A 3rd Grade Social Studies Lesson

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Chapter 7 of your text describes how Mrs. Whitcomb adapts a 3rd grade social studies lesson to accommodate an ELL student, Carmella, in “A Teacher’s Story: Preparing Carmella to Learn” on page 20. Read the lesson in Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 about differentiated instruction, and answer the following questions:

  • What aspects of this lesson did Mrs. Whitcomb think would be more difficult for Carmella than for her English proficient classmates and why?
  • How did Mrs. Whitcomb provide differentiated instruction for Carmella? What strategies did she use to make the language of the lesson more comprehensible for Carmella?
  • Do you think that the strategies that Mrs. Whitcomb used would be effective for scaffolding Carmella’s language development and understanding of the content? Why or why not?
  • What suggestions do you have for Mrs. Whitcomb about other strategies that she might use in this lesson?