Reading Intervention With the Hulk and Spiderman

This is a reflection on a three month long reading intervention with a 5th grade student from Guatemala. It summarizes my first hand experience and the lessons I learned about SIOP, accommodations and using comic books to teach literacy. For a more detailed analysis of the reading intervention and the growth I was able to affect, see the lecture notes from my presentation at Adams State College Student Scholar Days in the evidence of effectiveness section.

Holy Cow! What did I get myself into?
The more information I learned about my battle buddy, the more overwhelmed I became (“Case study” or “Intervention student” sounds like a lab rat so I call him my battle buddy).
I was thinking I could have picked a much easier student with whom to work. Then again, I could have chosen to be a factory worker instead of a teacher.
It wasn’t until I started asking for help that we started to make progress. I sought out information on my student’s first language from a number of people. Suddenly, many of my student’s reading problems were clear to me. Sounds he couldn’t seem to master didn’t even exist in his first language. Much of his native alphabet had different sounds from the English alphabet and vowels are used differently.

Success is contagious.
Once we experienced success, our motivation snowballed. I’m not sure who was happier the first time my battle buddy got a 100% on a spelling test. From that point on, he was more engaged and worked harder at everything we did. Everyone needs to feel success and that first little bit of it paid huge dividends.

Comic Books
They’re cheap, short, engaging, full of great illustrations and have good quality vocabulary. There is also plenty of research available to back their effectiveness as a tool for teaching literacy.
Cleaver, Samantha. “Mrs. Grundy’s right! You can teach reading with comics and graphic novels.” Instructor May/June 2008: 29-34.

http://www.comicbookproject.org/

Ranker, Jason. “Using comic books as read-alouds: Insights on reading instruction from an English as a second language classroom.” The Reading Teacher, 61(4), 296-305.

Kakalios, James. The Physics of Superheroes. New York: Penguin, 2005.

WARNING: Like most other entertainment, comic books have ratings. Familiarize yourself before using comics in your classroom.

Undercover Accommodation
My battle buddy wanted to do the same thing everyone else was doing. He didn’t want to take different tests or do different worksheets. It embarrassed him to be different. I learned to take what the class was working on and modify it to meet his needs. By taking timed multiplication tests and putting the questions in some sort of order, it allows my battle buddy to complete the problems easier without his test looking any different from everyone else’s.

Don’t be fooled by a 5th grader.
It took me a while to realize my student was fooling me. He could tell me the entire storyline of a given comic book from memory. The problem was he wasn’t actually reading the comic. He constructed the story strictly from the illustrations. When I asked him if he had any questions, he would flip the book open and ask me about the first big word he saw.
When people lose one of their senses, they naturally compensate by heightening their other senses. My student was no different. He struggled with reading, so he compensated by developing a keen ability to interpret context clues. He is also an expert at self correcting based on my facial expression. I’m still working on my spelling poker face.

What I learned:
You’re not alone unless you choose to be.
· Get help from other teachers and experts.
· Coordinate your effort with other teachers (ELL, Resource etc…).

Success equals motivation for everyone involved.

Use appropriate reading material.
· Interesting to your student.
· Good vocabulary-Lamborghini and Ferrari are not useful words.

Don’t be fooled by a 5th grader! They have well developed adaptation skills.

Learn their language and culture.
· Make connections.
· SIOP really works!

Practice undercover accommodation.
· Make your accommodations invisible to the rest of the class.
· Intervention students want to do the same thing everyone else is doing.

No Colorado Model Content Standard for celestial navigation?

Ever wonder exactly how men like Columbus, Cook, Magellan and Lewis & Clark knew where they were? They used the 2400 year old astrolabe; the precursor to a modern sextant. This lesson uses a simple astrolabe built out of paper, string and a straw to demonstrate celestial navigation. Students can learn to measure angles and what lines of latitude are while reading about pirates. Aaargh Matey! This lesson plan demonstrates my ability to design a lesson that is flexible and utilitarian enough to teach history, science, math, or geography while using a variety of literature.

Established Goals:
Math standard 5, grades 5-8, benchmark 1: Estimate, use, and describe measures of distance, perimeter, area, volume, capacity, weight, mass and angle.
Geography standard 1.1, grades 5-8: Interpreting and constructing maps, globes, models, charts and geographic databases.
History standard 4.1, grades 5-8: Identify and explain the consequences of scientific and technological changes (navigation and transportation).

Understandings: Students will understand what and astrolabe is and how it was used.

Essential Questions: How did Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, Ferdinand Magellan, pirates and other explorers navigate the open ocean?

Students will know... How changes in celestial navigational enabled humans to map and explore the earth.

Students will be able to...
Measure angles using a protractor.
Identify longitudinal lines on a map or globe and explain how they are derived.

Performance Assessment:
Using a self constructed astrolabe, students will be able to measure an angle to within 5⁰.
Correctly identify longitudinal lines on a map or globe.
Use longitudinal lines to create a map illustrating how to navigate to a given location.

Other Assessment:
Classroom discussions and questioning.
Small group measurement practice.

Learning Activities:
1. Build background knowledge by discussing ocean travel during Christopher Columbus' time. How did Columbus know where he was when he could see nothing but water? This can be used with almost any non-fiction literature on ocean exploration, Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, Ferdinand Magellan or even pirates. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea also makes an excellent fiction accompanyment to this lesson. For you land lubbers, Lewis and Clark also used a sextant (more accurate version of the astrolabe) on their expedition as did Zebulon Pike.
2. Discuss the Astrolabe, its different forms and history.
3. Discuss Polaris (North Star), its alignment with the earth's axis (<1⁰), its distance from earth(430 ly) and how to find it using Ursa Major (The Big Dipper).
4. Discuss lines of latitude on a map or globe and their correlation to Polaris.
5. Guide students through the construction of the astrolabe. Materials needed per astrolabe: 1 drinking straw, 6" of string, I paper protractor, 1 sewing needle, masking tape, scissors. Also maps or globes
6. Model taking measurements with the astrolabe. You will need to create artificial North Stars using a projector or just hanging paper start around the room. Plans for a simple constellation projector can be found in Still More Science Activities ed. Cheryl Solinini. Smithsonian Institute, 1989.
7. Break the class into small groups and have them practice measuring angles in the classroom and recording their measurements.
8. Connect the measurements the students have recorded to lines of latitude on the map or globe. Where could you be if you measured 37⁰?
9. Have students pick somewhere they would like to go on vacation and create a map illustrating how to navigate to that location using lines of latitude as a directions.
Other Ideas
Put lines of latitude on the floor of your classroom with string. Have the students label the lines using the measurements they derive with their astrolabe. Have large cutouts of the different continents for the students to place and the correct latitude until they have constructed their own map of the world.
Lesson taken from Projects in Space by Robert Gardner. Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Tired of Writing Prompts?

In an effort to give my students a more authentic purpose for writing, I connected my fifth graders with soldiers who were deployed overseas through the Any Soldier Program. The lesson plan and the accompanying artifacts demonstrate not only my integration of reading, writing and geography, but also a community service project. My students were writing for a real purpose, not a prompt. They received grades, but more importantly they received responses from soldiers half way around the world.

Established Goals:
Reading and writing standard 2, grades 5-8: Writing stories, letters and reports with greater detail and supporting material; and drafting, revising, editing and proofreading for a legible final copy.
Reading and writing standard 3, grades 5-8: Students write and speak using conventional grammar usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization and spelling.
Geography standard 2, grades 5-8: Describing human and physical characteristics of places; and explaining how places change due to human activity.

Understandings:
That personal letters are much more than the notes they pass around in class.
Personal letters have a particular format and are publish in much the same way as any other writing
Students will understand the environment and conditions of countries such as Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

Essential Questions:
How do you publish a well written personal letter?
What is it like to be an American soldier deployed overseas?

Students will know...
The steps to publish a well written personal letter.
The proper format for a personal letter.
About the people, environments and cultures of other countries.

Students will be able to...

Draft, revise, edit and publish a personal letter.
Locate their "pen pal" on a map and explain what that person is experiencing.

Performance Assessment:

Draft, revise, edit and publish a personal letter to a soldier deployed overseas using proper format and conventions.

Other assessment evidence: Whole group sharing of soldier's letters, classroom discussions and questioning.

Learning Activities:
1. This is a writing exercise in which you connect your class with soldiers who are deployed overseas. This is an authentic way for students to write letters and learn about foreign countries in which the U.S. is involved. Two months prior to starting this activity, go to anysoldier.com and carefully select a variety of soldiers for your students to correspond with. Try to find soldiers who will match with your class (e.g. units that will be deployed until the end of the school year, units with females to write your female students etc...). Write a letters to them explaining exactly what your goals are. I suggest contacting twelve soldiers to start with.
2. Wait for responses. It can take in excess of a month for a letter to get to S.E. Asia and back.
3. Once you get a positive response, share the letter with the class and build background knowledge by discussing where the soldier is deployed. Post a map and mark the location of each soldier who you are writing to. Often these soldiers post pictures on anysoldier.com that can be printed and displayed in your class.
4. Explain the format and model the steps of planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing a personal letter.
5. A WORD OF CAUTION: There are certain security issues involved in corresponding with soldiers deployed in combat zones. I strongly suggest that all correspondence go through the teacher; either through the school address or preferably a personal address. This enables the teacher to monitor everything and limits incoming mail to one contact point. I also strongly suggest students only be allowed to use their first name and absolutely no personal addresses, phone numbers, photographs or email addresses. If needed you may use a parental consent form and/or seek approval from the school administration. This is not meant to frighten anyone. These are simple measures to ensure your student's safety.
6. Encourage your students to ask questions, and tell the soldiers about themselves. They are basically establishing a pen pal.
7. Mail the letters and wait for return letters. Again, this can take a month or more. APO adresses only require standard postage and it is free for soldiers to write to the U.S. Share return letters with the class. This is a great tool to talk about the geography, environment and culture and will spark more questions and ideas for their next letter.
8. Be prepared to adjust for a number of factors that are difficult to control. You may get several responses or very few. You may start with just a few responses and several more will come in later on. The amount of time it takes to get return letters will vary. Tracking who is responding to whom and making time throughout the year to maintain this correspondence requires management.
Other Ideas
Do a drive to send these soldiers some of the simple things they need as part of a community service project. This lesson idea can also be easily adapted to other areas. Instead of soldiers, contact other schools, soldiers homes, elderly organizations etc... The idea is to give them an authentic, interactive reason to write.

In the Company of Men Who Changed the World

This is a Web Quest I created to teach about the Civil Rights Movement from some lesser know figures. It uses the poem Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shang as a catalyst to investigate the lives of Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Dubois, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Jackie Robinson and Joe “The Brown Bomber” Luis. This lesson plan demonstrates my use of technology and integration of content areas. I use music, sports, literature, and entertainment to provide a new approach to a staple of American history.

Introduction
In Ellington Was Not a Street, Ntozake Shange describes growing up “…In the company of men who changed the world.” Who where Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Virgil “Honey Bear” Akins and what made them men who changed the world? What does Shange mean by “It hasn’t always been this way?”

Colorado Model Content Standards
HISTORY STANDARD 5.1 Students understand how democratic ideas and institutions in the
United States have developed, changed, and/or been maintained.
Grades 5-8
• giving examples of extensions and restrictions of political and civil rights in United States history.

Task
Analyze the Civil Rights Movement from the point of the lesser known activists in history. Investigate the lives of Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Virgil “Honey Bear” Akins and determine what part they played in the Civil Rights Movement. You should leave this WebQuest with an understanding that the Civil Rights Movement was not just about Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. but that many people played important roles in gaining rights for African Americans.

Process
We are going to be looking at five “Men who changed the world,” so each person in your group should choose one. Draw names from a cup and set to work learning about these men. Once you have taken a look at the web sites and understand how your person changed the world, get back together in your group and discuss what you found. Don’t forget our initial questions; what made them men who changed the world? What does Shange mean by “It hasn’t always been this way?” You should be prepared to share what you found with the class. Let’s get started!
Learning Strategy
Students will be summarizing information from reading the websites and watching the You Tube video as well as grouping these historical figures into the context of the Civil Rights Movement. Students will also be using cooperation in their group discussions and the final class discussion about what they found.

Resources
What is the NAACP? What did W.E.B. DuBois have to do with the NAACP?

At Drop Me Off in Harlem you will be able to find W.E.B DuBois, Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson. Be sure to look at the intersections help understand what was happening in Harlem. This may help you to answer what Shange means by “It hasn’t always been this way?”
The African American Odyssey also has information about Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson as well as many other “Players” in the Civil Rights Movement. Take a look at a movie clip of Paul Robeson. Listen to Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.

Dizzy Gillespie’s story is a bit more challenging but your work will be rewarded as he was a colorful character that became known worldwide. Take a look at these sites and you will see what I mean. Dizzy for President! Let’s listen to a little of his early music.

Virgil “Honey Bear” Akins was one of many athletes who helped to break the color barrier. Let’s take a look at a few of them. Jackie Robinson endured intense hatred in a sport as American as apple pie. Joe “The Brown Bomber” Luis was a world champion boxer like Akins but he carried the hopes of America on his shoulders when he fought Max Schmeling prior to WWII. There are two reasons that is the timing of this fight so important. What are they?

Evaluation
You will be evaluated on your ability to answer our two questions. Be able to tell us who your person is and how he changed the world. Additionally, what do you think Shange means by “It hasn’t always been this way?”

Conclusion
Now that you understand these men, let’s consider one more thing. Almost everyone loves sports and/or music. People that don’t otherwise have anything in common are often united by sports or music. Baseball and Jazz were very popular during the life of these men. How do you think this affected the Civil Rights Movement?

Credits & References
The picture of Dizzy Gillespie was found at www.growabrain.typepad.com/.../dizzy.jpg