Teaching Tip: Building background for low readers
Last week my seventh graders started to learn about the Civil War in American History. I LOVE discussing historical topics, {in college, my minor was originally 5 -8 Social Studies, but I switched a semester in to 5-8 Communication/Language Arts; it was a better fit}, and I especially love pulling the amazing literature to assist with Historical concepts.
I have a class of low seventh grade readers in the afternoon – nine of them to be exact. This class is smaller in size to assist with student need. Usually I would also have a paraprofessional to help with the really low bunnies, but it’s just me 🙂
My goal is to break down vocabulary, assignments, and abstract concepts from the main stream classes – my normal focus is American History, Science, and Language Arts. American History is the focus for this month; there are many challenging vocabulary terms, people, and tons and tons of literature to intertwine with the topic of the Civil War. I decided to focus on a poem His Hands Dug and the struggles of Booker T. Washington to give students some of the knowledge needed in comprehending the bigger picture of the problems and issues after the Civil War.
A glimpse into my plan book:
Day One:
I love to show youtube clips of a new area of focus. My kids LOVE these – even if they’re only a couple minutes. I showed the video of Booker T. Washington and the struggles of African American people after the North won the Civil War.
Next, we read through an article in our SCOPE magazine explaining the upbringing of Booker & filled in a summary worksheet together to recap the important facts.
Day Two-Three:
As a class, we did a review of Booker T. Washington’s life & challenges he faced. Then, we began our poem analysis of His Hands Dug {this was taken from Scholastic.com. I encourage all Language Arts/Reading teacher to invest in this subscription! It is a game-changer!}. We read through the poem, once out loud and twice individually. The second time when reading individually, I have student circle 3 – 4 words they don’t know- we stay away from proper nouns!
We look the problem words up in the dictionary and complete a mini word study; what is the definition of this terms in our words? How can we best understand what this word means? Are there other words we know that mean the same thing?
For this poem, one of the words written by almost every student was emancipate – SUCH an important term when studying the Civil War! We apply the meaning of these tough words back to the poem for further dissection. The worksheet guides struggling readers through the understanding of the first stanza, as well as the rest of the poem, beautifully.
Day Four:
Once the poem is broken down by stanza, we write the overall message [theme] together. I start students out with a partner and instruct them to write down a one worded topic for this poem. Then, we will stretch that topic into a sentence. For example, a pair came up with EDUCATION as their topic. After they stretched it into their theme, it was finalized as: Education should be equal for all. {Keep in mind, theme is a tough concept to grasp & for my low readers, this is HUGE progress!}
I am blown away by these little nuggets. This poem is NOT easy to understand. The first stanza reads:
Up from Slavery,
Yanked the weeds
Sprouted from seeds
sown on the Civil War’s battleground;
Once emancipated, stay enslaved to common labor.
After much modeling and word breakdown, I had students write down what they thought this first stanza was saying. I had one of my lowest readers respond with: Slaves have been freed from the Civil War outcome, but are still being forced to work jobs as before because of no education.
I about fainted.
Next year, I’m moving into a full time Remedial Reading position – I still get to keep my 8th grade Honors Language Arts class – but I am excited for this type of growth for all my students!