Arguing with Language for Social Studies: A High School ESL Unit

In this visual strategy, students divide vocabulary words into parts and draw illustrations to represent the separate meaning of each part.

Students learn the meaning of vocabulary words by writing the word in multiple ways. Students write guided paragraphs about words from the central text then share their writing with peers.

Students use this tool to identify a word’s meaning, its parts and its opposite. After organizing the information on an illustrated flashcard, students practice using the word in a sentence.

Students predict the meanings of vocabulary words before reading and confirm the accuracy of their predictions during and after reading. Students identify context clues from the text and revise their definitions accordingly.

A tableau is a representation of a scene or picture by people posing silently without moving. In a vocabulary tableau, a group of students use their bodies to create a frozen picture of a vocabulary word.

A word wall is an organized display of vocabulary words drawn from the texts students are reading.

Challenge the Text helps students ask and answer their own text-dependent questions by taking multiple perspectives and uncovering assumptions and biases within the text.

Shared reading combines aspects of guided reading and read-aloud strategies. During shared reading, a teacher or proficient student reads the text aloud, pausing at pre-selected moments to discuss content and analyze the text. This strategy facilitates close reading of a complex text in small or whole group settings.

This strategy exposes students to multiple short pieces of a text before they read it in its entirety. Students read selected quotes out of context and comment on both the selection and the comments of other students. The activity ends with students reflecting on their reactions to and predictions about the text.

Readers must refer back to the central text to answer text-dependent questions and provide evidence from the reading to support their answers. Students provide accurate, relevant and complete evidence. To do this well, students will often need to re-read the text several times. This approach privileges the text over prior knowledge, personal experience and pre-reading activities.

A comprehension strategy during which student take turns reading aloud to each other, stopping occasionally to comment on the text.

A whole class discussion structured to facilitate rich dialogue, active listening and use of textual evidence.

A strategy for organizing medium- to large-group discussions. Students are separated into an inner and outer circle. In the inner circle, or fishbowl, students have a text-based discussion; students in the outer circle listen to the discussion and take notes.