Part one:

Chapter 7 of your text describes how Mrs. Whitcomb adapts a 3rd grade social studies lesson to accommodate an ELL student, Carmella, in “A Teacher’s Story: Preparing Carmella to Learn” on page 20. Read the lesson in Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 about differentiated instruction, and answer the following questions:

What aspects of this lesson did Mrs. Whitcomb think would be more difficult for Carmella than for her English proficient classmates and why?

How did Mrs. Whitcomb provide differentiated instruction for Carmella? What strategies did she use to make the language of the lesson more comprehensible for Carmella?

Do you think that the strategies that Mrs. Whitcomb used would be effective for scaffolding Carmella’s language development and understanding of the content? Why or why not?

What suggestions do you have for Mrs. Whitcomb about other strategies that she might use in this lesson?

Part two:

Chapters 6 and 7 discuss three important concepts related to teaching ELLs to read, (phonemic awareness in Chapter 6 and phonics in Chapter 7) and strategies for helping ELLs understand and practice language and content information (scaffolding in Chapter 6). In this discussion post, first read Chapters 6 and 7, do some additional research on the term that you chose, and then complete each of the tasks below.

In your own words, summarize one of the following main ideas from the readings:

Phonemic awareness

Phonics

Scaffolding

Be sure to include descriptions, definitions, comparisons or any other information that will help a first-time reader have a working understanding of the topic you choose to summarize an include a reference list for any scholarly sources that you use for definition and questions.

Create five questions about the topic you chose. Summarize and list the questions in an organized fashion so that your classmates can answer them.

Guided Response: First review several of your classmate’s posts. Respond to two classmates who chose to summarize the topics that you did not and answer the questions they created. After posting the responses to their questions, summarize what information was solidified as a result of their questioning strategy. Most importantly, offer suggestions that will help your classmates to more effectively cover any information that should be stressed about the topic they summarized.