Children's Book: Cultural Relevancy and Comprehension

In my Social Studies classroom, I try and keep a variety of leveled texts in my room to support my students learning. The If You...series has been a great resource that I use for my ELL students and Multi-Intensive students who receive their general education time in my class. These books serve as a great source to build students background information and building of academic language. The second book I chose was a book that I use during my Constitution Unit and when I have taught the Electoral Collage during election season. Grace for President is not only one of my favorite classroom texts, but a hit amongst my students!

How I Would Teach: If You...Lived at the Time of the American Revolution 

by Kay Moore Illustrated by Daniel O'Leary

The first thing I would do prior to teaching this unit and bringing this text into my class would have students complete a KWL chart about what American Revolution. As silly as I think KWL charts are, with all of the information that students come into a secondary class with, I want to have a good understanding of what they already are familiar with.

Next, I would preteach the following words not only to support their understanding of the text, but to be able to gain their own meaning of the words in context of the book, to then later apply to the larger unit. The key vocabulary words are: colony, England, Native American, indentured servant, Patriot, Loyalist, and the French and Indian War.

Before beginning read the text, I would then provide a guiding question that the students should be able to successfully answer if they have comprehended the text. By allowing students to answer the question before reading, students can brainstorm ideas they already have and build confidence towards the subject. The question I would use to guide this lesson would be:

Do you think you would have been a Patriot or a Loyalist if you lived at the time of the American Revolution? 

Students would first answer the question independently in writing, and then share their ideas out with a shoulder partner. From there, I would have students complete a gallery walk of images showing images of the American Revolution, Patriots, and Loyalists. They would have to identify the groups , and argue who they believed had the access to power in the images. The last step would be to have students create their own working definition of Patriots and Loyalists based on the images. 

The last step would be to have students read the text and complete Cornell Notes answering the questions within the texts. Students would work with a skill based partner. I would have the Cornell Notes created for students so that they can focus on answering the questions at their ability level (one or two word answers or complete sentences.) After reading the text, in the summary portion of their Cornell Notes, I would have students independently answer the question using evidence to support their answer. Last, depending on time, I would have a class discussion on which side they chose, Patriot or Loyalist. The students would use evidence from the text to support their views in the class discussion and would be allowed to use their Cornell Notes as evidence. 

How I Would Teach: Grace for President Written 

by Kelly DiPucchio and Pictures by LeUyen Pham

I usually use this text in the middle of my Constitution Unit. Students have background information on the Three Branches of Government, Checks & Balances, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the role of a Democracy as a government. This text has been a great resource to show the way the electoral process works, and a way to provide a definition for popular vote and electoral college. 

To think from the lens of what all student would need in order to acquire these concepts, I would want to make them make personal connections to the role of our nation's president. Prior to any lesson on the Executive Branch,  I would have students brainstorm a list of what makes a good President/leader. Students would brainstorm the list individually and then we would share out as a class. Students would each share out one item on their list and we would keep going around the room until everyone had shared every idea out to the class. 

Using the list, we would then create an Open Sort where we would sort the list we came up with into four or five categories of leadership skills. This will allow us to have bigger over arching ideas of what makes a good leader, rather than a large list with WAY too many ideas. Before reading the book, I would provide students a t-chart with our categories listed on the top. While we are reading, I would ask students to record which student demonstrated that leadership skill. 

Before reading the text, I would show students the over, and ask them to write a prediction on a whiteboard based on the following question: 

• What do you think the story is about based on the front cover?

I would ask students to use the following sentence starter to answer the question:

• I predict the story will be about_______________because of ____________ on the front cover. 

After we read the text, students would share out and debate who believe they demonstrated each of our leadership skills. Next, I would take a class poll of who they would have voted for in the text. Lastly, students would answer the following comprehension questions with their shoulder partner : 

• What kind of president is Grace running for?
• Why would boys only vote for boys and girls only vote for girls? Is that right?

The last scaffold I would provide in this lesson would be a personal connection that students could not only use to relate to the story, but to the role of our nation's president. Students would answer the following questions however they see fit; this could be in an essay, a poster, a collage, Prezi, etc. 

• Would you want to be president of the United States? Why or why not?
• What would you do if you were president of the United States? Of your classroom?
• If running for class president, how might you convince others to vote for you?