ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: I want students to understand the enjoyment of reading and that they can use technology to make learning fun.
Goal(s): 1. Through various projects, lessons, strategies, and computer technology, students’ attitude and motivation towards reading will improve.  2. Through learning vocabulary and reading the story, the students will comprehend the literature.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: 1. Why did you choose this book?  2. What internet sites could you use to create a word find or crossword puzzle related to each chapter?
Objectives: 1. Understand new vocabulary as it relates to the novel.  2. Discuss the book and the possibilities of recommending it to a friend.  3. Take cloze quiz to demonstrate understanding of the content.  4. Create a word find with vocabulary words from each chapter by using the internet.  5. Create a crossword puzzle with vocabulary words from several chapters by using the internet.  6. Write a book review.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding? Cloze quiz for each chapter.
What academic prompts e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding? The student will be asked to write a book review on the book they chose.
What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding? The student will create a vocabulary word find for each chapter and a crossword puzzle for every few chapters.
What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect? 1. The student will discuss the book with the teacher and the possibility of recommending it to a friend.  2. The student will read and review the vocabulary words for each chapter. (The cloze quizes will indicate whether the student understands the content of each chapter.)  3. The student and teacher will discuss what the main idea of the story is.

Instructional Strategies

The student’s book review will reflect their understanding of the book, but will also require them to use higher-order thinking skills to analyze whether they think it would be a good book to recommend to a friend or peer. They will need to inquire within themselves as to what made the book a good book and some of the highlights of the characters or chapters.