Strategic Reading Guide for US History Textbook

Mr. Scott’s Class—2016

Rules to Remember:

1. Understand the Process—“Patience is a Virtue”

Mastering material is not a race. Rather, it is a process. There is a sequence of
steps we must be patient with and understand together in order to make the
most out of our material and be able to apply it in performance tasks later on in
the semester.
Special Tip: Be sure to stop after each
blue header and let your mind absorb
2. Read the actual text first—“See no Disguises”
the information
In encountering the excerpt from your US History
textbook on the Antiwar Movement, you are going
to find a lot of information in varying capacities. You will see pictures, graphs,
diagrams, captions, slogans, boldfaced words, etc. Before any of those peripheral
anecdotes make sense to you, you must gain background knowledge for the
information first. Thus, the regular text—the stuff that isn’t some off color text
box or in a picture caption under a graph—is roughly 95% of the information. Pay
attention closely and don’t pay attention to all the chaos surrounding your
reading. The rest is for enrichment once you’ve mastered the material.

3. Revisit Key Vocabulary—“See the bold. Be the bold”

Chances are, you are going to see those highlighted Special Tip: Make flash cards for
words again. The boldfaced font indicates the the boldfaced vocabulary terms
importance of that terminology or phrase as something
specifically relevant to understanding that time period.
Once you finished reading the regular text, revisit each boldfaced word and write
its term definition down on a separate sheet of paper. In this case, PEACE
MOVEMENT, DRAFT DEFERMENT, 26th AMENDMENT, and TONKIN GULF
RESOLUTION are all terms that you should have mastered by the end of your
reading.

4. Find the Pictures, Understand the Social Issues—“Be Cultured”

Now that you are able to understand what is happening in the time period
being discussed, find out via the pictures what is happening socially during
that time. In this case, look at the TIME Magazine cover about the tragedy at
Kent State and understand what happened, look at what demonstrators wore
on the slogan buttons, and see what a anti-war protest looked like with all of
those armed cops on hand!

Special Tip: Make sure that when participating

In class that you bring up any questions that you
may have about the material in the captions

NOW YOU CAN MOVE ALONG

Connections to Common Core Standards and Learning Outcomes
 Student will be able to use his/her own perspective to construct meaning out of a
specific text.

o CC.9-10.SL.3 Comprehension and Collaboration: Evaluate a speaker’s

point of view, reasoning.

o CC.9-10.R.I.6 Craft and Structure: Determine an author’s point of view or

purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance
that point of view or purpose.

 Student will be able to analyze specific quotations from a high-level literary work and
discuss how the working parts contribute to the overall meaning and magnitude of the
story as a whole.

o CC.9-10.W.1 Text Types and Purposes: Write arguments to support

claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning
and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Before they Read

Students will look and follow along with the textbook reading rules explained to them on
the page above. This will familiarize them with the process that we are trying to build
routine with during our textbook reading in American Studies.

While they Read

Students are actively reading with a pencil in hand. They are following instructions while
also annotating and making comments and notes in the margins. Students will use the
Specific Reading Guide as a bookmark while reading each specific page and Unit of the
textbook.

After they Read

Assessments: Students will be asked to do two assessments to summarize and

demonstrate what they have learned from the course material.

First, they will be asked to prepare a PowerNotes report (a 4, 3, 2, 1). What PowerNotes
is a hierarchy of important point from the brief unit (4—most important and vital
information that is essential, 3—very important and still non-negotiable, 2—interesting
detail or anecdote stemming from the material, and 1—perhaps your favorite or most
interesting anecdote from the society or culture of time period.

Next, students will be asked to produce a Tweet-25, a 25-word summary of the unit
using their summarizing skills and determining what is the most important information
from the text. Student must provide at least 1 hashtag or theme from the text (i.e.
#AntiWarIsNoBore)

Why is this important to learn for us?

Students understand and demonstrate the importance of reading dense materials with
headings, pictures, captions, and fonts. Students also gain mastery in comprehending
and applying what they read along with summary skills.