Teaching Literacy Strategies for Content Area Reading Lesson Plan

Your Name: Alexis Kiriakos Grade Level: 6

Content Area: History Theme/Topic: American Revolution

Bibliographic Entry for Text Used in this Lesson

Newsela. (2016). Famous speeches: Patrick Henrys give me liberty or give me death. Retrieved from
https://newsela.com/articles/speeches-phenry-libertydeath/id/15311/

Lexile level: 860L

Editor's Note: Patrick Henry was a member of the Second Virginia Convention. He gave this speech in front of
the Convention. The meeting was held in St. John's Church in what is now Richmond, Virginia. The speech was
a call to war. Henry said that going to war was not a decision for the colonies to make, but a decision that had
already been made by the British. His opponents urged caution and patience until the British crown responded
to the Continental Congress' latest request for peace.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who
have just spoken to the House. But different men often see the same subject in different ways. Therefore, I hope
you will not think me disrespectful to those gentlemen if I speak my feelings freely and without limits. This is
no time for formality.

Techniques Selected
Name, and provide the reference for, each of the three different techniques you will be using.

Name of Technique Reference for Technique (book & page # or website)

Before Dramatic Role Play Subjects Matter, p. 110.
During Coding Text Subjects Matter, p. 125.
After Tweet the Text Subjects Matter, p. 138.

Before Reading:

Purpose
I chose an adapted version of Patrick Henrys speech from centuries ago, it is important for students to
visualize what they are about to read. Patrick Henrys speech was a major cause of the American Revolution,
so students should be given the opportunity to visualize what is happening at that moment in time. Dramatic
Role Play will allow students to visualize what they are about to read.

General Literacy Objectives

After this lesson, the student will:

Show their visualizations of the provided description through their role-play
 Discuss the ideas they portrayed in their performance and how they can now construct meaning about
Patrick Henrys famous speech

Assessment of Objectives
(See Assessment Checklist for BDA Strategies)

Procedure
1. Have students count off by threes. Teacher will give students a description of what they are going to
role-play. (You all are at the Second Virginia Convention. Ones, you are going to be Patrick Henry,
who is giving a speech to the Convention that we have no choice but to go to war with Britain. Twos,
you are going to agree with Patrick Henry, and you have had enough with Britain. Threes, you are
going to disagree with Patrick Henrys speech and think we can peacefully fix things with the British.)
2. Have the students get in groups (one of each number) and them to plan and rehearse their role-plays.
Have groups volunteer to share their role-play with the class.
3. After a group reforms, have students in each group lead discussion about what just happened. Ask
groups if anybody visualized it differently and discussion similarities and differences in each groups
skit.

During Reading:

Purpose
With this famous speech, it might be hard for some students to comprehend what Patrick Henry to trying to
convey because of the vocabulary used. If students are coding the text, they are thinking about their thinking as
they read. It makes them stop and think, and allows them to interpret the text and draw their own conclusions.

General Literacy Objectives

After this lesson, the student will:

Stop, think, and react to text by inferring, interpret, and drawing conclusions from text by using a
coding system (and writing out thoughts)

Assessment of Objectives
(See Assessment Checklist for BDA Strategies)

Procedure
1. The teacher will explain the codes they will using, called INSERT (Interactive Notation System for
Effective Reading and Thinking):

confirms what you thought (prior knowledge- what you thought before & after the dramatic role-
play)
contradicts what you thought (before & after the dramatic role-play)
? Puzzles you
??? Confuses you
strikes you as important
! is new or interesting to you
 Tell students that along with using codes, they are write whatever comes to their mind. (Model: I read a
line of speech and thought to myself, why did he say that? So I wrote, why did he say that next to that line.
When I read that men see the issue of British in two different ways I am going to write a check beside it because
it confirmed what I thought in the dramatic role-play.)

2. After you have modeling coding text, have students read the text and share the coding with a partner.
Give the students an option to partner read as well.
3. When the students are done, start discussion with the whole class by asking them to look through their
reading and have students share about exclamation points they wrote, and what exciting information
they learned.
4. Lead discussion into what they thought was confusing for them to read.

After Reading:

Purpose
Tweet the Text would be very motivating for students, since most of them are familiar with twitter and the idea
of getting your point across in only 140 characters. This allows students to use technology to synthesize the text.
It is important for students to be able to summarize what they read, and this engaging strategy allows them to
do so.

General Literacy Objectives

After this lesson, the student will:

Read and summarize the text by determining big ideas of the text and also providing important
supporting details in 140-characters

Assessment of Objectives
(See Assessment Checklist for BDA Strategies)

Procedure
1. After students have read the Newsela article, put them in pairs.
2. Have students take out their cell phones, or assign them laptops. Have students work together to create
a 140-character summary of the text.
3. Share with students that it is important to work together, and look back at their coding text and think
about to our discussion of what was important in the text. Remind them that their summary should
include the central idea and supporting details.
4. Challenge students to hit 140 characters on the dot and remind them that spaces count.
5. Once the students are finished when their summaries, have pairs share their tweets with the class.
6. Have an ongoing discussion about how different pairs shared the main idea of the speech in different,
creative ways.

Additional Sections

Other Materials Needed

Cell phones or Laptops
Adaptations (Select one of the following populations and explain how you might adapt the lessons above with their
needs in mind: ESL, SPED, Gifted

Adaptions for ESL students

Before strategy- Many ESL students might not have the same background knowledge that other students have,
especially on the American Revolution. Before I did the dramatic play activity, I would give an overview of the
American Revolution, and Patrick Henrys role. I believe having this conversation will activate prior knowledge
many students and set ESL students to have prior knowledge when it comes to the dramatic role-play.

During strategy-If the ESL student is not comfortable independently reading, providing them to choral read
with a teacher or partner so student do not feel they are at risk for failure. Having them code the text out loud,
by asking questions and having them make connections in a casual conversation will further prepare them to
later on code texts by themselves.

After strategy- I would give ESL students the opportunity to create their summary the form of pictures and have
them write what they can about their illustrations. Also, having them tell you orally is another adaption.

Assessment Charts (you must include documents that demonstrate how you will you record what you are looking for in
each objective-charts, checklists, rubrics. What behaviors, skills, or accomplishments do you expect to see that will let
you know each student has reached your objective)

Assessment Checklist for BDA strategies

1. Before Reading (Dramatic Role Play)

Student clearly shows their ideas of the description the teacher ______

provided through his or her performance

Participates in group discussion about what took place

in their performance ______

2. During Reading (Coding Text)

Students paper clearly shows coded text, such as symbols ______

Students shows thinking (inferring, making connections,

questioning) by writing out thoughts next to text ______

3. After Reading (Tweet the Text)

Student clearly summarizes the text, including main ideas

And supporting details, in 140 characters ______