Nicole Stein
Digging Deep: Unearthing the themes of Holes
Introduction:
There are things that arise every day that prove just how hard it is to be a teacher. One of my recent discoveries is the effort and time it takes to plan a unit that is effective while still being fun. The following is my attempt to do just that as well as a look at my thought process to explain why I made the choices I did. The number of things that I gained from this exercise are too many to count, but through analyzing my choices and how I designed certain things I was able to see what skills I have a handle on and what still needs developing. My admiration for teachers continues to grow, as those that truly love what to do will devote all of their energy to help their students succeed. I hope to show my students that I too and one of these teachers that is willing and able to guide them down the path to success.
I am currently placed at Bath Middle School in a 6th grade English classroom. This group of students became my focus group when designing this unit, keeping in mind their work habits and attitudes while thinking of ideas for the lessons. The school is in a rural area north of Lansing, so the student body has a multitude of socio-economic backgrounds and many students have things going on at home that children should not have to deal with-making school a place to escape and just be a kid for a few hours. There is an invisible divide within the classroom that seems particularly exaggerated in this classroom between ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’ students. It is likely the age group of the students, but regardless the reasoning, there are many students who are visibly left on the outside for whatever reason and left to explore the intimidating world of middle school alone. The teacher, as well as myself, try to create a safe atmosphere for the students but so far our interventions have not succeeded.
This unit deals with a particular book and teaches reading strategies as well as how to go deeper in to a text. Because reading strategies are so important, I would place this unit at the beginning of the year, allowing students to use the skills for the rest of their time in school and practice to hopefully perfect them while in my classroom. The idea of character maps and anticipations guides are also something that would be good to have at the beginning of the year so that students get used to what they entail and benefit from them throughout the year. The different strategies being developed and strengthened during this unit can be continued and help students become independent in the reading and writing process. They will discover how to do what many of us—especially English teachers—feel is second nature in understanding and deconstructing a text and also creating a written piece through help from peers.
The classroom has recently been switched from rows of desks to clusters of 4 desks, which I find a much better fit for the class as a whole. Having the groups of students allows the teacher to walk around and talk to all the students, makes it easier for group work and peer editing, and helps students build relationships with people they may not have talked to before but can now learn about and more importantly learn from. Currently, students are placed with their friends and those that would cause the least conflict, but I would want to switch them up to have students working with people they may not know as well. Through doing this they can develop the skills of understanding differences and maintaining respect for fellow students. It is never to early to stress this in a classroom, and since there are many activities with group work, it is important for the students to know that everyone has a right to their own opinion and should be allowed the opportunity to voice it.
The sections that follow are the rationale for the unit and the lessons that will comprise part of the unit. The unit will take more than ten lessons to complete, so this is only a portion of what will be done in the classroom.
Rationale:
No student should feel that their voice is not important. No matter how insignificant they may feel, no matter how many things they feel they have to learn, no matter how many times they try something but end up failing, no matter what color their skin is, their ability to preserve their beliefs is crucial to how they will view themselves and the world as they get older. Using a text that preserves this idea of standing up for beliefs, along with supplementary texts, I intend to create a unit that will engage students in thinking about their own voice. This will become the main objective of the lessons, continuing to push students to see how important it is to develop what they believe and not let their voice be covered up just because of youth or inexperience.
The main text will be Holes by Louis Sachar. This book is geared towards children ages 10 and up, fitting perfectly into the sixth grade curriculum without being too overbearing. Throughout the lesson students will engage in characterization activities that help establish the motivations of each, and in turn learn how their own lives can be analyzed in the same way. Along with Holes, students will be exposed to poems like “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and “I, Too, Sing America” by Langston Hughes. These poems will provide an opportunity for students to gain an idea of being repressed from having a voice, and the strength and determination it took to show that the individual voice was still in tack.
The issue of race and discrimination comes up in the text, so the topic of voice will be linked to the story of Emmett Till, since a story from the text has many parallels to what Till was accused of and murdered for. Sections of the PBS special “The Murder of Emmett Till” will be seen during the class to give students a glimpse at the conditions and tone of the nation before the Civil Rights Movement took hold in the United States. It is my intention to use a very emotional story like this to get students thinking about the issues they feel a great connection with so that they can do two writing assignments that focus on taking a stand and sharing their beliefs about a subject.
As part of an ongoing process, I will also be modeling the skills of actively reading to help students understand the process that needs to be carried out while reading a text. Many students are dependent readers and have not discovered the strategies to gain understanding from the text and get past words on a page, so I will be providing scaffolding for the struggling readers to begin practicing how to become more independent. At the beginning of the unit I will model the strategies, and as the lessons move on the students will be required to do more on their own to push themselves in to the more independent reading level. Since this text is not as complicated as some, this is a good starting point for students why struggle to begin the process of comprehending and analyzing readings.
As a final project for this unit, students will choose as a class an issue that is being discussed in Congress and will write letters to their Congressmen and women telling them why the issue should be dealt with, and the ways they think it should be done. This will give students an audience that is authentic, and will also show them that their voice is never too small to be heard. The rubric for the assignment allows them to see where they are struggling and where they are strong in order to provide a basis for them to move forward in upcoming units. This is something I feel is very important for students so that they can grow from the experience and take initiative to improve for the next assignment because they know the things they can work on. The grid format also allows for students to read the grading easily and not question how points got distributed or where they lost credit.
The unit will take place over 20 lessons due to the fact that in class reading will be done in the majority of the lessons. This may seem like a long unit but since the class struggles with doing outside work and also with reading comprehension this format provides the opportunity for them to grow. They will be learning the reading skills described above in order to strengthen their reading comprehension which will continue to help them in their futures. There will be a much greater opportunity for growth if the students are able to work in the classroom and get things accomplished than constantly catching them up from homework they did not complete the night before.
Unit Objectives:
r Students will develop skills for becoming independent readers
r Students will understand how to take a stand/position on a topic and support it with textual evidence
r Students will maintain respect toward others and understand differences when working with varying opinions
These objectives follow the guidelines of many NCTE standards. The ability to learn
strategies for reading independently is something every student can benefit from. The skills can be taken on to future classes and their future careers, allowing them to gain a better understanding of what is going on around them. The standard highlights the ability to “comprehend, evaluate, and interpret texts” and these are the skills I hope to help students develop through the reading strategies in this unit. The ability to take a position falls under the “pose questions and research on certain ideas” portion of the standards. Students should be able to find something they believe in and support it with textual evidence to show the credibility of the claim. This skill will again help them in the future. Finally, respect for others and understanding of the differences falls under the “prior experiences of students and their interactions with other readers/writers” which again highlights the importance of taking multiple points of view and experiences in order to provide the most rich experience for the student. If students gain the respect and appreciation for looking at a topic from more than one angle, they will be able to succeed in high school, college, and the job world with much greater ease.
Resources:
Holes- Louis Sachar
“Still I Rise” Maya Angelou
“I, Too, Sing America” Langston Hughes
“The Murder of Emmett Till” PBS special
Lesson 1
Target Audience:
This unit is designed for the 6th grade English classes at Bath Middle School. There is a vast representation of socio-economic statuses among the students and the school is located in a very rural community.
Placement within the Overall Unit:
This lesson is the intro to the unit titled Digging Deep: Unearthing the themes of Holes. The unit is tied around the text Holes by Louis Sachar which focuses on the role of voice and the choice of standing up for one’s beliefs. It also touches on some historical concepts of discrimination and racism. These different issues will be presented throughout the unit to help students tackle the complexity of each. Journals will be used at the beginning of each lesson as a routine and connect the previous topic to current one while helping students remember topics from one day to the next.
Lesson Objectives:
During this lesson students will:
r Develop strategies for pre-reading and actual reading of the text-helping dependent readers find their comfort level in reading
r Develop the skills of appreciating differing perspectives that classmates will have
r Use the text to support claims and evidence
Materials Needed:
r Holes-one copy for each student
r Anticipation guide for each student
r Transparency of anticipation guide
r Journals (students should already have these from previous units)
r Poster board
Instruction:
Activity 1- Journals (5 minutes)
Students will write an entry for the following prompt- Imagine something that is really special to you is taken away. What is it and how would you feel?
Activity 2- Making predictions (5 minutes)
The teacher will present the book for this unit, Holes. Once all students have a copy, the teacher will begin to look over the book with the class. Attention will be paid to the cover and teaser on the back. While looking at these aspects of the book, the teacher will ask students to make predictions about what the cover portrays and what the teaser could mean for the story. The teacher will write these answers on a piece of poster board to be referred to for the rest of the unit.
Activity 3- Anticipation guides (15 minutes)
Students will use the ‘face value’ predictions of the previous activity and create higher level thinking by filling out anticipation guides on the themes of the text. The teacher will explain the concept of the guide, stressing there is no right or wrong answer and also let the students know this is a good strategy of pre-reading to get you thinking about the ideas of the text. (copy of anticipation guide at end of lesson)
Students will fill out guide individually, and then teacher will put them in groups of 3-4 so they can share their answers with each other. Students must provide support for their decision. After a few minutes to share in small groups, the class will come together to discuss what they decided.
Activity 4- Starting to “dig” in to the book (30 minutes)
The teacher will read chapters 1-2 to the class. While reading, the teacher will pause frequently to model ‘think aloud’ strategies for comprehending. Some examples from the first paragraph of the book:
“There is no lake at Camp Green Lake”-I wonder why they call it Camp Green Lake then? “There once was a very large lake here, the largest lake in Texas.”-Well I guess that explains why it’s called Camp Green Lake, and we also see that the story is going to be set in Texas. “That was over a hundred years ago. Now it is just a dry, flat wasteland.”- I’m picturing this empty, brown area that has tumbleweeds blowing around because it talks about it being a wasteland that is very dry. The sun is probably beating down really hot and I can feel my mouth drying out just thinking of how hot it is here at Camp Green Lake!