period. Harper Lee’s portrayal is
unfortunately alive and well today.
EXPLORING THE TASKS
Teacher- Led Tasks: What comprehension
and word solving strategies strategies need to
be modeled to understand the texts?
Instructional Window 2, which has an emphasis on Craft and Structure, would be
ideal for this unit. Harper Lee tells the story through a child’s perception with an adult
perspective. Students could write in a similar fashion writing from their experience of
a life changing event or loss of innocence from a their child point of view. This is a
Teacher-Led Tasks: What window of
highly complicated skill that will take a lot of modeling and creativity. This will also
Instruction will text be utilized and how does it
allow for a lot of choice in what students choose to write about. The vocabulary is
help explore identified standards?
rich. We found about an average of 10 or so words per chapter that could cause
Peer Tasks: How will the tasks created support some difficulty. Having students identify words on a consistent basis that they feel
cause confusion could help the teacher identify what words to focus on. Word walls
accountable talk and collaborative learning?
with images, definitions, sentences and the application of those words through
Individual Tasks How do the tasks provide
student writing, teacher lecture and simple conversations are a great way to spread
sufficient challenge to the reader and continue
vocabulary knowledge. Starting and ending each day with the vocabulary of the text
to build upon one another?
is a critical component and the word wall can be customized for students by having
various areas of the room that contain different types of words…those that can be
determined by structural analysis, those that have context, and those that take the
traditional dictionary to understand. An example of this could be a dialect chart:
We (Whole group): Teacher and students reread page 7 aloud beginning with Dill saying,
“Hey” and ending with Scout asking Dill, “Where’d you come from?”. As students listen, they
mark vocabulary/words, pronunciation, and grammar that sound different than they are used
to hearing.
Whole group: Students share marked moments, putting them in categories of
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. Modified from Doug Fisher Figure 4.1 Checklist for Matching Readers to Text
vocabulary/words, punctuation, and grammar. Teacher introduces and defines “dialect.”
Individual or small group work: Students focus on a few specific lines of dialogue and write
other ways of saying the same thing in both standard and nonstandard English.
Whole group: Students/small groups share their rewritten lines of dialogue. The class
discusses how the different versions change the meaning, tone, impressions of the
characters, etc. Then, the class discusses why Lee would choose to write dialogue in dialect.
Finally, teacher and students discuss strategies for reading dialect, focusing on use of
apostrophes, often-repeated words, and reading aloud.
EXPLORING THE QUESTIONS
What are the larger questions students will be
processing while reading the text.
How will the questions require evidence from
the text with critical thinking to support ideas
and claims?
Below are the types of questions that are representative of this text. The themes,
character thought and motivation, symbolism are all prime for text dependent
questioning. Here are some types of questions that could be utilized for chapters 1-4
Chapter Two:
 How does Miss Caroline view the purpose of education and why does she feel all
learning should be done in the schoolhouse? Where in the book does it tell you this?
(Pages 17 and 18)
 What do you think of Miss Caroline Fisher as a teacher? Can you find qualities, which
would make her good or not so good at her job?
 Walter Cunningham has a rather uncomfortable moment in this chapter by not being
able to accept the money from Miss Caroline. Why does he not accept the money
and what does this action tell you about the way his family perceives money and
paybacks? (p. 20 and 21)
 Why is Scout so looking forward to starting school and why does Jem not want
anything to do with Scout at school?
Chapter Three:
 Calpurnia gets very upset with Scout. What is her stance on how to treat company
and what does this tell you about the views on how to treat guests in homes in the
town of Maycomb. What other characters support this? Use evidence from the text
that tells you this.
 What does Atticus mean when he says the following quote: “if you can learn a simple
trick Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really
understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-”
 What in the text supports Atticus’s view on how to understand people?
 What is Walter Cunningham like? What does his behavior during lunch suggest about
his home life?
 Atticus says that you never really understand a person “until you climb into his skin
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. Modified from Doug Fisher Figure 4.1 Checklist for Matching Readers to Text
and walk around in it”. What does this mean? Is it an easy thing for Scout to learn? (In
the last chapter of the novel, Scout repeats this, but she changes “skin” to “shoes” this is probably not a mistake: Harper Lee suggests that Scout cannot clearly recall
exactly what Atticus said and when, but the reader can check this!)
 What do you learn in this chapter about the Ewells?
Chapter Four:
 How does the items left in the tree add to the suspense of the novel? Who do you
infer is leaving these items and why are they leaving them?
 Dill likes to play out stories. What does this tell us about his character? Describe how
this elaborates on his character.
 What does Scout think of current fashions in education?
 What superstitions do the children have in connection with the Radley house and why
do the children make Boo's story into a game? What do they do in this game? Do you
think the game is an accurate version of what happens in the Radleys' home?
21st CENTURY LEARNING SKILLS
How will the tasks and purposes assigned
promote creativity and innovation?
How will the tasks and purposes require
communication and collaboration?
How will the tasks and purposes require critical
thinking, and problem solving?
How will technology be utilized in
understanding and processing the text?
The end product of this unit could be:
A portrayal of the loss of innocence or the rite of passage from 6th grade and what the
world was perceived to be to the end of 8th grade and how these perceptions have
changed.
Another ideas is to ask students how Harper Lee’s portrayal of this town and its
characters are still present today and how we can begin to break down these
perceptions and stereotypes of race, gender, and class.
Students should have lots of opportunities to read with one another, and answer
questions together. However, a culminating activity could be this question:
Discuss the author’s portrayal of the black community and the characters. How is the
portrayal of your race and ethnicity viewed today and how can we begin to change the
misperceptions and affirm the positive perceptions of your community?
This would be a group project where students would interview parents, teachers,
students, and community members and critically think about how to approach racial,
class, and gender tensions in our communities.
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools. Modified from Doug Fisher Figure 4.1 Checklist for Matching Readers to Text