This reading strategy is also a backwards design lesson. It functions by the students educating the teacher on the main ideas of the topic. The Standard: For this lesson on John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, students will address the Language Arts Common Core standards: 9.RL.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. The Essential Question: How does FATE play into the character's dreams, goals, and aspirations? Does FATE determine the characters' outcomes, or the characters' determine that for themselves? The Assessment: Students will write a letter to one of the main characters of the story, which will ultimately answer the essential question. The writing will look towards key moments throughout the story which will guide them through their letter. They will write to the character about their own dreams, goals, and aspirations, and relate the character's dreams, goals and aspirations to themselves throughout the letter. Performance Levels: On a grading scale of 10 possible points: Mastery of the standard will be demonstrated upon a score of 9-10 points. Basic understanding of the standard will be demonstrated upon a score of 7-8 points, but these students will be asked to target and analyze further textual evidence. Students with a score of 0-6 points will be asked to complete the assignment again and will need help in targeting and analyzing textual evidence. The Activity: Students will form four "committees"-- who will then be in charge of coming up with three main points. Each committee will be in charge of one of the four main characters, George, Lenny, Candy, and Curley. They will be responsible for coming up with three arguments to support the essential question: How does Fate determine the characters' outcomes, or the characters themselves determine their own outcome? As a class, we will compile our graphic organizer together, with each group responsible for filling in one of the four sections. As the teacher, I will be guiding the groups during the timed activity, but it is the students' responsibility to "teach" me the story as we go through the main points for each character and the group's argument to answer the essential question for that character. Once we have filled in the graphic organizer, this will essentially become the students' study guide in preparation for the exam.  |