Lesson Plan 24: Topic/Comment in Academic Writing (West)

     “In other words” is a  great resource for teachers...I love the idea of 15-minute grammar lessons, especially since a teacher can incorporate these lessons in the beginning of each period, without having to devote a whole period on grammar. Although grammar was taught up to 11^th grade in my high school and I definitely benefited from our weekly grammar lessons, my colleagues and I didn’t teach grammar at all this year. I feel that the reason we didn’t is because most of us felt that that’s something students work on in middle school.  However, as I was reading through the book I realized that a lot of these lesson plans would be helpful for high school students as well, especially if they were taught as students are working on a major writing assignment.

      West writes that “An important objective for these lessons is to give students some concrete strategies for improving their writing when, for example, a teacher comments that their argument “needs development”” (P72). West then explains that “the first step in building up these skills is helping students to recognize sine of the ways that sentences work” (P 72). Lesson 24 focuses on identifying the topic and comment of sentences, and it is one of those lessons that I would teach while students were working on a major writing assignment. Being able to break down sentences is really important, and having students identify the topic and comment in sample sentences will help students write sentences that are more organized, and a lot more structured. I would teach this lesson when we would start revising our writing assignment, so that after students completed the worksheet on page 84, they can work on organizing the sentences that needed to be improved in their own writing.

            Overall, I feel that the strategies in this book can easily be incorporated within a unit (especially in middle school, where most periods are 90 minutes), and they can be so helpful to our students. Lastly, the lesson plans are very thorough, which makes planning a lot easier than having to plan a grammar lesson from scratch. 


Brown, David West. In other words:  lessons on grammar, code-switching, and academic writing.Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2009. Print

Retellings Strategy (Beers)

I absolutely love the Retellings Strategy that Beers explains in Chapter 8. This after-reading strategy is extremely important, since it teaches students how to properly summarize a text. Beers suggest we use the retelling strategy to “move students past the “stuff happens” response” (P152). She then explains that a retelling is an “oral summary of a text based on a set of story elements, such as setting, main characters, and conflicts.” (152).

Although being able to summarize a text is considered to be a very basic skill, it is also extremely important since if students can’t summarize a story, they won’t be able to perform other higher order thinking skills (such as telling  the story from a different perspective, or making connections between the text and their lives).Through the retelling, students summarize all the important aspects of a text, which will then allow you to move on to more challenging activities.

 A retelling is also an excellent way to assess students’ understanding of concepts that you have taught. For instance, if you model how to identify conflict, you would want them to be able to identify conflict on their own, and through a retelling, you can make sure that students know how to do that. I always struggled with getting students to provide more details about the texts we were reading when summarizing, and I can now use this strategy to help teach them how to write summaries. 


Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Anticipation Guides (Beers)

According to Beers, an anticipation guide is “a set of generalizations related to the theme of a selection”(P74). I have used anticipation guides to introduce every single text my students and I read this year, and I absolutely love them. Anticipation guides are general statements that relate to the theme of a text; statements that are open to debate and spark students’ interest. Students have to say whether or not they agree with the statement, and then you discuss the various responses. In addition, Anticipation guides “activate students’ prior knowledge, encourage them to make a personal connection to what they will be reading, and give them a chance to become an active participant with the text before they begin reading” (P 75).

I have found that anticipation guides also increase student motivation in regards to reading a text that they initially thought of as boring or difficult to understand, and they also give students something meaningful (and relevant to the curriculum) to talk about. I have had students discuss answers to anticipation guides as a class and in small groups, but I found that this activity works best as a whole class activity, since everyone gets to hear each other’s perspective on a topic.

One tip for managing this activity: make sure to explain that just because you don’t agree with a statement, that doesn’t mean that the other person who does is wrong; be ready to model this before you start discussing. Also, Give students plenty of time to discuss…don’t just have students raise their hand if they agreed or disagreed; have a few students explain why they think so. 
                                                      
Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do:  A Guide for Teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003. Print.

The Role of Scales in Comprehension

The word comprehension denotes to me understanding.  I can recall writing many a book summary in high school – demonstrating my comprehension of a text in terms of identifying main characters, explaining the correct sequence of events, recognizing conflict and resolving this conflict in a conclusion.  While this kind of summarization of a text is one of the first steps in comprehension, I would argue that it falls short of having a full command of the text.  I think in order to do that you have to be able to analyze the text.  The use of scales as explained by Kylene Beers is one such way to get secondary students thinking about not only retelling the text but analyzing it as well.

Scales seem to me a perfect tool to be used by students once they grasp the basic summary of the text, and “need assistance organizing their thoughts” (Beers 139).  Therefore, I could see this strategy employed after students have already practiced retellings – and are ready to write an essay on the story.  I say this because the scales strategy seems to assume that the students already have an understanding of the main characters and how they function in the plot.  For example, in Figure 8.1 Kylene Beers provides a sample scale with the following statement, “You can do some bad things and still be a good person.  Consider Byron as you answer this” (140).  A student must be able to recall who Byron is and what his role was in the story.  Therefore, a scale advances a student’s knowledge from understanding Byron to analyzing Byron. 

However, I would argue that there is one key part missing from Beers’ scales worksheet.  Beers’ herself writes “not only must students respond by marking to what extent they agree or disagree, they must also explain their choice by citing evidence from the text, from personal experience, or from outside knowledge” (143).  By providing another line after each scales statement with a directive such as “Explain why you agree or disagree by giving an example from the text,” students would learn to go back to the text for clues or evidence as they make claims or inferences. 

This scales worksheet could then become an outline for an essay.  The thesis statement might assert:  “Actions don’t always speak louder than words.  The character Byron may do some bad things – but it doesn’t make him a bad person.”   The student would then have examples from the text that they previously recorded on their scales sheets.  In this process the scales strategy would do more than summarize a text – it would aid in analyzing it as well – and deepen a student’s comprehension of the text in the process.  

Works Cited

Beers, Kylene. When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do:  A Guide for Teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003. Print.

Say Something

Beers has excellent examples of strategies during all points of reading. "Say Something," a during-reading activity, really stuck out to me. "The purpose of Say Something is to help students comprehend what they are reading as they predict, question, clarify, connect, or comment" (Beers, 2003, p. 106). This strategy is most relevant for Dependent Readers. I also believe this strategy is useful because all of the things that students are guided to "say," are all characteristics of a "good reader." I believe that once students have familiarized themselves with this strategy, they will become comfortable making this a natural occurrence.  Because Beers pushes explicit instruction, the teacher will also be able to inform students that this strategy can be used in all content areas.

I think "Say Something" is a strategy I will definitely use in my future classroom. With the introduction, modeling, practice, and independent/partner work for all strategies, students will have the tools to complete this activity successfully. I also think who the students are partnered with is an important task of the teacher. Beers tries "to let friends work together" (Beers, 2003, p. 109) but she reminds the students "that this is work time, not visit time" (Beers, 2003,  p. 109). I think different types of grouping would be best and I would rotate grouping decisions for each activity. Sometimes the students can pick and sometimes I will choose homogeneous or heterogeneous groups based on the students, text, and assignment.

I like to imagine myself as a student participating in these strategies I might like my students to. This is certainly a strategy I would like to do. I think it is interesting and powerful to work with peers and discuss unique insights on text. I believe this activity will help students think outside of their normal ranges and learn many things from their partners.

During-Reading Strategies

        In When Kids Can't Read, Kylene Beers states, "I'd like to suggest that it is more critical for dependent readers to talk about texts during the reading experience than after it" (104).  Pre-reading strategies help students help students activate prior knowledge and post-reading strategies might prove that they made meaning out of what they just read, but during-reading strategies are the bulk of the effort that must happen for students to make meaning from their texts.
        The first big strategy Beers shares in this chapter, she calls "Say Something."  In my elementary school setting we have many units which focus on Partner Talk, which I had always thought of as a valuable activity, but not necessarily a reading strategy.  We also push a strategy called "Stop & Think."  The "Say Something" strategy adds Talk to that, so the pattern is more like, "Stop, Think, and Talk with a partner."  These activities make students more accountable to their texts because in order to have a conversation, you must be attending to the things you read.  Even if you don't understand all that you read, having a dialogue with a peer is a good chance for both parties to construct deeper (or even just literal) meaning from their texts.  We still have conversations about books as adults, and it's clear that it makes reading more powerful and meaningful.  All language is up for interpretation, after all, so why not give students chances to see other points of view.
        While reading this section, a wrote a note down that in primary grades we spend a long time teaching into these types of conversations, making them very concrete by giving students specific prompts for how to talk about their reading.  I was pleased to see that Beers also offered a whole list of prompts for conversation, what she called "stem starters" (108).  These stem starters are very, very useful for a classroom.  For a class of struggling readers, I can envision a whole unit's worth of lessons by just teaching into these prompts that would lead students to: 1) make predictions, 2) ask a question, 3) clarify something, 4) make a comment, 5) make a connection.  These talking prompts, or stem starters, could easily be charted around the classroom for reference.  Students would need a lot of opportunities to practice having conversations like this, every day.  They may be horrible at first, but the more modelling, practice, and feedback they receive, the better it gets.  It's a great way to get students to engage in their reading while also being social.

Tea Party Strategy

I really enjoyed chapter 6 of When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers. Chapter 6, "Frontloading Meaning: Pre-Reading Strategies," explains activities that can prepare and engage students in new reading material. This is extremely important since many teachers simply assign the first chapter of a book without providing students key background knowledge that they will need to be engaged with the new text. My favorite activity in chapter 6 is the Tea Party.

Beers introduces the Tea Party strategy on page 94. During the Tea Party, students are all given different quotes or words on a card from the text that they will read. Then, students walk around the room and share their quotes with one another. After all students have shared their the cards, students meet in small groups to discuss what they think the story is about and then write joint "we think this section is about..." statements. The last step before reading the text is for each small group to share their "we think" statements. Beers explains how this activity models what strong independent readers do when they start a new piece of reading: "This pre-reading strategy allows students to predict what they think will happen in the text as they make inferences, see causal relationships, compare and contrast, and draw on their prior experiences. " (Beers, 2003, p. 94-95).

I like the Tea Party strategy for a variety of reasons. First of all, it gets adolescents up and moving around the classroom, which they are often anxious to do, especially in middle school. I think it's important to remember the need to vary classroom activities and movement to keep adolescents from getting bored or disengaged. This is extremely important in schools when ELA is in 90 minute blocks. I also like the Tea Party strategy because dependent readers are able to work with their peers to make predictions and connections that will give them something to look for when they read. Dependent readers are not always able to make inferences on their own, so it is extremely important for them to practice this strategy with the help of their classmates. Further, dependent readers usually don't start reading with any idea of what the reading is about. This makes comprehension extremely difficult as the readers don't know what to keep an eye out for and aren't motivated to keep reading to see if their predictions are accurate.

I wanted to add a twist on the Tea Party strategy that I've seen described in Teaching for Joy and Justice by Linda Christensen. Christensen also uses the Tea Party as a pre-reading strategy to engage her students, but she gives each student a different character name and description on the card as opposed to a portion of the text. Students perform the Tea Party as a "meet and greet" where they need to introduce themselves based on the provided description and then figure out how everyone in the room is related. This is extremely helpful in introducing a novel with multiple characters. It can often take even a strong independent reader time to get all of the characters straight in a book, so students of all reading levels would benefit from this activity. After completing the character Tea Party, students begin the text having already been "introduced" to the characters. And finally, students will have visualized and made a personal connection to the characters based on how they chose to interpret and description and interact with their fellow characters.

Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.