Today's Lesson in The Contender

Character Based Literacy Program
Lesson Plan The Contender, Day 1

PREPARE

1. Background Gather background knowledge about a place, time, event, person, or thing.
Integrity Requires Wholeness. Integrity requires that the way I live my life is whole, entire, undivided, sound, coherent, and principled. Integrity moves me to do difficult and new things, not just easy and accustomed things.
Where is Harlem?

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Northern Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. A village independent of New York City until 1873, Harlem has been defined by a series of boom- and-bust cycles with significant ethnic shifts accompanying each cycle.
Black residents began to arrive en masse in 1904, with numbers fed by the Great Migration. In the 1920s and 1930s, the neighborhood was the locus of the "Harlem Renaissance," an outpouring of artistic and professional works without precedent in the American black community. However, starting with the job losses of the Great Depression and especially after World War II with deindustrialization in New York, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly.

New York's revival in the late 20th century has led to renewal in Harlem as well. By 1995, Harlem was experiencing social and economic gentrification. Though the percentage of residents who are black peaked in 1950, the area remains predominantly black.
Robert Lipsyte lets us know that Harlem is a city where “ragged, skinny children with empty beer cans and ...police sirens fill the night.” His description of Harlem is dismal. He describes, “up and down the street transistors radios clicked on and hummed in the ‘sour air’... cars cruised through the garbage and broken glass.”

2. Word Wall Here are five vocabulary words to teach and add to the Word Wall. Introduce 5 important, useful words from today’s reading.

•   Define the word quickly and add to the Word Wall.
  
•   Show, say, explain, expand, explode, or buzz about the word briefly.

stoop (1)

mumbled (3)

mimicked (3)

swaggered (4)

synagogue(4)

READ


3. Review Review the timeline from the beginning everyday.
Start at the beginning and review the story so far. Mention the setting and main character. Point to each timeline item as you quickly review it.

4. Read Read the selection, usually in a Shared Reading Read React Predict Cycle of 2-3 pages. Shared Reading RRP: Read, React, Predict every 2-3 pages
Tape Partner Choral Silent Round Robin Reading

RESPOND


5. Timeline Agree on the facts in today’s reading and list the 3-5 most important on the timeline.
Discuss the reading and add 3-5 events to the timeline. Fix the facts: who, what, when, where, and why.

•   Alfred is waiting to go the movies with James.
  
•   Alfred finds James in the clubroom with Hollis and Sonny.
  
•   Alfred is the only one that has a job.
  
•   Alfred gets made fun of by Hollis and Sonny for working for a Jewish owned
  grocery store.
  
•   Alfred tells Hollis, James, and Sony that the owners, the Epstein’s, don’t touch
  the money after sundown on Sundays.
  
•   The Epstein’s were the only people who gave Alfred a job when he dropped out
  of school.
  
•   James, Hollis, Major, and Sonny go to the Epstein’s to steal the money.
  
•   Alfred forgets that the Epstein’s just installed a silent alarm.
  
•   Alfred hurries to warn James, but it is too late. Someone gets arrested.
  
•   Alfred goes to a cave where they used to hang out as kids and hopes that James
  is there.
  
•   Alfred gets arrested and James gets beat up by Sonny, Hollis, and Major.
  
•   Alfred passes out in the street.
  Character Education at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
  www.scu.edu/character

Setting	Characters	Pages
Harlem/Clubroom	Alfred, Aunt Pearl, James, Major, Sonny, Hollis Henry	1-11
the park, cave	Alfred	11-16
the street	Alfred, Major, Hollis	16-17

6. Map Add to ongoing class activities like a KWL chart or map: where did the characters go?

•   Create a map of the United States and highlight New York. Using a city map, locate and label where Harlem is. Visit AAA to get a map of New York State, New York City, Harlem, and a guide book. Use the maps to track locations as they change in the novel.
  
•   Make a KWL chart for Harlem in the 1960’s.
  
•   Create a class list of boxing vocabulary and terminology.
  
•   Make a Class Prediction Chart. Using a large piece of paper, make two columns. On one side of the paper, list what you think will happen. On the other side of the paper, keep track of the accuracy of your prediction.
  
  EXPLORE
  
  7. Activity Explore the reading more deeply with a visual or oral language activity.
  
  •   Create an OMP for Alfred Brooks. Based on today’s reading, add thoughts and feelings to the character.
    
  •   Add info on the bloom ball to the fly sheet. The bloom ball is an on-going project for The Contender. Students will be asked to complete 12 sides of the ball with items from the novel. A list of all of the items needed for the 12 sides is listed at the beginning of the lesson plans.
    Today students should list the complete title of the book, the author’s first and last name, and the student’s name.
    Other possible activities for a class group or individual Bookmark Open Mind Portrait g6 Graphic Organizer
    

g7 Main Idea Graphic Organizer Poster Ad Map Retelling

c1-12 Cubing Postcard Prop Reader’s Theatre Cartoon Rap

8. Discussion Ask discussion questions of all 9 types.
Key Questions

1. When James is late to Alfred’s house, where does Alfred find him?
   
2. Why do Hollis, Major, and Sonny make fun of Alfred?
   
3. Do you think James is a good friend for not sticking up for him?
   
4. Why doesn’t Alfred go with Hollis, Major, James, and Sonny to the Epstein’s?
   
5. Where does Alfred go to wait for James?
   
6. DoyouthinkAlfredandJameshaveapositivefriendship?Explain.
   
7. How did Alfred end up living with his Aunt Pearl?
   

Remember to ask literal structural idea craft author literature life evaluate and inference questions every day.

9. Analyze Analyze the key paragraph.
Key Passage
“‘Look, Alfred, you don’t owe them anything.’
‘They gave me a job,’ said Alfred, surprised at how far away his own voice sounded. ‘Big job,’ said Hollis.
Alfred swallowed hard. ‘They was the only ones gave me a job when I quit school,’ he yelled.
They fell silent.
‘You come on, Alfred,’ said James softly. ‘Whitey been stealing from us for three hundred years. We just going to take some back’ (pg. 6).

EXTEND


10. Write Have each student write a short product based on today’s prompt to connect to the unit theme.
Integrity requires that we live our lives as whole and undivided people. It means not putting your life in boxes so that you can be good in certain situations and bad in others. If you believe stealing is wrong and you wouldn’t steal from your relatives or friends, can you be a whole person and steal from someone else? Are we justified in doing something bad to someone because of a past wrong?
Alfred’s friend, James, tries to convince him that burglarizing the Epstein’s store is okay because whites have been stealing from African American for three hundred years.
Write a paragraph about a time when you did (or considered doing) something that you knew wasn’t right, but you justified it because of a past wrong. What did you tell yourself to justify your actions? Would you have done the same thing in a different circumstance? End your paragraph by reflecting on what a person of integrity would have thought or done.

11. Close Close by extending today’s lesson to life and the world.
Community Connection

Character Education at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
www.scu.edu/character