Rodriguez+O+JOURNAL+DRAFT

Back to Personal Page Eddie Rodriguez Dr. Sherry YA Lit Journal Exchange Project(__**DRAFT**__)
 * UNIT TITLE: **It’s a Chain Reaction
 * TEXT(s): ** //Jumping Off Swings// – Jo Knowles
 * AUDIENCE: ** 9th grade students

My students are all within the average reading score standards, so they would be able to handle reading something higher or a little lower than their scores. I chose to teach with //Jumping Off Swings,// by Jo Knowles because I felt like it matched many of their wants in reading material. It is lower than their levels but has a very good and teachable theme. While looking through the surveys that they filled out I could easily tell that the majority of the students like romance novels. Keeping in mind that I had a girl majority group, six girls and two boys, I had to match a book that I thought would pertain to them both. The surveys led me to find that they hate being bored and they are not normally engaged in their readings for school. They need relatable characters that are around their age. So I will have them figuring out what it means to be “right” along with who is truly affected by major decisions in life. Also, they are growing up. But when do they know they are adults? Students should be able to easily engage in discussions and arguments about what makes someone an adult. There are many things to take into account when finding out what makes right and wrong along with young adults vs. adults. I truly feel like all my students would enjoy reading this book regardless if it seems like more of a girl oriented novel. The author shows how one pair of teen’s single decision can impact everyone that is near and dear to them. The author shows the story from four main characters: Josh, the eager beaver virgin; Ellie, the emotionally confused promiscuous girl; Caleb, the secret admirer; and Corinne, Ellie’s best friend. The teens go through enormous stress because of a teenage pregnancy and have to figure out how to grow up far too fast. I feel like this would be quite relevant to today’s society. In today’s world we have shows like “16 and Pregnant,” “Teen Mom” and movies like “Juno” so the media is bringing to light how much teen pregnancy is occurring and how fast we are being forced to mature. There is constant flow of profanity being used along with a plethora of perversion. But I feel like including all of that is part of what makes this novel more realistic. It is about high school students and the readers, being high school students, feel when something is more authentic or if it is forced and failed. Teaching this book to students at an early age can hopefully show them that with one bad decision many lives are forced to change. This topic hits home with me because many of my friends had children in high school and it changed my life completely. Students can be very egotistical so proving to them that there are more people involved in a situation like this should prove to be beneficial to preventing or deterring teen pregnancy. Also, after having children at an extremely young age there can be many negative situations waiting in their future. With the books we’ve read in this course, many of the main characters have young or absent parents. With young mom’s it is likely that they will be on their own as well. So once the outcome of the book is speculated or found out, we could incorporate books like //Monster// by Walter Dean Myers or even //True Notebooks,// by Mark Salzman to show how lives can be seriously affected by unprepared parents or just bad circumstances. Overall I need to make sure to keep the guys in the class involved by bringing their side of the story to life, even though it may be a bit more difficult than the girls. A major reason I chose this book was really because it unveiled how boys and girls are affected simultaneously. Going through thoughts of even friends is quite insightful to my students that are about to be at a very sexual age. Hopefully they can get the message that being safe and making good choices are essential for their lives.
 * RATIONALE: **


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">BIG QUESTIONS: **
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Who is affected by the things you do in life?
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What does it mean to be a friend?
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How do you decide what is “right”?
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What makes someone an adult?
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">UNIT GOAL: **
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Students will consider the actions of each character to decide if the characters helped the situation the best they could AND will be able to find out how they would have handled themselves.
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Students will go over the situation of the book and decide what is “right” and “wrong” about it. Understanding that right and wrong are completely opinionated but both are existent in ambiguous situations.
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Students will compare having a child as a writ of passage to other ways of growing up to determine what it actually means to “grow up.”

**<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">PREASSESSMENT ** <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In high school (especially 9th grade) students are not all willing to reading. So after finding out there interests (the ones from the surveys) I would like to see how they think of stories or timelines and such. So I would start this off with the prereading strategy of __Probable Passages.__ This would require me to make boxes of crucial words, characters, settings, and outcomes that students would have to arrange in some form just to guess at what the story may be about. Words that would be a good idea to use would be: __<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Characters __<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">: __Words__: __Settings__: __Outcomes__: <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">-Ellie -abortion -parties -love <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">-Josh -friendship -a van -hate <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">-Caleb -love -the playground -death <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">-Corinne -accidents <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> -confused <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> -sex <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> -help <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> -grow up <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All these words may not have to be used and may not all have that much of a meaning to the story, but the idea is to get the students engaged early and wondering if they are right. They are more likely to read closely and read it all to find out if their conclusions come true. The words I have chosen for this list also could just be intriguing to the students so they may just pull students in right away. There would be no wrong answer for this warm up but they all need to try to guess at this story right before we jump in as a class and as readers.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">LESSON TITLE: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s a Friend?

**<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1. **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Given //Jumping Off Swings//, students will be able to describe in writing at least three negative effects that come from a close friend’s high school pregnancy. **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2. **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After the discussion on friendship, students will better understand and be able to explain what it means to be a good friend in at least three sentences. **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">3. **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After discussing what makes things “right” and “wrong,” students will be able to analyze a past ambiguous situation where they think they made the wrong decision and describe how they would have changed what they did.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES: **


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">MATERIALS NEEDED: **//<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jumping Off Swings //<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> for the entire class, markers, posters, voices, and bodies.


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ACTIVITIES: **
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Form small groups for discussion on what a friend does for one another. Bring up how all of Ellie’s main friends are doing whatever they can to make the situation better even though they did not put her in her predicament. All the friends are in uncomfortable with what is happening but they sacrifice their own time and own wants/needs to help Ellie through this tough time. Have the students try to talk about what their friends have done for them that helped. What makes a friend, a real friend? After the groups are done they will post their thoughts on a poster and show it to the class.
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the same groups discuss what is right and wrong. Students will have to argue a bit to discover that right and wrong are dependent on the situation and with whom it is with. If they cannot realize this give provide an ambiguous scenario for them to see that right and wrong can sometimes be very gray areas. Facilitate the conversation so that they also speak about the difference about between right and easy. Right and easy are often opposites but the right way should be attempted to be accomplished. Again after they complete the discussion they will post on the either the back or on the same poster and present it to the class.
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Short writing assignment that students will complete in class and individually is next. The students should write about where they got their ideas of right and wrong prior to today’s class and if they believe that those ideas had an influence on who became their friends. Also if students feel comfortable, as them to write if they think they currently have good friends around them that would most likely help them through harsh situations like Ellie’s.


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ASSESSMENT: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For the lesson the students would have to create at least four characters along with a fake storyline for them just to show how their friendships helped(or did not) them go through life. Also include some kind of life changing event that at least one main character has to go through to pass into adulthood.


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">LESSON TITLE: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Finding Adulthood


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES: **
 * 1) <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">After a discussion of how immature people say they are adults, students will be able to list at least three things that adults have in common that make them adults.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Given examples of what makes someone more adult-like, students will be able to analyze their past experiences and describe (verbally) to the class at least two events in their lives that have made them one step closer to adulthood.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Given the definition of morals along with the discussion covering it, students will be able to identify (circle) moral decisions that characters made along with identifying (underlining) immoral decisions. After differentiating the situations, students will be able to rewrite immoral decisions to make them moral.

**<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">MATERIALS NEEDED: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Enough copies of //Jumping Off Swings,// Morals Worksheet, posters, markers, voices, and bodies.


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ACTIVITIES: **
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">First, divide the students into small groups and have them discuss what an adult is. Make sure to facilitate the discussion to bring up certain factors that they should be talking about. Such as: maturity levels of “adults,” responsibilities, lifestyle, decision-making skills, independence, events that they could go through (pregnancy, deaths, financial issues, etc.), and try to keep them away from describing an adult as someone that is over 18 or 21 (age should not be a factor for this discussion).
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the same groups, students will make a poster of the adult-like traits they have. Once they are finished they will compare the posters to other groups and facilitate a discussion about how many of those traits does someone need to be an adult. What makes them good or bad?
 * · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Have the groups split into pairs or individuals if they’d prefer that. Hand out the morals worksheet that gives them the definition of morals/ethics along with situations and actions done in the book. There are also some made up yet realistic situations on it as well. Make sure the students know that they must circle the moral decisions/actions from the book that are listed along with the random ones as well. If the decisions/actions are immoral or unethical then the students must underline them and rewrite them to make them moral/ethical. The worksheet should be completed and handed in by the end of class to receive credit.


 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">ASSESSMENT: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For homework students will have to evaluate the parental figures and write down at least five things that make them adults and at least five decisions they have known that are moral. Along with that, students must then explain if they share the same traits they listed that their parents have. This should be completed in two-three paragraphs and handed in for the next class period.