“The Ruum” Common Core Activities and Test

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“The Ruum” by Arhur Porges is most likely the hardest story in our seventh grade Literature book  for students to read.  This means the story is perfect for a “close read”.

The problem is that many students just don’t know how to read closely.  After I had my students read several paragraphs and groan the ever familiar, “I don’t get it”, I decided to give them a little help.  I split the story into sections and created an active reading guide.  This guide takes portions of the text and asks questions to help them along the way.   After following the guide for half of the story, students read the second half and took notes on their own.  I have found this the best way to teach students to complete a close read!

Click here for a FREE portion of the active reading guide that I use to teach this great story!

The Great Gilly Hopkins lesson plans

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Want to hear some good news?  This post has a free The Great Gilly Hopkins lesson plans preview lessons for you to download!  In my classroom, I offer The Great Gilly Hopkins as a choice for literature circles, but this book will also work perfectly as a class read or as an individual novel study.  

It is often hard to incorporate Common Core standards into activities students are completing on their own or in a small group.    One of the activities that students enjoy with this novel is completed after reading chapter four.  In this chapter, Gilly receives a letter from her mom.    I have each member of the Gilly lit circle group reply to this letter by taking on the persona of Gilly herself.  This requires the students to really understand her inner thoughts and feelings and conflicts. After the students in the literature circle have all written their own “Gilly letter”, I have them swap letters and then respond to Gilly from mom!  Both activities require my students to delve back into the chapter and revisit the text.  This is the kind of activity that is included in our The Great Gilly Hopkins lesson plans packet.

Click the link below to print the instructions for this activity and print some other free handouts as well from our Gilly Hopkins Teaching Unit.

Print FREE lessons and handouts for the novel The Great Gilly Hopkins.

 

Three Skeleton Key Free Common Core Activities and Handouts

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Every October, we read the short story “Three Skeleton Key” by George G. Toudouze  in my seventh grade classrooms.  My lesson plans for “Three Skeleton Key”  include Common Core standards as well as a lot of fun!  This story is great to read around Halloween because it has some of the elements of horror!  Being trapped in a lighthouse with hoards of rats would be nightmarish to most!  One year, I purchased a battery operated, remote control rat, which I sent wheeling out into the middle of my classroom right in the middle of the horror!  Needless to say, it made sure all of my students were awake!  These days, to keep the screams down,  I simply place a few rubbery rats around the room on the day we read the story.

Prior to reading, my students complete an anticipation guide, a vocabulary preview, and read an informational article about lighthouses and ships.  You can print the vocabulary preview in the link below.  I feel it is important that students have this background information before reading because the story can be hard for seventh graders to comprehend.    Also, due to the complexity of the text, I usually read this story aloud to my students, of course stopping along the way to question them.  Once we finish, we are ready to analyze the setting,  and theme of the story.  The setting in this story tremendously affects the plot, so together we discuss this.

Once our whole-class discussions are complete, it is time for students to work independently.  Before letting them begin, I use a handout to explain how to support answers with text.  It is best if you show examples and non-examples when doing this.  So many times, students are simply not taught how to answer open-ended questions.  Students work to complete ten questions using the text to defend their answers.  Sometimes I allow them to work with a partner to complete these questions.   Next, students write poems about the story.  Finally, they work in groups to create a tableau based on the story.  They really get into this activity and enjoy presenting them to the class!

You can download all of our handouts and activities for this teaching unit today!  Also, preview the table of contents and print the vocabulary preview free in our “Three Skeleton Key” sample pack!

Happy Teaching!

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street Common Core Activities

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“The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is one of the best teleplays to read with middle school students!  We use The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street Common Core activities while reading this play, but we have a little fun as well!

Before students even know anything about the story, odd things begin to happen in our classrooms.  For instance, in my room, my class phone rings several times, but noone is ever there.  My timer goes off by itself, and so does my cell phone alarm.  Just as the kids are starting to wonder what in the world is going on, I announce, “I’m sure it’s nothing.  We don’t have time to waste.  We are going to read a play today.”  They forget all about the strange happenings as they eagerly shout out which part they want to read.  It’s only once things start eerily going wrong on Maple Street that they remember the peculiar things happening in our own room!

Take a look at our sample packet to view our detailed table of contents and print a prereading activity FREE!

Before reading, students complete some prereading activities including an anticipation guide and a vocabulary preview handout.  We then assign parts and have fun reading with expression.  After reading, we are ready to dig into some The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street Common Core based activities.  We take a look at how the setting affects the plot and examine the theme of the story.  In addition, students answer a set of questions in which they must return to the text, analyze different elements, and support their answers from the text. When we are finished, we watch the teleplay, which can be found in the Twilight series on Netflix!