Curriculum

Unit: Reading: A Love Story

Grade 7
English Language Arts
Lesson 1: Reading Perspectives and Personal Reading History


Time: 1 Class Period

Utah Core Standards Addressed:
o W.7.10: Write routinely over extended time frames and shorter time frames
for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
o SL.7.1d: Acknowledge new information expressed by others and, when
warranted, modify their own views.


Objective: Students will communicate about their interests, perspectives, and
personal experience with reading through writing in a journal entry and
participating in a community gallery stroll.

Materials Needed:
o Reading journal
o Pen or pencil
o Large Chart Paper
o Reading Profile Page
o Sharpie Markers

Lesson 1 Overview:
The focus of the lesson is to build background as to students feelings and
interests in regards to reading. Students will explore their earliest reading memory
to consider their associations with reading and potential family reading
connections. After students reflect individually, they will explore how they compare
and contrast with other students in their class by sharing responses in a gallery
stroll. Finally, they will resume their personal reflection by completing a Reading
Profile that will help me and students better understand how to match themselves
to the right book.

Activity:

Introduction:
1. English Energizer(Opener): In your journal respond to the following
prompt:

Close your eyes, and take yourself back in your mind to your younger self.
Picture the first time you interacted with a book. This memory could be the
first time you remember reading a book yourself, or it could involve someone
else reading to you. Think about the following details:

~How old were you?

~Who else is in the memory?

~What are you reading or what is being read to you?

~Why does this memory stand out to you?

~Where were you when this memory occurred?
Describe the details of this memory in your journal response.
2. Once students complete their journal response, they will pair with an elbow
partner to share what they wrote about.

Task:
3. Next, students will explore what they have in common with their classmates
in regards to reading. Each student will be given a Sharpie Marker and be
instructed to neatly write their response to each question about reading on
the large chart paper hanging around the classroom. The chart paper will
consist of the following questions (one question per piece of paper):
a. I read because
b. My favorite thing to read is
c. Reading can be difficult when
d. School reading assignments would be more interesting if
e. I think I should be reading (blank) minutes each week
4. After students complete answering each question on the chart paper, they
will be encouraged to revisit each paper to read other students responses
and consider how they compare or differ from their peers. The class will then
share their observations as a whole group.
5. Finally, students will complete their personal Reading Profile to help match
themselves to preferred books.
Wrap-up:
6. Students will turn in their Reading Profile to the teacher for review.

*These profiles will be returned to students to keep in their binders as
reference pages to help with book selection in the future.




Curriculum Unit: Reading: A Love Story
Grade 7
English Language Arts
Lesson 2: Personal Literacy Narrative
Time: 1-2 Class Periods

Utah Core Standards Addressed:
o W.7.10: Write routinely over extended time frames and shorter time frames
for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
o SL.7.1d: Acknowledge new information expressed by others and, when
warranted, modify their own views.
o SL.7.1c: Pose questions that elicit elaboration and respond to others
questions and comments with relevant observations and ideas that bring the
discussion back on topic as needed.

Objective: Students will be able to reflect on their past experiences with reading
and writing to establish their personal reading patterns, habits, and attitudes.

Materials Needed:
o Reading Journal
o Pen or Pencil
o Blank white paper (computer paper)
o Colored pencils, markers, or crayons
o Personal Literacy Narrative handout
o Rulers

Lesson Overview:
In this lesson, students will create a cartoon representation that responds to
four separate questions about their literacy habits. This activity will allow students
to visually represent his or her past experiences, but also envision where they
would like to see themselves as readers.

Activity:

Introduction:
1. English Energizer (Opener): In their reading journal, students will
respond to the following prompt:

What book(s) or character(s) have influenced you in your life? Please
explain how this book or character has impacted or affected your life? If you
are struggling to think of a book, you may use a movie, television show, comic
book, or magazine story as your focus.

2. Once students write their response, they will pair with an elbow partner and
share their response.
3. Students will then have the opportunity to share with the whole class.

Task:
4. Students will be given the instruction page titled, Personal Literacy
Narrative and a blank sheet of white paper.
5. On the directions page, students will be instructed to brainstorm their
answers to six questions about their literacy experiences. These questions
include:
a. What are your experiences and memories of reading and being a
student from first grade? You can include reading habits, behaviors,
accomplishments, struggles, books you read, or characters you
remember?
b. What are your experiences and memories of reading and being a
student from second grade? You can include reading habits,
behaviors, accomplishments, struggles, books you read, or characters
you remember?
c. What are your experiences and memories of reading and being a
student from third grade? You can include reading habits, behaviors,
accomplishments, struggles, books you read, or characters you
remember?
d. What are your experiences and memories of reading and being a
student from fourth grade? You can include reading habits,
behaviors, accomplishments, struggles, books you read, or characters
you remember?
e. What are your experiences and memories of reading and being a
student from fifth grade? You can include reading habits, behaviors,
accomplishments, struggles, books you read, or characters you
remember?
f. What are your experiences and memories of reading and being a
student from sixth grade? You can include reading habits, behaviors,
accomplishments, struggles, books you read, or characters you
remember?

6. Next, students will be instructed to take the blank piece of paper and fold it
into a trifold (three sections), and then once again along the width, so that
the end result is a paper with six distinct boxes. In each of the boxes, the
students will draw a visual representation of their answer to the question
and then caption their illustration with their written response.
7. Students will be expected to use color for their illustration and take care in
writing their responses neatly, with correct spelling and grammar.

(**As a final reflection for reading at the end of the year, students will use the
backside of this paper to draw a representation of themselves as readers during
their seventh grade school year).

Wrap-Up:
Students will need time to clean up before the end of the class period. This
assignment will take students two days to complete. When all students finish on the
second day, the students will then use a page in their reading journal to title, How
Do We Compare? On this page in their journal they will record their observations
about classmates narratives. On this paper, students will record what they noticed
they had in common with classmates about their personal narratives and what was
different. Students may choose how they want to organize their observations,
perhaps using a Venn diagram.





Curriculum Unit: Reading: A Love Story
Grade 7
English Language Arts
Lesson 3 and 4: Choosing the Just Right Book
Time: 1-3 Class Periods

Utah Core Standards Addressed:
o RL.7.10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band
proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
o W.7.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development,
organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Objectives:
o Students will be able to identify specific aspects of how to select a book that
interests them, as well as define various genres of books. Students will create
a bookmark that will synthesize how to select the Just Right book.
o Students will interpret different genres of literature by writing creatively in
that genre style.

Materials Needed:
o How to Choose a Book detailed notes page
o Bookmark cutouts located on the bottom of the How to Choose a Book
page.
o Colored pencils/markers
o Scissors

o
o
o
o

Genres Jigsaw notes page

Laptops
Pen or Pencil
Reading Journal

Lesson 3 and 4 Overview:
The purpose of this lesson is to help students understand how to identify
books that appeal to their interests and match their reading level abilities. To help
students grasp what books might be appropriate for them, they will engage in an
activity that allows them to explore different genres, and creatively show their
interpretation of a specific genre.

Key Vocabulary:
o Genre
o Purpose
o Comprehend

Activity:

Introduction for Lesson 3:
1. English Energizer (Opener): To begin, students will be instructed to
brainstorm all the ways they know how to find a book they will enjoy in their
journal. They will be given two minutes to record their thoughts.
2. When time expires, students will share their responses with the class, and
the teacher will record all of the ideas on the white board.
Task for Lesson 3:
1. Next, students will be given the detailed notes page on How to Choose a
Book. As a whole class, students will read through this list of suggestions
(Mcdonald Publishing).
2. Students will then watch a brief YouTube video on how to choose a book that
will help them synthesize the detailed list: https://youtu.be/rwtHGh0PVHo
3. On their detailed page, they will record the short acronym P.I.C.K. This
method stands for purpose, interest, comprehend, and know.

Wrap-up for Lesson 3:
4. Students will then cut-off the bottom portion of their notes page, which will
serve as their independent reading bookmark. On this bookmark, students
will be instructed to list on one side the P.I.C.K model and additional
resources where they can find what books to read. On the other side, they
will write their name (first and last) and decorate this side to their liking.
These bookmarks will then be turned in so they may be laminated.
5. As students finish decorating their bookmark, they will be prompted to
explore certain recommended sites for locating new books. These sites
include examples like:
a. Goodreads.com
b. WhatshouldIreadnext.com
c. www.fromthemixedupfiles.com
d. kidlitosphere.org
e. www.andrewluckbookclub.com
f. litcircles.org
g. Overdrive library system

Introduction of Lesson 4:

1. English Energizer (Opener): To begin this lesson, students will respond
to the following prompt in their reading journal:

What does the word genre mean? Try to define the word, and then write a
sentence using the word that demonstrates your definition of the word.

2. Once students record their answers in their journal, they will share with a
knee neighbor (someone sitting across from them) to compare responses.
Following the pair and share, we will collect response as a class to see how
accurate students definitions were.
3. Next, we will record a dictionary definition of genre and then record a second
sentence with the actual meaning of the word in context.
Task:
4. To start our examination of different genres, I will ask the students to share
suggestions of what they think different genres of books might be? Following
this brainstorm, students will be tasked with a jigsaw activity to closely
examine one type of genre in particular and teach the remainder of the class
about this genre. Specifically, students will closely examine: fantasy,
historical fiction, realistic fiction, adventure, science fiction, mystery, poetry,
drama, folktale/fanciful tale, biography/autobiography, and informational
book.
5. To begin this activity, I will create a Google Doc that I will share with the
students with an example to model expectations for students. The example
will be for the drama genre. The model will include the definition of the
genre, examples of different genres (which can either be in text or image
form, and a third column for the class to tally if this is a genre they enjoy
reading or not.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14B73ZvpixD2nUrgb4OQuyvX2G5hv
ySZ1QE2eiHwIQwQ/edit?usp=sharing
6. At least two groups of students will be assigned to each genre. With their
partner, they are responsible for researching the definition and examples of
this type of text. Before adding their information to the document, they must
confer with the other group in class that had the same genre to examine. As a
larger group they will decide what definition to add to the document and
what examples will help students the most. This way, if there is any
conflicting information, students have a chance to hash it over before sharing
this information with the rest of the class.
7. Ultimately, by the end of class, all students will have collaborated on a class
notes sheet on Genres! Students will take turns reading their definition and
examples to the class. At this time, other students in class will place their
tally in the column to signify if they enjoy this genre or not.