Our first in a new series of teacher resources is an exploration of three articles written by Timothy Lovett published in three different issues of The Change Agent (Good Jobs, Not Just Any Jobs; All About Food; and Prisons and Justice?) The articles are accompanied by a lesson plan that is aligned to the College and Career Readiness Standards. This lesson plan zeroes in on writing anchor standards 1-5, breaking them down into plain English, providing you with a way to teach them to students, and offering student writing that models the anchor standards for your learners. You, as the teacher, get a clear-cut way to address standards, and your students get the added motivation of learning the standards not from an expert, but from someone just like them — a student who is modeling increasing mastery of writing skills — and at the same time writing about interesting topics in a sometimes humorous and always compelling way.
Download Packet 1: Teach Writing by Studying Writers
This lesson is meant to supplement instruction on ratio and is aimed at those who are comfortable or getting comfortable at Level C in the CCR standards. This lesson first explores ratio and then offers students the opportunity to think critically about ratio in the context of socially relevant data presented in two kinds of charts. Answer sheets are provided – for the teacher’s reference only or to share with students – your choice.
Download Packet 2: Exploring Ratio by Looking at Prison Statistics
This lesson is designed to provide CCR-aligned activities in the context of content that provides information about work as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). The readings are GLE 5-8.
Download Packet 3: Thinking About Becoming a CNA?
This lesson is designed to increase reading, math, and presentation skills in the context of materials that explain health and safety laws as well as specific practices that workers – particularly those in environmental services or housekeeping – can use to stay safe on the job. Since one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it, this lesson plan includes the opportunity for students to teach what they have learned.
Download Packet 4: Workplace Safety – Learn It and Teach It
This rich lesson packet provides relevant reading and writing opportunities, builds relationships between immigrant students and other receiving community members, and helps English Language Learners connect with community resources. In “Reading Partners,” English language learners and members of receiving communities read one or two selected articles from The Change Agent and then use the writing prompts to engage in an exchange of ideas, experiences, and perspectives about the article topic. There are eight articles to choose from – articles about moving to a new community, work, health, schooling and parenting.
The aim of this activity is to use text as a way to get people from different communities talking (through writing) about topics of common interest. Programs that have partnerships with local organizations can use the activities to bring students into conversation with these partners (health care providers who want to connect with immigrants about health, employers who are interested in hiring immigrants, etc.). However, there are many opportunities to communicate across communities right in our own programs: this activity could be carried out by ABE and ESL classes that partner to read and correspond about the same articles, by program volunteers that partner with students, or by diverse student pairs in one classroom.
Download Packet 5: Reading Partners
Packet 5 Tech Tip: Converting a Lesson to Integrate Technology
“Juneteenth” is the celebration of June 19, 1865, when slaves in Texas learned they were free – two and half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This activity includes text (at three different grade level equivalents or GLEs) and art work. The text shares a family’s oral account of being slaves in Texas in 1865 when word of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached them, a description of Juneteenth celebrations in Texas, and the ways an artist has preserved family history with her artwork. Students also have a chance to look at and analyze two full-color paintings by Sonia Sadler. The text is available at three different levels (GLE 4, 7 and 10). The aim of this activity is to provide students with an engaging, relevant text that allows them to develop key reading and writing skills and knowledge about U.S. history.
Instructions for Lesson packet #6
Download one or more texts for Packet 6: GLE 04, GLE 07, GLE 10
Use the graphic organizer we provide (p. 36) or create your own to help students analyze four essays about holidays. They will investigate the text to find what the author says are “fun aspects” of the holiday as well as “challenging aspects” of the holiday, and they will write a paragraph based on the essays. The four essays are: “Christmas Changed” (also available in audio on The Change Agent website) by Diana Solorzano, “Taking the Good with the Bad” by Gregory Parker, “Celebrating Eid” by Nuzhat Jahan, and “My Diwali” by Sue Byman. The holidays also represent diverse religious traditions — Christmas (Christian), Eid (Muslim), and Diwali (Hindu) — so these texts also lend themselves to social studies explorations, such as geography, world religions, immigration patterns, and more. The texts used are levels 7-8 (grade level equivalent). CCR standards addressed are Level D (GLE 6-8.9). The aim of this activity is to provide students with engaging, relevant stories that help them practice the important CCR skill of using evidence from the text to be able to explain what the author is saying.
Download Packet 7: Joys and Challenges of Holidays
This lesson packet provides students with the opportunity to write back to Change Agent writers.
Find a description of Lesson Packet 8 here with downloadable articles and worksheets.
Use these four articles from The Change Agent to examine extreme inequality and to consider the policy changes over the past 50 years that have increased wealth and income inequality. During the course of this lesson, students will be scaffolded to read a fairly complex text.
Download Packet 9: Making Sense of Extreme Inequality
Use this selection (or a subset of the selection) of multi-level articles written
(mostly) by students to teach reading skills and to spark discussion about the role of workers in determining what happens in the workplace.
Download Packet 10: Taking Action at Work