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For the past two years, I have been teaching 2-3 sections of reading. Although these are classes that I have advocated for at the high school level (because I believe that every kid who wants to learn to read should have the opportunity no matter how long it takes), they are extremely hard to teach. This is because kids have had their confidence crushed by that point. They failed in elementary school, they failed in middle school, and now everything is just getting harder and they still don't know what's going on. But anyhoo, we truck along and try to figure it out. The last two years of trying to figure it out have been a complete dumpster fire, like one filled with dog shit, but every once in a while there is a sliver of hope...some tiny thing that goes well, and that makes me believe we can get these classes to work...sometimes. maybe.
One of my only successes in reading class this year was teaching the graphic novel Yummy by G. Neri. I taught this book as part of our yearlong "communities" theme, and we focused on what makes a community "healthy" or "unhealthy." I chose Yummy because I was really on the struggle bus and wanted to find something the kids would enjoy reading. Up to that point, I had offered articles and short stories but nothing took. In my opinion, when the kids "take" to a text, it means they pick up the text and willingly read part of it out of interest. That hadn't happened yet and it was THIRD QUARTER. THIRD QUARTER! THE YEAR WAS ALMOST OVER and I felt I had accomplished nothing. I also feel, in general, that it is important that at some point, a kid picks up the book themselves and then the classroom energy transfers from me working (explaining the text, setting everything up) to them working (they pick up the damn book and read some of it). Only a few books are able to light kids up and fire up this transfer of energy. The books have to be something they can actually read and something that is actually interesting to them as a high school student. (One of these books is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. Even though it is banned, I would still teach it If I came across a class that wanted to read it. Here is my Absolutely True Diary unit if you need it. Another one of these books is Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. Here are my materials for it.)
So here I am. It's 3rd quarter. Every class had been me singing and dancing and throwing books around for 90 minutes while the kids refused to do anything-rinse, wash, repeat when my other sections came in. I was very tired and very frustrated and finally got over myself to ask around for help. One of my coworkers suggested Yummy, as he had used it with a self-contained 9 English class and it went fairly okay. Fairly okay?? Not horrible and terrible? Perfect.
I grabbed all two copies from the book room and pitched it to the kids as part of a book talk. I talked up a few other books as well and ask the kids to vote on which book they wanted to read as a class. They chose Yummy. Phew. And off we went. This was a good unit because it was the only time all year that all my reading kids, even the toughest and most recalcitrant, read a book and completed the assigned work (wellll-most of it). The kids were surprised to learn that Yummy was a true story.
My materials for my first Yummy unit attempt are below. Each lesson is probably around 30-40 minutes. We are on a block schedule at my school, but we do syllable and morpheme study the first 20-30 minutes of class. Below are the sections of class that focused on Yummy, so there's a vocabulary section and a comprehension section. I hope you find this free unit for Yummy helpful.
Please enjoy.
Yummy Daily Plans
Essential Questions:
How do our communities support us in positive ways?
How do our communities not supportive or even hurtful?
To what extent do our communities affect our identities?
Day 1
Build Background Knowledge
Ask students to list the traits of healthy and unhealthy communities and write their answers on the board. My students had a really tough time just coming up with these answers off the top of their head, so I had to make it more concrete and go through a PowerPoint. The PowerPoint is from a long (and interesting) document from the University of Las Vegas that I chopped up and turned into a PowerPoint for the kids.
After the PowerPoint and notes, we analyzed some of the communities we had studied in other texts AND I tried to get them to think about our real community outside of the school.
Vocabulary (10 minutes)
Day 2
Vocabulary (10-15 minutes)
Using your vocabulary, write sentences about the picture on the board. My kids hate Justin Bieber so I always make them write about Justin Bieber.
Comprehension: 1st Page Close Reading (25 minutes)
Give each student a copy of the book and ask them the following questions:
What is the title?
Who is the author?
Who is the artist?
What is the subtitle?
Are there words that you recognize in the title or the subtitle?
What image do you see on the cover?
How would you describe his expression or face?
Next, read the prologue out loud.
After the prologue, do close reading of the first few pages:
Ask the students to look at first page of Yummy
Ask them what they observe.
Oprah
Busy airport
Bulls
Blues/famous musicians
architecture
Ask them if these are good things or bad things.
Ask them to identify the transition. Where is the transition? Which word sets up the transition for us?
Lastly, ask them what the bad things are that they observe in this community.
Reading Time
Read pages 6-17 of Yummy and fill in the Yummy Character Chart
Day 3
Vocabulary (10 minutes)
Students had to find images for each of the vocabulary words.
Comprehension (20-30+)
Have students read pages 18-27 in Yummy and fill in the Yummy Part 2 Reading Guide
Day 4
Vocabulary (15-25 minutes)
For today's activity, I had students write a story with their vocabulary words. It's very hard for the kids to come up with stories from scratch, so I usually give them a picture or something to get started. This year, for whatever reason, my kids were way into these story dice, so I used them a few times this year. I gave each kid a die or two, had them roll them, and then asked them write a story with some of their Yummy vocabulary words.
Comprehension (20-30+)
Have students read pages 27-39 in Yummy and fill in the Yummy Part 3 Reading Guide
Day 5
Vocabulary (20+ minutes)
Play Bingo
Have the students draw a 5 x 5 box on a sheet of scrap paper and fill in their Yummy vocabulary words. Since they will not have enough words to fill the whole Bingo board, I usually ask them to fill in words from earlier units as well OR I have them fill in word parts/prefixes we are studying.
Comprehension (20-30+)
Read Part 4 of Yummy and complete the Yummy Part 4 Reading Guide
Day 6
Vocabulary
Complete the Yummy Vocabulary Sentences handout. I started the sentences and the kids just need to finish them.
Comprehension
At this point, the students were all in different places, so I just gave them the next reading guide as they finished the one before it.
Day 7
Vocabulary
The class before a quiz, I have students take a practice quiz and we spend a fair amount of time going over it.
Comprehension
At this point, the students were all in different places, so I just gave them the next reading guide as they finished the one before it. Hopefully they finish up by today.
Day 8
Vocabulary
For the quiz, I wrote a story about my class using the vocabulary words and inside jokes. The kids did not think I was funny, but I had a good time. Feel free to adjust the story for your kids.
Comprehension
Last day for comprehension packets. After this, students have to make up the work during study hall or catch up time.
Day 9
To wrap up the unit, we circled back to the idea of healthy and unhealthy communities.
We watched a recent video about Chicago and gang violence titled "The Fight to Stop Chicago's Gang Violence" (from Newsela) and then I walked the kids through this essay frame. The essay frame has a brainstorm on the first page and then the kids just have to fill in the blanks for the rest of it.
I hope you enjoy this unit! Leave a comment if this was helpful to you. :)