The reading piece of this curriculum is still very much in the works, so please share any ideas you have or activities you've tried in your own classes that have worked well. One activity I have tried a few times so far is to connect the readings from the book back to the writing lessons from class.
Part 1: After we complete the pre-reading activities before a reading from Weaving It Together 2, I ask the students to look at the topic sentences of each paragraph and to write down the main idea and controlling idea for each.
Part 2: When they have finished looking at only the topic sentence of each paragraph, the students close their books and I ask them a series of detail-focused questions from the reading. Keep in mind that they have not yet read the essay, but from the notes on the topic sentences, they guess in which paragraph they would likely find the information.
Part 3: Students scan the text for the information from Part 2 and answer the questions.
In working through the reading this way, I'm trying to reinforce what the students have learned about topic sentences, demonstrate the importance of well-organized writing, and give them practice with scanning a text.
Below is a worksheet I created for "Tihar: Festival of Lights" (Weaving it Together 2, Unit 3).
This worksheet also includes an extra activity to practice writing sentences with time-order transitions (first, second, next, then, after that) and before and after - what we were working on in class when we read this article.
Handout - Tihar: Festival of Lights
Part 1: After we complete the pre-reading activities before a reading from Weaving It Together 2, I ask the students to look at the topic sentences of each paragraph and to write down the main idea and controlling idea for each.
Part 2: When they have finished looking at only the topic sentence of each paragraph, the students close their books and I ask them a series of detail-focused questions from the reading. Keep in mind that they have not yet read the essay, but from the notes on the topic sentences, they guess in which paragraph they would likely find the information.
Part 3: Students scan the text for the information from Part 2 and answer the questions.
In working through the reading this way, I'm trying to reinforce what the students have learned about topic sentences, demonstrate the importance of well-organized writing, and give them practice with scanning a text.
Below is a worksheet I created for "Tihar: Festival of Lights" (Weaving it Together 2, Unit 3).
This worksheet also includes an extra activity to practice writing sentences with time-order transitions (first, second, next, then, after that) and before and after - what we were working on in class when we read this article.
Handout - Tihar: Festival of Lights
