What Happened to Ebonics?

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Turmoil in 1980s Oakland Leads to Continued Definitive Conclusions about Language’s Impact on Education in the 2020s by Matthew Bamberg Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash The Ebonics debate has often been misunderstood. It refers to the dialect of AAVE (African American Vernacular English). This type of language is prevalent in the Black community and has also spread into popular culture through lyrics in rap music and similar genres. I be workin’ Yes, I be workin’ on this article. This can be defined as: I’ve been working on this article for a while, although not necessarily at this very moment. I begin here because using AAVE helps readers understand the importance of training teachers to use it in our classrooms. Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the point, AAVE is an important dialect and, therefore, should be treated with the utmost respect, especially when dealing with it as a teacher. Slavery was Brutal The history of AAVE in the United States began in the 17th and 18t...
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 Informational Text Reading Selection Lesson Plan Template for Elementary and Middle School Teachers



In this template, you can create a one-period lesson plan in literacy and/or English/Language Arts for any informational reading selection. Simply choose a reading selection from the materials section of the lesson plan template below and apply it to each lesson plan template step.

Standards: 


Grade 2 
Grade 3 
Grade 4
Grade 5


 Objectives/Learning Targets: 

Grade 4 Learning Targets Informational Text

Materials: 

You can use a wide variety of reading materials for this template from websites to ebooks to textbooks. The following is a list of Internet informational reading selections for grades 2-5. 

All grades free (sign-up). Current news articles from major publications/organizations  http://newsela.com 
All grades free for a month then $ at http://www.readinga-z.com/commoncore/informational-text/
All grades free at http://teacher.depaul.edu/Nonfiction_Readings_ALL_GRADES.htm
Middle school free Black history at http://www.thehistorymakers.com/
Grade 3-8 free Informational Readings with questions by skill at http://teacher.depaul.edu/Skill-Focused-Readings/Summarize_Nonfiction_Fiction.html
Grade 3-8 free Nonfiction/Fiction paired readings at http://teacher.depaul.edu/Skill-Focused-Readings/PairedNonfictionandFictionReadings.htm
All grades $ from Scholastic at http://cc.bigreddog.org/teachers/books/non-fiction
Grades 1-5 free Reading comprehension passages at http://mrnussbaum.com/readingpassageindex#5
Grades 4-5 free Nonfiction text selections with tests at http://d102.org/blogs/kgow/files/2011/05/Nonfiction-Article-Practice.pdf
Grades 1-8 free Complete grade-by-grade guide of Common Core reading activities and selections at http://www.myboe.org/cognoti/content/file/resources/documents/15/1512c73e/1512c73eea476b925846148640ccda7b5f1e9c0d/downloadedfile_4473188268499712097_NYCDOEG8LiteracyTCRWP_Final.pdf
Grades 3-8 free Flash technology talking books with images at http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/book_details.asp?Category=Non-Fiction&isflash=1
Grades 1-8 free Guttenberg Children's history at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Children%27s_History_(Bookshelf)
Grades 1-8 free Guttenberg Children's biography at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Children%27s_Biography_(Bookshelf)
Grades 1-8 free Children's Instructional books at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Children%27s_Instructional_Books_(Bookshelf)
To test webpages for reading levels copy and paste paragraph from page and paste into 
https://readability-score.com/

Procedure

Introduction: Introduce title and author (if available) of passage. Discuss what you know about the topic, including identifying it as narration, description, argument, poetry, play, subject area and so on. Relate topic to prior reading and set purpose for reading new selection.
1. Teacher reads selection aloud while students follow along (engagement). A list of websites with reading selections is included at the end of this lesson plan.
2. Teacher elicits from students what they think is the first characteristic (length, difficulty, tone, genre, purpose) they note about the passage. Write the words on the white board or note pad under document camera. (I do; we do; you do method)
3. Have students indicate the words they aren't familiar with (circle, highlight, etc...) Look up word in online or table dictionary and discuss with students, associating it with a concept of the unknown word. (I do; we do; you do method)
If selection is from textbook, go over visuals, headings subheadings, words in bold print/italics and so on). Let students know that this is called the selective attention learning strategy. 
For ELLs, type names of each word into Google Images, showing students the best representation of the word. 
4. Share out (Think/pair share) vocabulary words/explain in own words. Discuss punctuation/capitalization in passage. (I do; we do; you do method). For more prereading activities see http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/reading_lit.html
5.Students read selection again silently.

6. Ask critical thinking questions from Bloom's taxonomy at http://www.meade.k12.sd.us/PASS/Pass%20Adobe%20Files/March%202007/BloomsTaxonomyQuestionStems.pdf  Refer back to text when appropriate.

Assessment:

After teaching a few reading selections, create tests on the following skills for the grade level/reading level you teach. 
Main Idea at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Main_Idea
Supporting Details at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Supporting_Details
Cause and Effect at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Cause_and_Effect
Identifying Genre at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Identifying_Genre
Making Inferences at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Making_Inferences_and_Drawing_Conclusions
Summarizing at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Summarizing
Problems and Solutions at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Problem_and_Solutionhttp://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Problem_and_Solution
Text Elements at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Text_Elements
Vocabulary at http://www.helpteaching.com/questions/Vocabulary
Closure: Choose option at https://edc448uri.wikispaces.com/file/view/40_ways_to_leave_a_lesson.pdf

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