Lesson 1-4
Learning Target
- I can read informational text to learn about how garbage impacts our environment
Materials
- Science and engineering notebook (SEN)
- Lesson 1-4: Article: Pacific Ocean “Garbage Patches” or modified version for newcomer students
- Color version of the article to project (either on a computer or a printed copy to project from a document camera)
Lesson Instructions
Select each section below for full instructions. When you see the following symbols within the instructions, select them for additional information:
Guidance on how to support newcomer students
Link to the SISL Video Library to see relevant practices in action
Read This First
During this lesson, the students will read a text about the impact of garbage on our environment. They will go through a series of steps before, during, and after reading to support their comprehension of the text, particularly if they are not reading on grade level and/or are more emergent English language learners. You will see that we use this reading protocol throughout the SISL units to support students’ engagement with science texts.
SISL Practices in Action
In this video from the SISL Video Library, you can see how the SISL curriculum engages students in learning from texts.
Depending on your students’ reading levels, it may take more than 45 minutes to engage your class in the reading. You may want to extend this session beyond 45 minutes, chunk the reading into two lessons, or finish the reading at the beginning of Lesson 1-5 before creating the Driving Question board.
You will notice that the text is formatted with margin questions that students respond to, underlining relevant evidence in the text for each question. This text format helps students understand that (1) in science they read for a specific purpose, (2) they need to be able to point to places in the text where they found information (e.g., cite evidence), and (3) they do not need to know every word in order to understand the important ideas and learn from a text. For each text in the SISL curriculum, we also provide an additional version for newcomers who are emergent English learners. This version uses the same images and headings with modified text and margin questions to support their engagement.
Make Predictions
Before reading, students will examine images and make predictions using the headings in the text. This pre-reading discussion is essential for surfacing and sharing relevant background knowledge that will support their comprehension of the text.
First, project the color version of Lesson 1-4: Article: Pacific Ocean “Garbage Patches”. In their triads, have students discuss what they see in the images.
“What do you notice? What does it make you think or infer? What do you think the images are showing?”
Supporting Your Newcomer Students
When students discuss the images and headings in their triads, monitor your triads with newcomer students to make sure they are engaged. The images and headings in their modified text are the same as the ones in the other version of the article. This discussion is essential for building background knowledge and preparing them to read the modified text.
Select groups to share out their ideas.
Supporting Your Newcomer Students
In the whole class discussion of the images and headings, attend to your newcomers’ engagement. Amplify your language and point to headings and images to support their comprehension.
Next, draw students’ attention to the headings in the text in order to make predictions about what they’ll learn.
“Let’s look at how the author broke the text into different sections. Each section has a heading written in bold. The first section is called ’What is a garbage patch?’ What do you think we’ll learn in that section?”
Continue having students make predictions about each section.
Use Margin Questions to Guide Reading
Hand out the article and explain that students will read the text individually and respond to the questions in the margins. Emphasize that they might not understand every word, and that is fine. They should use the questions to focus their reading. For each question, they should highlight or underline the part of the text that helped them answer the question.
Model responding to the first question and underlining the textual evidence. Be explicit that students do not need to answer the questions in complete sentences. For example, the first question “Where is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?” can simply be answered “in the Pacific Ocean.”
Direct students to continue reading the text, responding to the questions, and underlining relevant evidence on their own.
Supporting Your Newcomer Students
Pull your newcomers in a group while the other students read independently.
- Discuss what they think the text will be about, based on their triad’s discussion of the images and headings. If you speak your students’ home language, have this pre-reading discussion in their home language.
- Explain that they won’t understand everything in the text, but they’re going to work on pulling out the information they do understand to answer the questions in the left-hand margin.
- If your students speak Spanish, point out that in science there are a lot of words that are similar in Spanish and English that will help them understand the article.
- Model responding to the first question. Read the question and help students understand it if needed, using their home language or the images. Direct them to read the first section and find out which sentence tells them where the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is. Model writing the response in the left-hand margin.
- Continue guiding them through the remaining questions as needed. Encourage them to use images as well as the text to make meaning of the text. They can write their responses in English or their home language.
Discuss Responses in Triads
Have the students come together in their triads to discuss their responses. As triads discuss, circulate to encourage them to cite evidence for their ideas and to use the text if they have disagreements.
“What part of the text made you think that?”