LS.14 The student will investigate and understand that organisms change over time. Key concepts

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1 Suzanne Keefe Evolution Theme: Darwinian Evolution Class: Biology Grade: Seven (General Track) Estimated Reading Age: +/- 3 grades (4 th through 10 th ) This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I have always had a special affinity for evolution, since it's such a cool topic, and I think it will be a good way to capture my students' attention. Also, I find there are a great many texts on the subject, making it easy to find a text for each student. The text set will be used either as an enhancement or, as the case may be, even a replacement for the more traditional, and more dry, textbook. I focus with the text set on Darwin's historic voyage on the Beagle, as well as fossil evidence for evolution, which was just coming into general awareness when Darwin published his book, the Origin of the Species. I like my text set for several reasons. The first is that none of the texts are written in dense language.. This is important because I don't want to scare my students away from reading these texts. The second is that none of the texts are very thick. This is important because first impressions are paramount, and again, I don't want to scare my students. The text set takes various parts of the SOL's and breaks them down into various levels of readability so that a range of students may find one which appeals and is manageable. I am going to assume in this text set that my students exhibit the standard variation of readability; that is, that they range from three years below to three years above their current grade level. I assume this based on various things: that students are on occasion passed along to the next grade without having met the requirements of the previous grade; that some students may have learning disabilities that impinge on their ability to read; and that some students are going to be English Language Learners and need work on basic reading and vocabulary. SOL Connection: LS.14 The student will investigate and understand that organisms change over time. Key concepts include a) the relationships of mutation, adaptation, natural selection, and extinction; b) evidence of evolution of different species in the fossil record; and c) how environmental influences, as well as genetic variation, can lead to diversity of organisms. Text Set Items: Item 1: Evolution Readability Level: 4 th Grade

2 Used How: Independently By Whom: Students reading at three levels below grade This book is a general overview of how fossils were discovered, and what was thought of them. It's great because it doesn't have Scientists discovering these fossils; rather it has a farmer and a child as the first two to find them. It goes on to say how scientists have studied fossils for a long time, and figured out they are often millions of years old. I like how they include plants with the dinosaurs since that's usually left out in people's imaginations but I think plant fossils are pretty neat. It has a colorful graph showing the various periods that have been labeled and the general times when they occurred, as well as what lived during those periods. It also shows how one organism can evolve into another, with clear pictures. It concludes that no one can see evolution but we can prove it exists from reading fossils. This text takes what can be a bit of an overwhelming concept, i.e. the change of species over millions of years (try wrapping your head around that!) and makes it very accessible. I can see this as being especially beneficial for ELL students to learn, since there are pictures on every page that can serve as silent context clues to the text. It also uses very clear context clues to define vocabulary, as when it says Some of the older kinds of living things survived through the ages. Many others died out-they became extinct. (pg 16) Students will have little problem figuring out vocabulary words that might otherwise trip them up as they read. Usage of Text: This text would be something I might use to augment the official text. I can see this as an alternative way to teach vocabulary to struggling students, since it does define things well. I would use this in both the Preparation and the Assistance stage of PAR, since it can help build background knowledge as well as build comprehension. I would give the students a list of vocabulary words to look out for while reading the text, with space for them to write in the definitions. I would debate with myself whether to have the students read the text independently or aloud as a group; it's a little below grade level to expect advanced students to sit through, so I would probably have them read it independently. Readability of Text: I used the Graph for Estimating Readability-Extended by Edward Fry to calculate the text's readability, which is grade 4.1. It will serve as a great text for under performing readers because new vocabulary is clearly defined in the text and new examples are developed through plenty of examples. Brandenberg, Aliki, and Joanna Cole (1987). Evolution. New York: Harper & Row. Item 2: Digging Up Dinosaurs Readability Level: 4.5 Used how: Independently By Whom:Students reading at three levels below grade This book tells the story of a kid who went to a museum of natural history and made a beeline for the dinosaur exhibit. For the record, although this book contains many scientific names of dinosaurs, I didn't count them in the readability test because for one thing I always skim right over the names when I read and for another I intend to let my students know they don't have to worry about knowing such things. The book goes on about how big (and small) dinosaurs were, and where they lived (everywhere). I especially like how it describes fossils: Fossils are a kind of diary of the past (pg

3 10). It also goes through the processing of fossils from when they are discovered to when they are displayed. It even tells how copies are made so more museums can have fossils to display. Rationale I believe this text will effortlessly engage my reluctant readers, because it's specifically about dinosaurs, and every kid on the planet is nuts for dinosaurs. Who wouldn't be? Also, every kid has to be schlepped to the nearest natural history museum at least once in their school career, and I can see this as a great way to get students excited about a field trip to a museum, since it's about a kid going to a museum. It will give readers an idea of what to expect out of the experience. Usage of Text I definitely think this text is part of the Preparation stage of PAR, since I've decided it's a good way to prep students for a trip to a museum. Also, it is another way to get vocabulary into the students' brains, since this text, like the first one, is very good at defining words. I would probably use a vocabulary list given to the students before reading as well. I would have this be a read independently. I may even have students pair up, and have one read the first item and the other read the second, and then help each other fill out the vocabulary sheet. Readability of Text This text comes out as 4.5 on the Fry readability graph. The vocabulary is very accessible for all students in the class, and easily defines all terms. In terms of Bader, all topic sentences are indeed clearly identifiable, and the tome and manner of expression appealing to intended readers. Brandenberg, Aliki. (1981). Digging Up Dinosaurs. New York: Harper and Row. Item 3: The Adventures of Charles Darwin. Readability level: 5.5 Used How: Independently )R possibly read aloud to the class as a whole By Whom: Students reading on a fifth grade level (below grade level). A young cabin boy shares a first-person-perspective accounting of Charles Darwin's historic voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. He describes the sights and sounds of the voyage and what was found with a delightful sense of adventure. This text is not about a topic specifically covered by any SOL; however, the history of science is just as important as the learning involved, and I want students to understand that learning never occurs in a vacuum but is discovered as we go. I can easily see how this would engage my readers, since it tells an adventure story about sailing the high seas and discovery. It's really a page-turner; I myself read at a level considerably above that of this book, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's a science-specific book that can strike the fancy of students. I can see it occupying a pleasurable class period with me reading to my students. Usage of Text: This would certainly be an independent reading or read-aloud book. It cannot take the place of the text, but it can be used to take a dry, maybe even boring topic (history of science) and liven it up a bit. I would use this as a part of the Reflection stage of PAR, since it extends the reading experience of the subject matter. I would either read it myself, or have the students pass it around and read from it. Since it's told from the point of view of a kid close to their ages, maybe they could see themselves in it! Readability of Text: According to Fry's graph, this book scores at level 5.5, right smack dab in the middle of the fifth grade,

4 or a year and a half behind the students' current grade level. There are appealing pictures (which, also under Bader, are free of sexual, social, or cultural bias (pg. 141)). I would have students maybe review their vocabulary lists, or at least have them out in front of them on the desk, as the stodgy is written. Wald, Peter. (1982). The Adventures of Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Item 4: Life on Earth:The Story of Evolution. Readability Level: 6.8 As a read-aloud to the class. By Whom: The whole class. This book covers all time on Earth from when it was first formed, to when the first life emerged, to Darwin's adventures, up through the present. It has tons of great pictures that are bright, colorful, and big enough to be seen even at the back of the room. It contains a time line to highlight just how long life has existed by showing the passage of time over a single 24-hour period. It is also big and has a hard cover, making it easy to display at the front of the class. This text goes a pretty long way in showing biodiversity and the relationship between living things, with all the great images. It explains things like mass extinctions, human impact on evolution and extinction, and the rate of evolution and how it is not the same for all creatures. I think it boils the whole idea down pretty well, and is high enough level and interesting enough to engage my best readers while still catching those who are at the bottom of the reading scale. Classroom This text is absolutely going to be augmenting, rather than replacing, the traditional text in my classroom. I can see this as a way to introduce the topic of evolution to my class. For this reason, I think it will be a part of the Preparation stage of PAR, giving the students a quick and easily-digested idea of what the whole unit will be based on. Probably I will have the students grab a piece of paper and pencil and have them jot down any questions or vocabulary words they do not understand or want expansed upon. The readability of this text, according to the Fry graph, is 6.8, or just below the grade level of my students. Regarding Bader, the text is clear and convenient to use (pg. 141). There are large, colorful pictures and a nice graph of the time line for students to take a look at. This would be a good thing to read aloud, then pass around and let students check out in more detail as other work is being done. Jenkins, Steve. (2002). Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Item 5: Charles Darwin. Readability Level: 7.8 Used how: Independently By whom: Students reading at grade level. This book is a short and sweet biography of Charles Darwin. It traces his entire life, from childhood,

5 through college, his adventures on the HMS Beagle, his marriage, the publication of his definitive work, and his final years. I feel like people sort of say the name Charles Darwin! and think, oh, he did the evolution thing, but they don't really think much farther than that. It seems like it's that way for most famous scientists: most people don't even know what Einstein won the Nobel Prize for (hint: it wasn't e=mc squared). SO I like that this book makes him a person, with more to his life than the five years he sailed and created his theory. I am not certain this book will engage my most reluctant readers, unless I do a read-then-you-read-backto-me sort of lesson. Instead, I see this as one of the books I may suggest to students doing a paper on Darwin. I think something like a short biography for extra credit on scientists like Charles Darwin or Thomas Morgan. Any time you can make a scientist just a person is a good thing when you have young students whom you would like to influence to enjoy science and see themselves engaging in later in life. This text definitely falls into the Reflection portion of PAR. I repeat myself that I can see this text as being best used by a student writing a biography of the man that created the theory of evolution. They could actually use this text as well as others to write an interesting report worthy of some extra credit. Of course, if I'm giving extra credit, I will come up with something else another student could do if that student was a struggling reader, since this text is at grade level. I would perhaps assign extra credit on a case-by-case level. This text scores as level 7.8 on the Fry graph, which places it right at grade level for my class. According to Bader, the text's units, chapters, table of contents...present clear, logical development of subject (pg. 140). Greene, Carla. (1968). Charles Darwin. Library of Congress Catalog Number: (no publisher available). Item 6: The Hidden Life of the Pond. Readability level: 7.5 Used how: In group work. By whom: Students reading at or above grade level. This book goes into the various animals found in one habitat, or community: ponds, of course! It's great at detailing all the different life forms unique to ponds. I thought it would be a good idea to have the students take a look at what co-evolution looks like: how things evolve together so that each organism has it's place, or niche, in the whole. I can also see this as being a good way to introduce a lab investigating a local pond and checking to see how things around home evolved to work together. This text would be great at engaging my reluctant readers, since even if they struggle, there's tons of photographs of animals and plants they would recognize as being pretty local. It would be a good way to show my learners that this whole concept of evolution is right outside their door. Also, I could scaffold by building this on top of students' memories of a previous unit on ecology and populations. I would have my learners read this in groups as they sort of did their own research on what they would

6 find on a trip right outside to the nearest pond. I don't think I have ever seen a school that wasn't pretty near some sort of body of water, so it could sort of give the learners an idea of what to expect when I haul them all outdoors to splash around. I can say from recent,personal experience that the idea of splashing around in water on a warm day gets kids of every age, from the tiny (my littlest was two) to the near-adult (my oldest student was 17). They all universally jabbered about the experience to anyone who would listen for the rest of the day, and this book could be used to get the students going learning about how a pond works. Hey, it doesn't have to be alive in itself to have evolved, does it? this text's readability was right smack in the middle of grade level, at 7.5, according to the Fry graph. It flows, it's got a ton of pictures, and it lends itself well to group work. Regarding Bader, the conceptual level is generally appropriate to [the] intended grade elev(s) (pg. 140). Schwartz, David. (1988). The Hidden Life of the Pond. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. Item 7: Raptors Fossils Fins & Fangs: Prehistoric Creature Feature. Readability Level: 7.4 Used How: Independently. By whom: Students reading at or above grade level. This is another great book that goes through evolution as it has emerged as a theory over time. When I have my struggling readers going over Evolution or Digging Up Fossils, I can have my on-target readers working with this book. Once again, I have not counted the complex and tongue-tying scientific names when I calculated this book's readability, since I skim over such things and would tell my kids to do the same: don't worry about it, it'll only confuse them as it does me. This text could engage my reluctant learners, since it has pictures of all the oogie monsters from Earth's past in bright, neon colors. It also highlights new animals and words so finding something in this text would not be hard. Since this is another book about said oogie and monsters (dinosaurs) I can see it as being easy to engage students in, and can be used as a precursor once again for that trip to the Natural History Museum I mentioned above. This text most certainly will be used to augment the official text. From what I remember of middle school life sciences texts, I can probably even point to the boring sections of that text and tell my kids that this text covers just about the same material, only better and in a more interesting way. Since I'm using this text to introduce the idea of a trip to the museum, of course this falls under Preparation in PAR and goes right into Assistance. I would just keep this book on hand and have students read it to themselves with a vocab list to fill out as they read. This text falls right in the center of grade for readability at 7.5. I do have more 7 th grade reading level texts than any other, but that is because I am assuming the majority of my kids will be in the middle, and I want a variety of texts for use with them. And turning to Bader, helpful ideas are presented for conceptual development (pg.141). Matsen, Brad, and Ray Troll. (1996). Raptors Fossils Fins & Fangs: Prehistoric Creature Feature. Berkeley: Tricycle Press.

7 Item 8: From Fins to Hands. Readability Level: 8.6. Used How: Read Aloud. By Whom: The whole class. This is a neat little book that goes into more detail than any of the previous books when discussing evolution. It shows how animals evolved from fish, the most primitive vertebrates (and the most plentiful) to primates (us!). It's got some pictures, so I can hold it such that the class can see these; it is above grade level, but I think if I read it aloud and paused for questions or to explain, it would be something my classes could find interesting. This book tells the story of how our own bodies evolved, and specifically what makes primates so special: our hands. I can imagine that my students will think learning about themselves would be pretty neat, especially since that's how I would frame reading the book to my class. Since it is, in the end, a story (albeit a true one) I can see it engaging my reluctant readers, especially since they can sit back and listen rather than struggle with the text on their own. This is certainly a text that will augment, but never replace, the official text. It is more a way to break up the unit and sort of reward my hardworking students with reading aloud time, which everyone likes no matter what their grade. It's just storytelling, after all. Since I think this text would come in the middle of the unit, I believe it serves best as the Assistance portion of PAR. It sort of cements knowledge my students will have already begun building, and scaffolds it a touch further by making it sort of personal since it's specifically about evolution of primates (I imagine myself with a class full of rhesus monkeys or lemurs; I may even call them such: middle school kids are squirmers). The readability of this text is 8.6 according to the Fry graph. And as for good old Bader, Ideas are expressed clearly and directly...word choice is appropriate...[and] tone and manner of expression are appealing to intended readers [or listeners] (pg. 141). Ravielli, Anthony. (1968). From Fins to Hands: An Adventure in Evolution. New York: The Viking Press. Item 9: Trapped in Tar: Fossils from the Ice Age. Readability level: 9.3. Used how: independently. By whom: my advanced readers. This book goes over the evolution of something in between what previous books have gone over: not dinosaurs, nor yet modern animals, but those creatures that existed a mere 10,000 years ago during the last ice age. Specifically, this book traces the path of the animals trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits in sunny Los Angeles. Because it is on such a high level, being over 2 years past grade level, I see this as being useful for higher-level readers who want to know more. If I were to work this into a lesson plan, it would certainly not be for independent reading by my most

8 reluctant learners, since it is far above their heads. Rather, if I were to use it in regular class, I would probably read it aloud or copy bits of it and have the class do read alouds. It has that certain cachet of being based around LA, in which everyone is interested when they're that age (hello, Zac Effron lives there!). It also has information on cool animals similar to ones alive today, such as mammoths which are similar to elephants. This is definitely an augmentation to the official text. I can see it as being a part of the Reflection portion of PAR. This would most likely be something I would have my students use as a part of that extra credit book report I mentioned earlier, except this book would be for my higher level readers. This would be a really cool, fun topic for a book report. Heck, students could read the Clan of the Cave Bear books for an idea of what life was like during the last ice age. By the seventh grade I had certainly started reading that series (I still re-read it today and love it, as do many many people). This would be the non-fiction support for that book. This book scores at 9.3 according to the Fry graph. Because it is so much more dense than anything addressed so far in this text set, it would definitely be something the students would need instructor support if they had any hope of understanding the text, unless they were on that higher reading level. According to Bader, New Vocabulary is defined in context (pg. 140). Arnold, Caroline. (1987). Trapped in Tar. New York: Clarion Books. Item 10: The Clan of the Cave Bear Used how: Completely independently, as suggested reading for fun. By whom: Interested students. This is a fiction book well-loved by millions of people over the past thirty years. It tells the story of a young Cro-Magnon girl who is rescued from sure death by a traveling band of Neanderthals. On another level, though, it paints a vivid picture of human evolution, and dispels some commonly held but erroneous beliefs that earlier humans were less intelligent than modern ones. On the contrary, as laid out in the book, Neanderthals were almost certainly more intelligent, having larger brains; we just have a greater ability to problem solve with our larger frontal lobes. There might be a student or two who likes to read, and wants a suggestion on what to read involving evolution to give them a better idea of what goes on and maybe how it happens. For reluctant readers, I might show clips of the movie made from the book, so they can see the differences between the two species (Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon). This is again activating schema since it's about people, not some abstract thing like dinosaurs and such. Completely out of the classroom, since it is a work of fiction. Still, the author did lots of background research and was careful to get each detail right. I would use this strictly as a suggested reading for interested students if they asked or if I sensed they might like it after the unit is over. I read it at this age and loved it; advanced readers may do the same. In this case, it would be the Reflection portion of PAR, to be read after learning has happened to cement the learning in a young student's mind.

9 The readability, according to the Fry graph, is exactly at I will note here that the author does not use overly complex sentences or words, but this is a book of nearly 500 pages, so take a deep breath here, students. And Bader? Linguistic patterns are suitable to most populations and fit intended levels (pg. 140). Auel, Lean. (1980). The Clan of the Cave Bear. New York: Crown Publishers. Additional reference: Fleener, Charlene, Raymond F. Morgan, and Judy S. Richardson. (2006). Reading Instruction in the Content Area. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education. **It is in the above sources that one may find Bader's readability scale**