Reading and Annotating your text

Brynn Stefanitsis

8th Grade Language Arts

Common Core Standards:

Key Ideas and Details
- RL.8.1. Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what
the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

- RL.8.2. Analyze literary text development.

● Determine a theme of a text and analyze its development over the course of the
text, including its relationship to
the characters, setting, and plot.
● Incorporate a theme and its relationship to other story elements into an
objective summary of the text.
- RL.8.3. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama
propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

Craft and Structure

- RL.8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text,
including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific
word choices on meaning, mood, and tone, including analogies or allusions to
other texts.
- RL.8.5 Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze
how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.
- RL.8.6 Analyze how differences in the points of view and perspectives of the
characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic
irony) create effects such as suspense or humor.

Integration Of Knowledge and Ideas

- RL.8.7 Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or

drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices
made by the director or actors.
- RL.8.8 (Not applicable to literature)
- RL.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction alludes to themes, patterns of
events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, and religious literary
 texts, such as (but not limited to) the Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh, including
describing how the material is rendered new.

Lesson Summary:
In this lesson, students will be able to tap into their creative side. This lesson will be
designed for students to learn how to compare and contrast and fully analyze different
texts given. As a class we will go through different literary poems and texts pointing
out the things needed such as the words being used, themes, characters, plot, why a
character makes a decision, etc. Then, Students will be given the opportunity to freely
write their own writing and at the end they will trade papers and analyze them with
the same tactics we learned in class. This will teach students the different structures
of writings and put them in the shoes of the writer.

Estimated Duration:
I plan on using five class periods and 50 minutes of the time to work on this lesson.

Commentary:
I would like to “hook” the students to the new lesson by asking them to talk about a
book or article they’ve read that really stuck with them, and have them tell us why it
did. As they are listing their reasoning, I will be writing on the board what they are
saying, trying to organize it into different sections. My approach to this is to have
them already thinking about themes, plots and characters before we even start
discussing it. I believe a challenge will be the after part when I want us as a class to
start to read different texts together, which can discourage people because it's
reading. But, I think this hook could get them in the right mindset of how this isn’t
anything new we’re learning because they do it unconsciously all the time.

Instructional Procedures:
Day 1: INTRO
The first 20 minutes: the “hook” of the lesson. I will ask students to discuss their favorite
books, poems, articles, anything they’ve read and explain why they like it so much. I will be
organizing their answers into different sections such as theme, plot, characters, genre, etc.
Last 30 minutes: I will share with the students in their school emails a link to what we will be
reading in class together, as I project it on the board they will be following along. Students will
be using Ipads with apple pencils and as we read they will first annotate the text in any way
they think is right. This should take the rest of the time as we read and annotate two texts
together. In this time I will prompt the students to download the free app “notability” on their
ipads which gives them the opportunity to create different sections for the class and write on
the documents given while making different copies of things.
Day 2: COMMON CORE STANDARDS
First 10 minutes: we will choose one text to search for the “key ideas and details” and students
will create a new copy of the text given on their Ipads (keeping their old annotated one for
comparison later) and create new annotations on the new copy.
2o minutes: For another 10 min, we will work on the “craft and structure” of the standards and
we will just be repeating what we did for the first one.
30 minutes: We will be working on the last part of the core standard which is “integration of
knowledge and ideas” and we will be repeating the first 2o min of class. Kids will be working on
organization as well during this due to the fact that they will be creating different types of new
pages on the nobility app for this lesson and learning how to move from one tab to another on
the app.
20 minutes: the last half of class I will utilize for questions needing to be asked. I recognize
that the first 30 minutes was nonstop learning and go go go, so this is time for students to
think about what we just talked about. I will ask students questions about what we just learned
and see if students are following the material being taught. I will also advise students that the
next day we are going to be doing research and writing, so they should come prepared.
Day 3: REVIEW AND RESEARCH
First 10 minutes: I will ask students to shout out different things we learned from the previous
day, without notes. This will then help me know if the majority of the class is understanding
the information that was taught.
5 minutes: I will use this 5 minutes to go over the rubric set for this assignment. I will explain
to the students that they will be creating a 150 word minimum and 250 word maximum text
that can be in any style they choose. They can do a poem, a short story, dialogue between
characters, etc.
30 minutes: The last half of class is for students to take out their laptops and ipads and do
research on the style of text they choose to write. They will be creating an outline on the ipad
using notability and will begin their writing. This is an in class assignment but I will encourage
kids to work on the writing at home.
Day 4: WORK DAY
50 minutes: Students will have the whole class period to work and finish their assignment.
Students will have time to come up to me and ask questions or get feedback on where they are
at in the process. Students are writing their final draft on their ipad using the keyboard feature
that comes with the ipad. This is also a good space for peer reviews, encouraging students to
ask their peers to look at their work and correct any grammar issues or other common
mistakes.
Day 5: TURN IN DAY
10 minutes: Students will use their ipad to airdrop me their original work without any
annotations made by other students. In this time I will also be assigning students partners, as
they pair up and sit together they will have both their final drafts in front of one another.
25 minutes: Students will swap writings with their partner and begin on analyzing and
annotating with their apple pencil on the ipad using different colors for distinction.There will
be a criteria of things needing to be met while annotating that they will be looking at during
the process.
15 Minutes: In these last 15 minutes, students will write their name at the bottom of the writing
and turn it in to me. Students will then complete a short summary comparing and contrasting
their own text and the text of their partner. This summary does not need to be long or heavily
detailed, just a brief explanation so I know they get it.
Pre-Assessment:
In the pre-assessment, I will use my day 1 planning. Students will be using their ipads
to annotate a text given to them based solely on their own knowledge about what that
means. When they turn it in, I will be able to see where they are at. I also will get the
gist as students shout out things to me about their favorite readings.

Scoring Guidelines:
I will review the pre-assessment with open eyes and score based on accuracy.
Students will be evaluated based on their core understanding of theme, characters and
plot of a writing and pointing out where those things are seen. Everything else will be
taught later. I will go off of this for the way I teach the lesson the next day. Students
will have access to their scores after they turn in their final draft to see how much they
learned.

Post-Assessment:
The post assessment is the summary on day 5 that students will be turning in after
they finish their assignment. Students will be explaining to me what they just did and
how one paper differs from theirs. This will be how I can tell what students learned.
This post assessment is a different form because their pre assessment goes with their
post one.

Scoring Guidelines:
On day 5, I will be reviewing the original annotation and the post annotations. Based
on these differences I will use my best judgment on how much the student learned.
The summary that is turned in at the end will also be useful to dictate if the student
knows what he/she is doing. Since I will not be doing a formal exam for this lesson,
the writing is the “exam”. The scores will be based off pre and post writings, how
much effort was put into the time given in class, and meeting the criteria of the
structured writings.

Differentiated Instructional Support:

Instruction can be altered/changed for students who are gifted or accelerated by
giving them more criteria for their writings. Something I could change about the
instruction for them is not switching papers with a partner and instead they annotate
a published writing of my choice and compare and contrast with their own paper. Or,
another is making their summary more detail oriented, having them explain fully the
differences and similarities of the two texts.
Different activities for students who are struggling more with the material can have
two options on what seems more applicable. Students can either partner review
another group's paper or they can get a pre-written outline of a sample writing that
they use for reference while writing.

Extension:
Here is a link to explain further on the core standards for 8th grade ELA.
https://www.education.com/common-core/eighth-grade/ela/?gclid=CjwKCAjwzY2bB
hB6EiwAPpUpZpMrwkvEEKVA36kNzhzdk6o-LVTyqPTVqwOflRAjN-SErTkSn2zRrxoC
0pEQAvD_BwE
This website is so useful because it gives you the choice to click on what section you
need more help on and it provides different worksheets and explanations for help. The
website also breaks down the standards into many other sections to make it more
clear.

Homework Options and Home Connections:

Work that will be assigned outside the classroom will be dependent on the day. For the
first two days I will assign students to read the extension link I sent and each
download one worksheet from one of the sections they feel they are struggling on and
turn it in to me. They can use their ipads to fill out the worksheet and they will have
full access to our notes from class as well. On the next two days, students will be
required to bring back a draft of their writings to class the next day, that way they are
able to use the full class period editing and working on their final draft. Ways that this
is technology based is how they will be downloading and taking advantage of their
ipads that they will have. Students won’t use the excuse about not having the notes or
the paper because everything will be all on their ipad. I also will be having students
turn everything in electronically.

Interdisciplinary Connections:
The lesson is learning how to analyze texts and comparing and contrasting two
different texts. A way I can incorporate two other content areas would be making the
texts U.S. Literature (English Literature) and diving into the background and context
of the authors and text (History).

Materials and Resources:

For teachers-

The materials needed for the lesson are only for me as the teacher is only an Ipad and
expo markers to write on the board. I will only be reviewing papers and editing them
on the Ipad and using the whiteboard for teaching the lesson.

For students

The materials needed for the lesson is only a computer and ipad, with the apple pencil
for editing and writing. Students will be using an app called notability for the whole
lesson that is on their ipads.

Key Vocabulary:
THEME: an idea that recurs in or pervades a work of art or literature.
FIGURATIVE MEANINGS: departing from a literal use of words; metaphorical.
CONNOTATIVE MEANINGS: the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the
thing it explicitly names or describes.
LITERARY TEXT: A literary text is a piece of writing, such as a book or poem, that has
the purpose of telling a story or entertaining, as in a fictional novel.

(Definitions are found on wikipedia)

Additional Notes:

My lesson written out seems longer than what I believe it would actually take. A lot of
the things being taught are things students should have previously learned so nothing
should be truly new to students to the point where we have to take another day for the
lesson.

I think this lesson will really give students a different look into writing, reading and
analyzing. I know students can really dread writing essays or reading books, especially
on top of other classes. So this is a way for students to really get out of that mindset
that those things are bad and really get to understand the whole process. Later down
the line I think this lesson will help when it comes to writing an essay about a book we
read in class or a play.