Dade-Monroe Teacher Education Center

Lesson Plans

Middle School-Social Studies

Student Script
Student Teacher #1

Say: Please highlight any word or idea that you do not understand.

Read:

     I've never been very good at looking at the big picture, taking the global view, and I've always been a person with an overactive sense of place, the legacy of an Irish grandfather. So it is natural that the thing tha tseems most wrong with the world to me right now is that there are so many people with no homes. I'm not simply talking about shelter from the elements, or three square meals a day, or a mailing address to which the welfare people can send the check--although I know that all these are important for survival. I'm talking about a home, about precisely those kinds of feelings that have wound up in cross-stitch and French knots on samplers1 over the years.

Ask: Who has Picture in Your Mind Card #1?
What picture did you get in your mind as you read this paragraph?
Which words helped you form that picture?

Ask: Who has Clarifying Questions Card #1? Which words or ideas don't you understand?

Suggested Clarifying Questions:

  1. What does the author mean when she says "big picture" and "global view"?
  2. What are the elements?
  3. What does "three square meals" mean?

Ask: Does anyone else have a clarifying question?

Ask: Who has Teacher-like Questions Card #1?
Please ask a teacher-like question.

Suggested Teacher-like Questions:

  1. What is the author telling us in this paragraph?
  2. Why doesn't she tell us more about Ann?

Ask: Does anyone else have a teacher-like question?
Ask: Who has Summary Card #1? Please summarize this part of the essay.

Suggested summary:

This paragraph is about how the author feels about homeless people and how she can't understand why so many people are homeless.
Ask: Who has Prediction Card #1? Please make a prediction for the next part of the essay.

Predicting:

What are "those kinds of feelings that have wound up in cross-stitch and French knots on samplers over the years"?


TEC Home / Middle School Lesson Plans / "Homeless" Resources