Lesson on how evidence supports our conclusions

Aim: How can I use evidence to support my conclusion?

Initial Activity:  Download a picture of a building with its facade removed.  (the beams and be visible)


In groups, have students speculate about how is the picture reflects two key terms for this lesson: conclusion and evidentiary details?

Have groups share their analysis.

Explain how main ideas and conclusions that we draw when reading must be supported by supporting details very much like the roof of this building is supported with several columns. (Establish whether you want three, four or more details (columns) to support conclusions in your class.)

Modeling: Either draw the image on the board or project it.
Read a passage
Identify the conclusion that you can draw and write it on the horizontal slab (or next to it with an arrow)
then identify at lease 3 evidentiary details from the passage and write them on the columns
Explain to students the rationale for your selections

Select another passage from the book and complete the same exercise.
Have students identify and label the conclusion and evidentiary details.  Use this phase of the lesson to clarity misunderstandings.

For the final segment of the lesson, direct students to work alone, in pairs or groups and have them:
analyze a passage
draw the building diagram
Identity the conclusion and write it on their diagram
Identify evidentiary details and write them on the diagram

Share finding with class (At this time the teacher can assess students' understanding)

As a final activity, students should write a paragraph.

This lesson worked well with my 9th grade class.  Try it and let me know what you think.

Teaching Poetry

Aim: How can I decipher a poem?

Motivation: What is the purpose of a sifter?

( to separate the course parts so that the rest can become "fine" or small enough to use --for backing)

1. Explain that we can use that same concept to create a mneumonic to analyze a poem

When we SSIFTT a poem, we can determine its meaning.

2. Follow these steps:

Read the poem once to get a feel for the poem. How does the poem make you feel?

Read the poem again to determine the following:

Sounds you hear when you read the poem (rhymes, alliteration, onomatopoeia)

Symbols that you detect

Images that you see in the poem (this may overlap with symbols)

Figurative language (metaphor, simile, anaphor, personification)

Tone

Theme"

3. Let's use Blake's poem as an example

Love seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

SOUNDS: the singing voice of the clay, a moving brook, the warbling voice of the pebble

Symbols: selfless, malleable clay, symbolic of innocence; hardened pebble, symbolic of experience (loss of innocence), hell, heaven

IMAGES : soft clay being troddened down in the dust by the cattle, a hardened pebble enjoying the cool comfort of a brook

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: clay, pebble and love are personified

Tone: Since Blake ended with the voice of the pebble, he is pessimistic about the prospects of innocence surviving in a world of ruthless cattle. After the brutal experience of being troddened down, the once soft optimistic clay transformed into a selfish pebble devoid of emotion or hope.

THEME: The road to success is often paved with casualties from the stampede of those in selfish pursuit of something.

5. After modeling the above poem, have students attempt to decipher the following poems in groups of four.

"We real cool" Gwendolen Brooks

"The Road Not Taken" Robert Frost

" My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke

"I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes

6. Then have students share their interpretations.

Note: This is a strategy that has been success in engaging students in the reading and discussion of poetry. Let me know what you think.