Tory Stout

SERP475
19 April 2017
Instructional Activities

Eighth grade students with mild disabilities in Special Education Language Arts Class.

Topic: Vocabulary
Objective: Students will practice looking up definitions, as well as learn new words, and make
connections to words they already know.
Materials: Laptops, Vocabulary sheet, pencil
Implemented: Students have a list of vocabulary words they must complete by the end of the
unit. They use their laptops to look up the definitions of words and write them on their paper.
They also write examples, non-examples, and draw a picture that will help them remember the
definition of the word.

Topic: Reading Comprehension

Objective: Students will learn strategies to help them summarize large reading passages during
AZ Merit testing.
Materials: Reading passages, highlighter, pencil, projector
Implemented: Teacher gives the students strategies such as highlighting the first and last
sentence of each paragraph in order to lessen the overwhelming text. Student work with teacher
to highlight these sentences and answer comprehension questions using the sentences they
highlighted.

Topic: Reading Comprehension

Objective: Students will write notes in the margins of a text to help them summarize what a text
is about.
Materials: Reading passages, pencil, projector
Implemented: With guided practice, the teacher reads through the passage, stopping to explain
hard words. She also summarizes at the end of each paragraph for the main idea. Then they work
together to answer reading comprehension questions using what they wrote in the margins to
help them locate where the answer is in the text.

Topic: Call to Action Campaign

Objective: The students will use propaganda to appeal to the reader.
Materials: Laptops
Implemented: The students work in pairs to create a power point campaign to address a concern
in their community. Students have to use propaganda to appeal to the reader of the campaign.
They must include a slogan, a story, statistics, research to back up their concern, as well as a plan
to fix this concern in their community.
Topic: Holocaust
Objective: The student will compare different books based on the Holocaust and how they relate
to the theme “finding light in the darkness”
Materials: Various picture books: both fictional and nonfictional accounts of the Holocaust,
laptops
Implemented: The students worked in groups to create a power point. Each slide described one
of the books, and how it related to the theme. Another slide compared all of the books and how
they related to the Holocaust and its events.

Topic: Daily Oral Language

Objective: Student will practice grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Materials: D.O.L worksheet, Pencil, projector
Implemented: Teacher puts her sheet on the projector, and students fill out their paper, fixing
any errors in the sentences. Together, they go over the answers, and it is projected on the board.

Topic: Presentations
Objective: Students will practice speaking in front of a group of people.
Materials: Power point
Implemented: Students work on a presentation of explaining main events that occurred during
the Holocaust. They present their presentation in front of their classmates. This is used to help
them practice for presentations they will have to do in high school.

Topic: Persuasive Text

Objective: Students will be able to identify what makes a text persuasive, and what can be used
to make it more effective.
Materials: Various persuasive articles on the same topic, pencil, highlighter.
Implemented: Students and the teacher read the passage. Highlight persuasive elements of the
passage. Decide which passage is more persuasive and find evidence to explain why. Then
explain how to make the other passage more persuasive.

Topic: Journal Writing

Objective: Students will practice their written expression.
Materials: Journal, Pencil
Implemented: At the beginning of each class, students write for 5 minutes in their journal
following a prompt.

Topic: Context Clues

Objective: Students will use context clues to answer questions about a text.
Materials: Context clues worksheet, pencil
Implemented: Students read different sentences with clues in them, then answer questions
regarding what the text is talking about. They also have to write the evidence they found that
tells them why their answer is correct.
Topic: Read Aloud
Objective: The students will listen to the teacher read from a narrative and be able to answer
comprehension questions.
Materials: Narrative.
Implemented: The teacher reads for 10 minutes at the beginning of each class. During the
reader, students answer comprehension questions, as well as clarifying questions asked by the
teacher.

Topic: Debate
Objective: Students will debate a topic of interest and use evidence found from texts to back up
their ideas.
Materials: Laptops
Implemented: Class decides on a topic to debate about. Then the class is split in half and asked
to research the position of their topic. They gather evidence and create main points to discuss
during the debate. Then the two groups debate against each other.