Middle School-Social Studies

Classroom Teacher Script

1. Give out Reciprocal Teaching Group Response Sheets.
2. Tell students that they are going to read the rest of the essay in groups.
3. Before they read, as a group, they will write a prediction on their sheet.
4. As they read, they should model the process that we have practiced. They may take turns reading or select one "teacher" to do all the reading.
5. As they read, they will highlight any parts that need to be clarified and write these clarification questions on the group sheet.
6. They will, as a group, ask at least two teacher-like questions.
7. They will also summarize the last two paragraphs with one summary sentence.

    

     This is a difficult problem, and some wise and compassionate people are working hard at it. But in the main I think we work around it, just as we walk around it when it is lying on the sidewalk or sitting in the bust terminal--the problem, that is. It has been customary to take people's pain and lessen our own participation in it by turning it into an issue, not a collection of human beings. We turn an adjective into a noun: the poor, not poor people; the homeless, not Ann or the man who lives in the box or the woman who sleeps on the subway grate.

     Sometimes I think we would be better off if we forgot about the broad strokes and concentrated on the details. Here is a woman without a bureau. There is a man with no mirror, no wall to hang it on. They are not the homeless. They are people who have no homes. No drawer that holds the spoons. No window to look out upon the world. My God. That is everything.

1. Elicit, share, and discuss each of the group's responses to the clarification questions, the teacher-like questions, and the summaries.
2. Using this frame on the overhead or the chalkboard, ask for volunteers from the whole class to help summarize the entire essay:

   This story about ________________ begins with ________________, discusses how ________________, and ends with ________________.

3. Do the follow-up activities.