Digging Deeper: A Close Reading Teaching Experience

1. Digging Deeper: A Close Reading Teaching Experience Directions & Design

2. General Guidelines • You will create a close reading lesson and will teach it to another group. • You will use either a selection from your story or a new piece (a poem) as the text of focus—the thing that you want to “teach” how to closely read • The lesson must be at least 40minutes long. • Each member must be a vital part of the teaching.

3. Objective & Purpose • You will need to decide as a group what you hope to accomplish during the lesson (your objectives and purpose) • We want our lesson to… • As teachers, we hope to… • At the end of our lesson, students should be able to...

4. Components of the Lesson Specific guidelines on each part of the lesson!

5. Introduction • The beginning of a lesson should always include an introduction of some sort—especially one that will get students interested in the topic, story and/or what’s being learned • Be creative! Engaging! • Appropriate • Time length: 5 minutes max

6. Activity One: Layer One Reading (reading to understand) • The first part of the lesson should guide students through a first draft reading of the piece. You could read aloud, you could act it out and then read it, etc! Be CREATIVE • How you do this is up to you—but remember, teach how you wish to be taught • Length: Choice (remember, you only have 40minutes total time) • YOU WILL NEED TO PROVIDE A COPY OF THE SELECTION FOR YOUR “STUDENTS”

7. Activity Two: 2nd Draft Reading • The second part of the lesson should guide students through using a skill of close reading—visualizing, responding, confusion, discussion (going deeper) • We will have a mini-lesson on discussion (including how to question) • How you do this is up to you—but remember, teach how you wish to be taught • Length: Choice (remember, you only have 40minutes total time)

8. Activity Three: 3rd Draft Reading—Analysis Time • For the last activity (and this can be combined with the second activity with 2nd draft reading), you need to guide students into analyzing the text through your choice skill (character, conflict, tone) • How you do this is again, up to you. The goal is that students really understand and have analyzed the selection! • Length: Choice (remember, you only have 40 minutes total time)

9. Assessment: Have students learned what you wanted them to learn? • This is the most important part of teaching! You need to evaluate the learning of your students. You can do this a number of ways (a mini-writing assignment, a group share, a skit, a discussion, a product of some sort—again, it’s up to you). • The goal of the assessment should be to evaluate whether or not you accomplished the objective and purpose as well as whether or not students have learned and applied the skills of focus. • You will evaluate these assessments and report back to your teacher about both the learning of your students and the effectiveness of your lesson (based on the learning). • Length of time: Up to you!