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Lesson 9: Flex Day: Pause and Piece It Together
50 min
California CCSS: Focus Standards
California CCSS: Supporting Standards
ELD Standards
Student Lesson
Lesson 9: Flex Day: Pause and Piece It Together
Student Learning Objectives
1
Content
Students will cite several pieces of textual evidence to support inferences, identify and explain how connotative and figurative language affect tone, and analyze how text structure contributes to meaning.
2
Language
Students will use academic language to write evidence-based explanations, describe the impact of connotations, and explain the relationship between structure and effect to discuss and write about a passage.
3
Foundations
Students will read a short passage fluently enough to notice key words and details, repeated or charged phrases, and structural shifts.
Essential Question
What is blood, and how does it work as a symbol of both family ties and our shared humanity?
Connections to
Knowledge-Building:
Students pause after Investigation 1 to strengthen the reading moves have used to study blood as both science and symbol.
Enduring Understanding:
Identity is shaped by biological, cultural, and emotional connections, and close reading helps reveal how those layers come together.
Future Lessons:
Students will continue tracking how culture, silence, and belonging shape Reha’s identity across later poems in the novel.
Unit Performance Task:
Students will need to choose strong evidence and explain imagery, symbolism, and craft in a literary analysis of a poem from Red, White, and Whole.
Lesson Pacing
| Lesson Flow | Purpose of Learning Experience |
|---|---|
Launch5 Minutes | Students self-assess confidence on RL.7.1, RL.7.4, and RL.7.5 to help the teacher form responsive huddles. |
Learning in Action40 Minutes | Teacher uses flexible grouping to provide targeted 10–15-minute huddles on citing evidence, interpreting words and phrases, and analyzing structure; other students engage in independent reading or knowledge-building tasks. |
Look Back5 Minutes | Students reflect on growth in confidence or new learning from huddles or independent work. |
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Addressed in Lesson
- evidence
- a detail or quotation from a text that supports an ideaconnotation: the feeling or idea a word carries beyond its direct meaningstructure: the way a writer arranges lines, sentences, stanzas, or sections
Vocabulary for Additional Support
- symbol
- something that stands for a bigger ideamotif: a repeated image, word, or idea in a text
Material List
- Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca
- Unit 4 Lesson 9 Student Edition
- A short teacher-selected passage from a recently read unit text for each huddle
Routines
- Quick Write
Lesson Sequence
Lesson Texts
Short-Form Text
What Is Blood?
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC), adapted by Newsela
Read text
