LESSON PLANS – FIRST NINE WEEKS
MS. MCCLAIN 2015-2016
August 6-14, 2015
Rules/Expectations/Procedures
Getting to know everyone
Notebook setup – need supplies by August 11.
Introduce the 40 Book Challenge
Genres/book talks/book trailers
Read “Thank You, M’am” by Langston Hughes out of the literature
book.
Discuss the characters and connect to our unit theme of “Who
Am I?”
Review the SOAPSTone method – students will have notes on this
method.
Answer the SOAPSTone questions together as a class about this
story.
Students will read two different short biographies about
Langston Hughes. They will underline important facts about his
life, and write down questions that the biographies don’t answer
for them. Then they will highlight around 10 details from the two
biographies to use in a summary. In groups, students will write a
summary of Langston Hughes using what they have highlighted.
We will discuss these as a class to determine what information is
needed or not needed in the summary.
Writer’s Response #1 – These notebooks stay on class, so if a
student misses or gets behind, they need to come in to zero block
to catch up.
August 17-21, 2015
Bellwork for the past two weeks will be due on Friday. Each side
is worth up to 10 points towards a formative grade.
Students will be given a handout for suggestions of annotation
marks. Students will be learning the importance and value of
annotating as they read.
Students will read a short story entitled “No Greater Love.”
Students will annotate as they read, and then answer the
SOAPSTone questions about the story. They will also the 5 W’s
and How questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why? and
How?) in order to construct a summary of the story.
Students will get handouts of literary element terms that we will
discuss all year in class. We will begin to discuss some of these
with the story from last week, “Thank You, M’am.” We will
construct a plot line using some of these terms to determine the
plot development of this story.
We will do another mini author study of Gary Soto. Students will
read a short biography of him, read a short story by him titled
“Seventh Grade”, and a short memoir. We will utilize the
strategies that we have been working on with these pieces:
annotation, SOAPSTone, plot development, 5 W’s and How, and
summarizing.
Writer’s Response #2 and #3 this week.
Bellwork is due Friday. Each side is a 10-point formative.
August 24-28, 2015
Students will go to the library on Monday to get a mini-lesson on
conducting research in general and specific research tips and
links for the author study.
Students will research their authors in class on Tuesday and
Wednesday of this week. Presentations will be on September 3,
and this is a summative grade.
Students will have two formatives this week and next week – one
on Tuesday of this week and Tuesday of next week. The first one
is multiple choice, and the skill focus is summarizing. The second
one is short answer.
Students will also begin to talk and write about the summer
reading book, Freak the Mighty. This book needs to come to class
this week if students still have their copies. If the book is on an
electronic device, that is fine to bring as long as parents as ok
with that. However, students may not use the device for any
other purpose than looking at and reading Freak the Mighty.
Writer’s Response #4 and #5 this week.
August 31-September 4, 2015
Students should have notecards ready for a 10-point check on
Monday, the 31st.
They will write the summary for another 10-point check on
Tuesday and finish Wednesday if needed. Presentations will be
on Thursday the 3rd. Students should practice this at home
because it cannot be read. They may use notecards or notes to
help them.
Students must tell me the name of the book by their author that
they plan to read. They must have this book read by September
21. They may go to the library to check out a book by the author
they are researching.
Students will finish the 5W’s and How chart on the author of
Freak the Mighty, Rodman Philbrick. They will write gist
statements for each paragraph, and then use those to compose a
summary of his biography. These will be turned in for a 10-point
formative.
Bellwork is due on Friday. Each side is a 10-point formative.
September 7-11, 2015
Monday is a holiday! ENJOY
We will continue working in groups with the plot elements of
Freak the Mighty and the types of conflicts involved in the book.
We will also continue working with plot elements and deeper level
of questioning with these. Students will view a video with how
the plot elements interact, and we will look at sample ways to
write well-developed answers to a variety of plot element
questions.
Students were given Author Study Part 2 Summative. This will
be due towards the end of September. We will work on these in
class as well. Right now, students should be reading their
individual books.
Formative on Friday dealing with summary and plot elements.
This will be multiple choice.
September 14-18, 2015
Students will be working most of this week on a narrative essay
that will be a summative. Various steps will be checked for
10-point and 100-point formatives. Students have several
handouts on this. Five total. They must keep up with all of
these!!
We will have a short answer formative on Wednesday dealing with
plot elements and summarizing a fiction piece.
September 21-25, 2015
The majority of this week will be devoted to the narrative essay.
A final copy is due on Friday, September 25.
Unit 1 end of unit multiple choice formative 1 will be on
Wednesday. This focuses on theme, summary, and
comprehension.
Students will also be preparing for the author study presentation
2 in which they present the book they chose by their individual
authors. This presentation is a summative grade.
September 28-October 2, 2015
Book Fair this week. We will go as a class on Monday and
Wednesday. Students can stop by between classes as well.
Continue author study presentation on Monday.
Unit 1 end of unit multiple choice formative 2 on Tuesday the
29th.
Unit 1 multiple choice summative on Friday, October 2.
We will read some short stories this week and continue to analyze
the plot elements and how they affect one another.