Reading Current Events Using Text-Rendering

Date: 3/27/2014 Objective(s) for todays lesson: Students will use text rendering strategies to read an article about a current topic from The Detroit Free Press. Rationale: This skill, text rendering, is important because it gives access to the main ideas of text. The Detroit Free Press is a challenging newspaper for ELLs to read because the diction and sentence structure is more complex than translations of Korean, Japanese, or Arabic newspapers, which usually use more basic structure because the translation simplifies the grammar and diction. This topic is current, is about real individuals, and connects to some students lives because it is about the challenges of immigration permanent residence in the U.S. Materials & supplies needed: Article, pen/pencil, highlighter Link to article below! http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2014303300144 Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event Introduction to the lesson Who will return to their home
country after this year? Who will stay in the United States and earn their citizenship? Who knows the meaning of the D.R.E.A.M. Act? Its an acronym for Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors. In other words, its a law that tries to help children who come to the U.S. and are not citizens yet.

Academic, Social and Linguistic Support during each event This is a small group tutoring session. Students can socially construct the background knowledge together, so they dont actually have to come to class knowing about the D.R.E.A.M. Act.

OUTLINE of key events during the lesson 1. Skim the article. Circle unknown vocabulary. 2. Front-load vocabulary that students circled. 3. Read the first paragraph. Model the strategy by use of think-aloud. Find one word that summarizes the first paragraph. Say why I chose that word. Write it. 4. Read the next paragraph together. Choose a word together. Discuss why that word is good. Write it. 5. Students and I alternate reading each paragraph, each time selecting one word that is important. 6. Discuss our words. Why are they important? 7. Write one sentence that summarizes the main idea of the article. Use the words to help you.

Allow students to highlight unfamiliar vocabulary. Discuss the vocabulary, and allow students with the same L1 to translate the word for each other, if necessary. We focus on one word summaries, so its important that the vocabulary isnt strange. This is one way we can learn vocabulary in context while performing other tasks.

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event Introduction to the lesson Who will return to their home
country after this year? Who will stay in the United States and earn their citizenship? Who knows the meaning of the D.R.E.A.M. Act? Its an acronym for Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors. In other words, its a law that tries to help children who come to the U.S. and are not citizens yet.

Academic, Social and Linguistic Support during each event This is a small group tutoring session. Students can socially construct the background knowledge together, so they dont actually have to come to class knowing about the D.R.E.A.M. Act.

OUTLINE of key events during the lesson 1. Skim the article. Circle unknown vocabulary. 2. Front-load vocabulary that students circled. 3. Read the first paragraph. Model the strategy by use of think-aloud. Find one word that summarizes the first paragraph. Say why I chose that word. Write it. 4. Read the next paragraph together. Choose a word together. Discuss why that word is good. Write it. 5. Students and I alternate reading each paragraph, each time selecting one word that is important. 6. Discuss our words. Why are they important? 7. Write one sentence that summarizes the main idea of the article. Use the words to help you. Closing summary for the lesson This article was difficult,
good job for working through it. This strategy, finding the main words and sentences, can help you read your science and history textbooks, and can also help you with novels and other news articles.

Allow students to highlight unfamiliar vocabulary. Discuss the vocabulary, and allow students with the same L1 to translate the word for each other, if necessary. We focus on one word summaries, so its important that the vocabulary isnt strange. This is one way we can learn vocabulary in context while performing other tasks.

Transition to next learning activity: Respond to prompt Assessment Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of We defined the difficult
the article. Then, respond to the article: What does this mean for child immigrants? What are some questions or concerns you have about the topic or the article?

vocabulary in the article, and we chose words together and discussed them, offering a social construction of the texts meaning.