One of the struggles of supporting our students in developing as readers is planning lessons that meet them where they are AND are oriented towards a rigorous grade-level and content bar. If you teach literature—what is the most complex and challenging novel or text you have set to teach this year? If you teach history—what is the concept and primary source set that is the most challenging in your long-term plan? Now imagine that you need to start this unit Monday morning…

Where will you begin? How will you plan and structure your lessons to support your students in understanding the text at its richest depths? What strategies will you use? When, where, and how will you use them? All of the questions! Where do you start?

Some helpful questions to prompt and support your first step in planning come from Kelly Gallagher’s Deeper Reading, and they are as follows:

  1. Without my assistance, what will my students take away from this reading?
  2. With my assistance, what do I want students to take away from this reading?
  3. What can I do to bridge the gap between what my students would learn on their own and what I want them to learn?
  4. How will I know if my students “get it”?

 

In order to get a sense of how these four questions can guide planning, let’s apply them to a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times in response to the mass shooting in San Bernardino on December 3, 2015. The piece, “Don’t Make San Bernardino A Victory for ISIS” was written by contributor Haider Ali Hussein Mullick, a Naval Reserve Officer and professor at the Naval War College. Click here to read the piece or see the reproduction below.

 

Question 1: Without my assistance, what will my students take away from this reading?

If my 9th grade students were to read this article on their own, I would expect them to understand the following main points:

  • Mullick, the author, is an American Muslim. He is worried that the shooting in San Bernardino is going to lead to greater Islamophobia in the United States.
  • Many people argue that Islam is against democracy. Mullick disagrees with that argument.
  • American Muslims are important in our fight against ISIS.

Most of my students would be able to pull out these points on their own—they are largely stated at the beginning of paragraphs and in simple straight-forward language. As their teacher, I am choosing for us to read this article together so that they will gain even deeper and more nuanced understanding.

Question 2: With my assistance, what do I want my students to take away from this reading?

In addition to the points above, which most students would be able to deduce on their own, as strong readers and writers, I want my students to:

  • Recognize the author’s thesis.
  • Identify and analyze the techniques the author used to communicate his thesis.
  • Understand the impact of the author’s use of statistics to build his argument
  • Understand the diction used and key vocabulary: vitriol, fearmongers, propaganda, alienate, fanaticism, sectarian
  • Learn some background knowledge to deepen their understanding of:
    • ISIS—what it wants and our engagement as a nation thus far
    • San Bernardino attack
    • Recent history of mass shootings and armed attack in the U.S.

 

As I began to make this list, I quickly realized that there was some secondary and tertiary knowledge that my students will need some exposure to in order to understand the importance of this piece and request from Mullick.

 

Question 3: What can I do to bridge the gap between what my students would learn on their own and what I want them to learn?

Bridging the gap here will require me to design lessons that not only support students in digging more deeply into the argument that Mullick is making and the precedent upon which he is arguing, but also support them in building skills and knowledge to respond to this piece. I must keep one question central in my planning—what is it that I want my students to take away from this piece? After a little bit of thinking, it is clear that I want my students, given our context at this point in the year, to be able to thoughtfully answer the following questions:

In your opinion is “Don’t Make San Bernardino a Victory for ISIS” an effective essay? In answering, consider the following: Why did the author write this article (author’s purpose)? What techniques did he use to make his argument? Were they effective? Why or why not?

This response to literature essay will be the end of a mini-unit (2 weeks). It is essential that I know where I want to students to end and how I will be assessing them BEFORE I start planning so that I can ensure we take the time to build the knowledge and skills needed to take on this question. Given that, my approach might look something like this:

Focusing the Reader:

To build some interest and focus our reading, I might ask students to jot down how many mass shootings they believe there have been this year and/or what demographic of people have committed the most acts of domestic terrorism in since 9/11/2001. We might then share our predictions and our reasons for them. Students are then given a fact sheet containing some statistics about mass shootings, mass shooters, and domestic terrorism in the last 15 years. I then ask them to write a 3-5 minute reflection on the back of the fact sheet or in their writer’s notebook. These reflections lead to small group and whole class discussions to warm us up to the topic and our upcoming reading.

After this, I let them know that we’ll be reading an essay entitled “Don’t Make San Bernardino a Victory for ISIS” and they’ll be writing a response to the literature through the following question: In your opinion is “Don’t Make San Bernardino a Victory for ISIS” an effective essay? In answering, consider the following: Why did the author write this article (author’s purpose)? What techniques did he use to make his argument? Were they effective? Why or why not?

Also, before we read, I might show them a map of mass shootings (either the calendar from the recent Washington Post article) to orient to the scale that we are talking about.

First-Draft Reading:

Before we even do the first read, I might have students predict the definitions of 5 words that I think are important to understanding Mullick’s argument and difficult to determine through context alone.

Vocabulary Predictions
Word Prediction BEFORE Reading Prediction AFTER Reading Prediction AFTER Group Discussion
Vitriol
Alienate
Fanaticism
Sectarian
Propaganda  

 

I tell them that as they read the text, they should keep a lookout for the words and see if the context for each word seems to confirm or counter their initial predictions. This activity provides my students with entry-level purpose as they read for the first time.

Usually I will begin the reading and then we will either move to “Hollywood Reading” or independent reading. For this article, given the relative accessibility, we will most likely move to independent reading.

Second-Draft Reading:

After our first read, students first revisit their vocabulary predictions. Now that they’ve seen the words in context, they consider their predictions again and make new predictions. Then, I ask students to flip to the top of the page and jot down (and finish) this sentence:

The author’s purpose in writing the essay is _________________________.

After they complete this sentence, students are given two highlighters or two different colored pens. With one, they highlight/underline the single sentence in the essay that they think best captures the author’s thesis statement. With the lighter one, they highlight key areas that support the thesis.

Collaboration:

At this point, I might ask students to share their revised vocabulary predictions in small groups to see how close their predictions are to one another. Findings and thoughts are then shared full class, which gives us all an opportunity to talk about the importance of context and conversation to distill the meaning of words.

Students remain in their small groups to share their high-lighted thesis statements and supporting evidence. Each group is asked to reach a consensus about author’s purpose; one person is picked at random to present the group’s findings with the rest of the class.

There is also an opportunity here to engage students in a conversation about what a strong persuasive essay includes—most importantly, a call to action. An opinion writer isn’t merely sharing his or her opinion; he or she is asking you to DO SOMETHING. I ask students to return to the text and circle any evidence of the author’s call to action. We then share responses out in small groups or full group.

Next, we consider the structure. I ask students to number each paragraph, and on a separate sheet of paper make a “map” of what the author did in each paragraph. I encourage them to create the maps in their small group so that they can share insight and leverage the collective knowledge. We then share out full group to begin to notice the way Mullick’s argument progresses and the techniques he uses. (This can also set up students to be able to write their own persuasive essays later in the year or unit. Having them consider a number of models—the structure and content—helps students for a foundation of knowledge for their own writing.

Reflective Response to the Text:

Next, it is clear that while this topic is prevalent in the news today, and my students do not live without the constant presence of violence in their lives, they are unfamiliar with the sheer magnitude. We consider a few infographics—the calendar from the Washington Post article, a breakdown of the number of domestic terror attacks, an infographic from the Atlantic about “What ISIS Really Wants”. After students have taken in information and discussed in their small groups, I pose some questions:

  • What is left unsaid in these infographics?
  • Why is our nation so severely impacted by mass shootings?
  • What factors contribute to Islamophobia but preclude phobias of the conservative right?

Students discuss these questions in their small group, and then share out their answers.

 

Question 4: How will I know if my students “got it”?

Before we dive into the actual question, I have students write a brief response in response to all of this information. Now that students have accessed more information, they are ready to write. I reintroduce the question with which we started this 7 day unit.

In your opinion is “Don’t Make San Bernardino a Victory for ISIS” an effective essay? In answering, consider the following: Why did the author write this article (author’s purpose)? What techniques did he use to make his argument? Were they effective? Why or why not?

To answer these questions thoroughly, students must demonstrate a knowledge of the mass shooting crisis here in the United States, an understanding of the complexities of Islamophobia, as well a grasp of the techniques employed by Mullick to argue his point. I will know whether students “got it” when I read their response to literature essays.