Graphically Organizing ELA

Sunrise Over Fallujah is an engaging novel by Walter Dean Myers that explores concepts such as war, friendship, stereotypes, and media. Differentiate for interest and increase engagement by offering final project options. These four options will demonstrate students' comprehension of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences students have developed over the course of the novel. Included is a: - A 1-3-5 rubric assessing students on meeting Criteria For Success for the project and on

Sunrise Over Fallujah is an engaging novel exploring the topics of war, friendship, and media. I have used this test with 7th graders in two 60 minute sessions. The test includes: -A passage from the text for students to annotate -Five standardized test style multiple choice questions with space for students to write their reasoning for their choice -Five short answer questions -Four fill-in-the-blank questions -Two essay questions, one is "mandatory" and students may choose from three othe

Sunrise Over Fallujah is an engaging novel exploring topics such as war, friendship, and media. On this graphic organizer, students track the letters Birdy writes home to his Uncle Richie, grounding students in the timeline of the novel. Above the timeline, students track major events in the book, noting moments of character change. Students can use this graphic organizer while they read in order to keep track of major events, or at the end of the book, to synthesize information and determ

I have included brief notes to project and "cloze notes" for kids to write down based on symbolism, framing the "hawk" and "dove" symbols for pro-war and pro-peace perspectives. Students then use the graphic organizer to place characters on a hawk-dove spectrum, placing character names beneath the line, and reasoning for their choice above the line. My students have had fruitful conversations using this tool, as they use text evidence to analyze the characters stance on war, and make predict

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