Angelone described a lesson on character traits. She searched the Storyworks archive and found a “really great article.” The class watched the introductory video and then discussed the new vocabulary in the article. Next, the students were divided into small groups by reading ability, and each group read a different version of the same article written at the appropriate level for that group. “Sometimes they’re reading with me. Sometimes, they’re reading with their small group.” Then, they worked in their groups to complete an activity in Storyworks on how the character changes throughout the story. Angelone and her academic support teacher would “check in with each group and see how they work.” They also used the story for writing, as each story has a related writing prompt. Small groups are sometimes organized by interest, and the online system allows for searching by topic to support these groups. Meehan likes to give her students a choice of Scope articles to read for a specific instructional purpose, as preteens tend to feel empowered by having choices based on their interests. She described this aspect of her unit on argument: “Anytime you make it interest-based, you have more engagement. When we’re doing debates in this unit, those debates are better based on what their interest is.” McGilloway explained that teachers often have students read an article multiple times. Initially, the students read or listen to the article “to take it in, and then they go back and read it closely so they can work on deeper understanding.” Teachers take advantage of the various question types provided in Storyworks and Scope , “incorporating the Pause and Think questions, the Close Reading questions, and then asking students to write about what they’ve read.” Meehan often has students complete a read-through of Scope articles where they “read with their writer’s eyes,” paying attention to the author’s strategies to draw the reader in. In that way, the articles become “mentor texts for writing.” When teaching about informational texts, Meehan builds students’ awareness of text features, which are prominent in Scope informational articles. She has her students create collages based on a particular article. “They can cut it up and use those different pieces” in their collages. To support vocabulary development, Angelone has her students highlight the vocabulary words in Storyworks articles they are “not sure about” and has them “make a prediction based on what we’ve read so far. And they’re able to write their prediction right in the text.” Similarly, to support comprehension development, she asks her students to “stop and think about the main idea of the section they just read, and they can highlight [it]. They’ll write down the main idea in the article and then highlight the evidence to support that.”
SCHOLASTIC STORYWORKS AND SCOPE SUCCESS STORY: AUDUBON, NEW JERSEY, SCHOOL DISTRICT 6
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