Registration | Log In

Search Grants | Fulfilled Grants | Foundations | More About Find It, Fund It, Florida

Share

Please share this page to help in fulfilling this grant.

Goal

The goal of this request is to use a modern and more popular text alongside district or state provided texts, which tend to be classical literature, in order to teach a particular standard.  

 

What will be done with my students

These materials will help students practice various ELA standards, such as figurative language, characterization, and/or source material.

Students will read Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief. As students read, they will have guided questions derived from vital ELA standards as well as short responses all provided to mirror the standardized test format.

While providing standards-based instruction is first and foremost, the innovative or extension piece of any novel centered unit is the final task or project. Students will have one of three options based on their strengths and a clear standard:

(1) Create a poster board with ten cited allusions [figurative language] from Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief. Each will have an image, drawn or printed. Each will explain the background of the allusion and its purpose within the text.

(2) Create ten trading cards of characters from Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief. Each card will have a piece of cited dialogue from or about the character and describe the character's background, flaws, motivations, and other useful traits [characterization]

(3) Write an original story inspired by Greek mythology featured in Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief [source material]

 

 

Benefits to my students

Teachers are expected to present material using varying perspectives, differentiation, and scaffolding. By utilizing a modern text, they will enjoy the actual text more, be more more familiar with the text, and/or understand the text better.

The title is the Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan's first novel in his widely published Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series. Often the school provided materials use only complex classical texts to convey various standards. This works fine when assessing students using only texts that reflect standardized test content. However, when the only texts being exercised are classics, students tend to over focus on the actual text - and not the standards because they are working harder to comprehend than to implement.

The standards are supposed to be transferrable to any text. If they practice and show mastery with a text they understand and enjoy, they are likely to show that same level with a more difficult text. The following is the main standard students will focus on as they read The Lightning Thief:

LAFS910.RL.3.9(3) Analyze how author draws on and transforms source material [e.g. how Shakespeare treats themes and topics from Ovid]

If one dissects this standard, students are to read a text that was heavily based on a famous work. The example the state provides is Shakespeare and Ovid, two ancient authors whose language is almost indiscernible to most adolescents. That is a great example to use as final practice or an extension. However, the standard provides room to interpret. By using The Lightning Thief, students analyze how Rick Riordan, a modern author, was inspired by Greek mythology, a famous work.  

 

Budget Narrative

Novels will be paperback, so they will be cheaper ($15-20 to $8-10). They will be purchased from a stock website so they will go down significantly (from $8 to $5). As a class set, they will be used year after year.

http://bulkbookstore.com/percy-jackson-and-the-olympians-book-one-the-lightning-thief-9780786838653?gclid=CKyCp9--4NACFYNAhgod49YIYQ 

 

Items