What are you working on? I haven't seen ya in a while!

Well, my current project is a large one. One of my favorite books to read with my 8th graders was "October Sky" by Homer Hickam. It's a 27 chapter book (epilogue included), 428 pages, jam packed with a whole lot of goodness. Homer Hickam tells his story of growing up in a coal mining town, becoming obsessed with the space race, and how he decided to join it. He embodies hard work, determination, and perseverance. If you want something bad enough, you have to work your butt off to get it.

Not only is the message behind this book a great one for our youth, but the story line is heart breaking, hilarious, and easily relatable. It's a fun one to teach.

So what am I working on?

After using this book for 5 years it has seen better days!

A teacher packet including vocabulary lessons for each chapter, chapter comprehension questions, journaling/discussion suggestions for each chapter, a research project/presentation, & vocabulary instruction - all focused on a student's ability to use their background knowledge to aid in comprehension (research project), context clues (vocabulary), and illustrating their understanding of the text, making connections, comparing and contrasting (book to movie).

This book took approximately 9 weeks to finish and was totally worth every minute. Now if only I could convince myself of that as I try and compile all my work into one document. ;)

Stay tuned because this is, in my opinion, worth the wait.

Secondary Elements of Plot Unit

This unit always followed the unit on bullying for two reasons:

1. I picked books that brought the issue of bullying alive (Crash by Jerry Spinelli, The True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexi, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher are three I'd recommend).
2. I tackled the issue of bullying, while teaching the students the importance of picking out important details while reading.

The perks of this particular unit include:

• This unit follows the 4MAT Lesson Design: 
• Connect: Creating an experience for the learner. (Day 1) 
• Attend: Learner reflects and analyzes experience. (Day 1) 
• Image: Developing concept images. (Day 2) 
• Inform: Explain to learners how experts understand the concept. (Day 3-4) 
• Practice: Where the learner practices the defined concept and skills. (Day 4) 
• Extend: Where the learner experiments and adds something of oneself. (Day 5) 
• Refine: Where the leaner analyzes the concept for relevance and usefulness. (Day 6-7) 
• Perform: Where the learner is now applying what was learned to a new and more complex experience. (Day 7 and 8)

• Common Core Aligned (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.3 & CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.7.6) 
• Assessment Included 
• This 41 page unit uses YouTube video’s, graphic organizers, cartoons,
  
  a think-aloud to the short story The Lady or the Tiger? by Frank Stockton, manipulatives,
  
  and projects… Students Will: Identify and apply knowledge of the structure, elements and literary techniques to analyze fiction, identify the structure (beginning, middle, end), identify and analyze the elements (characters, setting, plot conflict, and point of view), describe how character traits determine resolution of the conflict, analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text, analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot). 
• After completing the two weeks teaching the basics of the elements of plot, we'd read a book and complete the witches hat graphic organizer together as a class: 

  

  The PDF format is available for FREE on my TeachersPayTeachers account (go here to download it now).

Find it on TeachersPayTeachers and TeachersNotebook for $20 or contact me at rafikeys.to.success@gmail.com for purchase and we'll hash out the details.