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Lesson 29: Comparing Research to Poetry: Red, White, and Whole, “The New Rhythm”–”Shock” and “Olympic Hopeful Works to Improve Bone Marrow Registries”
50 min
California CCSS: Focus Standards
California CCSS: Supporting Standards
ELD Standards
Student Lesson
Lesson 29: Comparing Research to Poetry: Red, White, and Whole, “The New Rhythm”–”Shock” and “Olympic Hopeful Works to Improve Bone Marrow Registries”
Student Learning Objectives
1
Content
Students will analyze how Rajani LaRocca develops Reha’s point of view across poems about Amma’s transplant search.
2
Language
Students will compare explanation and perspective using contrast language and precise academic vocabulary in discussion and writing.
3
Foundations
Students will use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar academic words in an informational text.
Essential Question
What is culture, and how does it shape our identity and sense of belonging, especially when we move between more than one world?
Connections to
Knowledge-Building:
Students connect the science of bone marrow donation to the novel’s symbolic use of blood, ancestry, and family ties.
Enduring Understanding:
Identity is shaped by biological, cultural, and emotional connections, and this lesson shows how those layers collide when Amma needs a donor match.
Future Lessons:
Students will carry forward today’s work on heroism, sacrifice, and perspective as they read the next poem cluster.
Unit Performance Task:
Students practice comparing what a text explains and what a poem reveals so they can later write stronger literary analysis about how a poem shows an important connection.
Lesson Pacing
| Lesson Flow | Purpose of Learning Experience |
|---|---|
Launch5 Minutes | Students will activate prior thinking from the homework and frame the key turn in the unit: blood as both a family bond and an urgent biological need. |
Literacy Lab10 Minutes | Students will use context clues to determine the meaning of registry and ancestry so they can read the article with precision. |
Learning in Action30 Minutes | Part A: What Each Text Gives Us (RL.7.6, RI.7.4) Students will compare what the poems reveal through Reha’s point of view and what the article explains directly about donor matching. Part B: Turn Comparison Into Insight (RL.7.6, W.7.2.a, W.7.2.b) Students will rehearse and write two synthesis sentences about what the article clarifies and what the poems uniquely convey. |
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Addressed in Lesson
- registry
- an official list of names or information
- ancestry
- the family background or heritage a person comes from
Vocabulary for Additional Support
- donor
- a person who gives something to help another person
- transplant
- a medical procedure that moves healthy cells or tissue into someone’s body
Material List
- Red, White & Whole, “The New Rhythm,”–“Shock” (pp. 160–174)
- Unit 4 Lesson 29 Student Edition
- Venn Diagram graphic organizer
Routines
- Think-Pair-Share
- Introduce New Words Using Morphology
- Quick Write
Lesson Sequence
Lesson Texts
Short-Form Text
Olympic Hopeful Works to Improve Bone Marrow Registries
Frederica Boswell, NPR
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