Encourage readers of Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, to develop their categorization and organizational skills with a strategy that asks them to list all the words they can think of that relate to a key word or topic, group these words, and then provide a label that encompasses all the words in that grouping.

Concepts

reading comprehension strategies, slavery, academic vocabulary, gary paulsen

Show More Show Less

Additional Tags

english language arts

Show More Show Less

Instructional Ideas

• Introduce the strategy after an in-class reading of the first few pages of the novel
• Have class members generate the topics 

Classroom Considerations

• The sixth in a series of nine resources designed to be used with Nightjohn

Pros

• The resource includes a rationale for the strategy, step-by-step directions, assessment suggestions, and a link to a model list, group, label chart

Cons

• Readers are not provided with an explanation for how the activity relates to the novel