EXTEND: 
Change, Same, Why

Plan for the reading of the chosen text, including activities that will engage students in pre-reading and interacting with the text through multiple reads. 

Students will be looking for common transition words during this instructional practice. You may want to locate and share with students a list of common transitional words and phrases for their reference.

Decide what the purpose for this activity will be. Will students use this information to engage in a discussion? Will they write an analytical essay? Will they create a one-page report? Essentially, this practice should be a stepping stone to another academic task.

REVISIT TEXT: In partners or small groups, have students return to a text that they have already read and interacted with for another read. For this read, students should focus on a particular concept or topic and highlight areas of the text where change occurs regarding that concept or topic. To do this, students should look specifically for transition words. 

USE ORGANIZER: Next, students should create their Change, Same, Why organizer. Using Educator Resource: Change, Same, Why Organizer, walk them through the set-up of this resource. 

 CHANGE: Students should first add all of the identified changes over time in the left-hand “Changes” column of the organizer. 

SAME: After students list the changes, instruct them to engage in a discussion of what stayed the same (continuity) over time despite the changes that occurred. They should add these ideas into the middle “Same” column. 

WHY: Then, students should move to the right-hand column of the organizer to discuss why they believe there were changes or continuity over time. They should add their reasoning to this “Why” column. •

SHARE OUT: Ask a few groups to share some of their examples with the class and encourage groups to add new information to their own organizers. 

DISCUSS: Debrief with a discussion about why it is important to think about how concepts, events, or other ideas change or stay the same throughout a text. 

 APPLY: After students complete their organizer, ask them to use this information to inform their work on the predetermined academic task.

 With fictional texts, this instructional practice can be used to analyze how characters change or stay the same throughout a text.

Students can create a timeline to visually depict changes and continuity over time. 

Students can engage in a Socratic Seminar to discuss their “Why” column. Why are these documented changes significant? Why should we care? 

Have students create a formal presentation to discuss their findings from the text.