Grade 07: Written in Bone

Grade 07 Written in Bone

IntroductionFluent readers (1) read aloud at an appropriate pace, (2) read words and punctuation accurately, (3) read with appropriate expression, and (4) understand what they are reading.

Fluent reading is essential for reading comprehension. Readers who do not meet expectations 1-3 above, will struggle to understand what they read. Fortunately, “the good news is that fluency is an element of reading that can be improved relatively quickly with some attention and practice.”1 This can be done in a variety of ways. For example:

● Provide students with an audio version and printed version of a text in advance of reading it in class. Direct them to listen to the audio version and follow along with the printed version.

● When reading texts in class, ask students to read along with a fluent reader using different approaches, such as choral reading2 or paired/partner reading.3

● Engage students in repeated oral readings through daily fluency practice or fluency tasks. These can be done during small-group instruction or outside of school.

Fluency Task Teacher Directions:4

Follow these steps to engage students in the following fluency task.1. Read aloud the passage fluently as students follow along with printed text.2. Direct students to practice reading the passage aloud and monitor them for accuracy and understanding. 3. Check for students’ understanding of the passage by asking the questions for Let’s Check for Understanding! 4. Direct students who need fluency practice to read the passage at least 3 times a day for a week. 5. Provide additional fluency supports to students. For example:

a. Direct students to use a highlighter to annotate where punctuation marks are in the text, so they have a visual “heads up” for an inflection. Discuss what type of pause or inflection is required of each punctuation mark.

b. For rhyming poems, ask students to highlight or underline the rhyming words in the same color to make connections between the lines of poetry and to support them in reading through the end of a line and reading with rhythm.

c. After several practices, when students feel ready, ask them to record an audio of their oral reading. Use an application, such as Fluency Tutor for students to record and track their fluency progress over time.

d. Extension: Direct students to listen to their recording and note their fluency. Prompt them to identify one area of strength and one area of improvement to fix on their next fluency task.

1 UnboundEd ELA Guide Building Fluency. (2016, June). Retrieved August 08, 2016, from https://www.unbounded.org/content_guides/15/building-fluency-unbound-a-guide-to-6-12-elaliteracy-practices 2 Paige, D. (2011). 16 Minutes of “Eyes-on-Text” Can Make a Difference: Whole-Class Choral Reading as an Adolescent Fluency Strategy. Reading Horizons, 51(1), 1-20. Retrieved January 2, 2016, from http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=reading_horizons3 Additional information about paired/partner reading can be found here, here, here, or here.4 Adapted from the Fluency Packet for 4-5 Grade Band from Achieve the Core.

Grade 07: Written in Bone

“Pocahontas” by William Makepeace Thackeray

Wearied arm and broken sword 5

Wage in vain the desperate fight: 11

Round him press a countless horde, 17

He is but a single knight. 23

Hark! A cry of triumph shrill 29

Through the wilderness resounds, 33

As, with twenty bleeding wounds, 38

Sinks the warrior, fighting still. 43

Now they heap the fatal pyre, 49

And the torch of death they light: 56

Ah! ‘tis hard to die of fire! 63

Who will shield the captive knight? 69

Round the stake with fiendish cry 75

Wheel and dance the savage crowd, 81

Cold the victim’s mein, and proud, 87

And his breast is bared to die. 94

Who will shield the fearless heart? 100

Who avert the murderous blade? 105

From the throng, with sudden start, 111

See there spring an Indian maid. 117

Quick she stands before the knight, 123

“Loose the chain, unbind the ring, 129

I am the daughter of the king, 136

And I claim the Indian right!” 142

Grade 07: Written in Bone

Dauntlessly aside she flings 146

Lifted axe and thirsty knife: 151

Fondly to his heart she clings, 157

And her bosom guards his life! 163

In the woods of Powhatan, 168

Still ‘tis told by Indian fires, 174

How a daughter of their sires 180

Saved the captive Englishman. 184

Grade 07: Written in Bone

Words to Know:

wage: to carry onvain: useless; no resulthorde: a large group of peoplefatal: causing deathpyre: a pile of flammable material used for burning a corpse as part of a funeralstake: a wooden post to which a person was tied before being burned alive as punishmentmein: a person’s outward personality or attitudethrong: a densely packed crowdbosom: a woman’s chestPowhatan: a tribe of Native American people in Virginia in 1607 when the English settled in Jamestownsire: a respectful form of address for a king

Words to Practice Using:

● wearied● triumph● shrill● resounds● captive● fiendish● savage● avert● dauntlessly

Let’s Check for Understanding!

1. How does the knight respond to the crowd in the first stanza? 2. What does the crowd plan to do to the knight in the second stanza? 3. Who comes to the knight’s rescue in the third stanza, and what do they demand? 4. How is the Indian maid remembered?5. How does the Indian maid’s point of view of the knight differ from the crowd’s point of view?

Grade 07: Written in Bone

“Why Is ‘x’ the Unknown?” by Terry Moore

I have the answer to a question that we've all asked. The question is, Why is it that the 19

letter X represents the unknown? Now I know we learned that in math class, but now it's 36

everywhere in the culture -- The X prize, the X-Files, Project X, TEDx. Where'd that come from? 53

About six years ago I decided that I would learn Arabic, which turns out to be a 70

supremely logical language. To write a word or a phrase or a sentence in Arabic is like crafting 88

an equation, because every part is extremely precise and carries a lot of information. That's 103

one of the reasons so much of what we've come to think of as Western science and 120

mathematics and engineering was really worked out in the first few centuries of the Common 135

Era by the Persians and the Arabs and the Turks. 145

This includes the little system in Arabic called al-jebra. And al-jebr roughly translates to 159

“the system for reconciling disparate parts." Al-jebr finally came into English as algebra. One 173

example among many. 176

The Arabic texts containing this mathematical wisdom finally made their way to Europe -- 190

which is to say Spain -- in the 11th and 12th centuries. And when they arrived there was 208

tremendous interest in translating this wisdom into a European language. 218

But there were problems. One problem is there are some sounds in Arabic that just 233

don't make it through a European voice box without lots of practice. Trust me on that one. 250

Also, those very sounds tend not to be represented by the characters that are available in European 267

languages. 268

Here's one of the culprits. This is the letter SHeen, and it makes the sound we think of as 287

SH -- "sh." It's also the very first letter of the word shalan, which means "something" just like the 306

English word "something" -- some undefined, unknown thing. 314

Now in Arabic, we can make this definite by adding the definite article "al." So this is al- 332

shalan -- the unknown thing. And this is a word that appears throughout early mathematics, such as 349

this 10th century derivation of proofs. 355

The problem for the Medieval Spanish scholars who were tasked with translating this material 368

is that the letter SHeen and the word shalan can't be rendered into Spanish because Spanish 384

doesn't have that SH, that "sh" sound. So by convention, they created a rule in which they borrowed 402

Grade 07: Written in Bone

the CK sound, "ck" sound, from the classical Greek in the form of the letter Kai. 418

Later when this material was translated into a common European language, which is to say 433

Latin, they simply replaced the Greek Kai with the Latin X. And once that happened, once this 450

material was in Latin, it formed the basis for mathematics textbooks for almost 600 years. 465

But now we have the answer to our question. Why is it that X is the unknown? X is the unknown 486

because you can’t say “sh” in Spanish. (Laughter) And I thought that was worth sharing. 501

(Applause) 502

Grade 07: Written in Bone

Words to Know:

Arabic: a language spoken primarily throughout the Middle East and North AfricaPersians, Arabs, and Turks: groups of people native to areas in the Middle Eastdefinite article: used to introduce a noun phrase (the in English)

Words to Practice Using:

● disparate● reconciling● undefined● rendered● supremely● derivation● texts● basis

Let’s Check for Understanding!

1. Briefly summarize why the letter X represents the unknown.2. What is the author’s viewpoint? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.3. According to the author, what makes Arabic a difficult language to learn?4. What did scholars due to solve the problem that translation caused?

Grade 07: Written in Bone

“The Price” by Clark Ashton Smith

Behind each thing a shadow lies; 6

Beauty hath e’re its cost: 11

Within the moonlight-flooded skies 16

How many stars are lost! 21

Grade 07: Written in Bone

Words to Know:

none listed

Words to Practice Using:

● lies● flooded

Let’s Check for Understanding!

1. How does the title contribute to your understanding of the poem?2. How does this poem’s form or structure contribute to its meaning?3. What is the tone of this poem? What specific words or phrases help to set the tone?4. Describe what the speaker is saying in your own words.

Grade 07: Written in Bone

“Keep the Home-Fires Burning (Till the Boys Come Home) by Lena Guilbert Ford

1. They were summoned from the hillside, 6

They were called in from the glen, 13

And the Country found them ready 19

At the stirring call for men. 25

Let no tears add to their hardship, 32

As the Soldiers pass along 37

And although your heart is breaking, 43

Make it sing this cheery song. 49

REFRAIN: sung after each verse

Keep the Home-fires burning, 54

While your hearts are yearning, 59

Though your lads are far away 65

They dream of Home; 69

There's a silver lining 73

Through the dark cloud shining, 78

Turn the dark cloud inside out, 84

Till the boys come Home. 89

2. Over seas there came a pleading, 95

"Help a Nation in distress!" 100

And we gave our glorious laddies, 106

Honor made us do no less. 112

For no gallant Son of Freedom 118

To a tyrant's yoke should bend, 124

And a noble heart must answer 130

Grade 07: Written in Bone

To the sacred call of "Friend!" 136

Words to Know:

glen: a narrow valleysilver lining: the hopeful side to a gloomy situationyoke: a wooden piece meant to hold two animals together so that they can be easily controlled

Words to Practice Using:

● summoned● hardship● cheery● yearning● pleading● glorious● gallant● tyrant

Let’s Check for Understanding!

1. How does the title contribute to your understanding of the song?2. How did the author use rhyme and rhythm in this song?3. How does the author use repetition in this song?4. Who is “they” in the first stanza?

Grade 07: Written in Bone

“Print Your Own Medicine” by Lee Cronin

Organic chemists make molecules, very complicated molecules, by chopping up a big 12

molecule into small molecules and reverse engineering. And a chemist, one of the things I wanted 28

to ask my research group a couple of years ago is, could we make a really cool universal chemistry 47

set? In essence, could we “app” chemistry? 54

Now what would this mean, and how would we do it? Well to start to do this, we took a 3D 75

printer and we started to print our beakers and our test tubes on one side and then print the 94

molecule at the same time on the other side and combine them together in what we call 111

reactionware. And by printing the vessel and doing the chemistry at the same time, we may start 129

to access this universal toolkit of chemistry. 136

Now what could this mean? Well if we can embed biological and chemical networks like a 152

search engine, so if you have a cell that’s ill that you need to cure or bacteria that you want to kill, if 175

you have this embedded in your device at the same time, and you do the chemistry, you may be able 195

to make drugs in a new way. 202

So how are we doing this in the lab? Well it requires software, it requires hardware and it 220

requires chemical inks. And so the really cool bit is, the idea is that we want to have a universal set 241

of inks that we put out with the printer, and you download the blueprint, the organic chemistry for 259

that molecule and you make it in the device. And so you can make your molecule in the printer 278

using this software. 281

So what could this mean? Well, ultimately, it could mean that you could print your own 297

medicine. And this is what we’re doing in the lab at the moment. 310

But to take baby steps to get there, first of all we want to look at drug design and production, 330

or drug discovery and manufacturing. Because if we can manufacture it after we’ve discovered it, 345

we could deploy it anywhere. You don’t need to go to the chemist anymore. We can print drugs at 364

point of need. We can download new diagnostics. Say a new super bug has emerged. You put it in 383

your search engine, and you create the drug to treat the threat. So this allows you on-the-fly 400

molecular assembly. 402

But perhaps for me the core bit going into the future is this idea of taking your own stem 421

cells, with your genes and your environment, and you print your own personal medicine. 435

And if that doesn’t seem fanciful enough, where do you think we’re going to go? Well, you’re 452

Grade 07: Written in Bone

going to have your own personal matter fabricator. Beam me up, Scotty. (Applause) 465

Words to Know:

reverse engineering: the act of copying another manufacturer’s product by studying the way it was made and taking it apart

Words to Practice Using:

● universal● deploy● molecular● ultimately● chemist● chemists● fanciful● network● manufacture● biological

Let’s Check for Understanding!

1. Summarize the key ideas of this text.2. What are some analogies or comparisons that Lee Cronin used to explain his “really cool universal

chemistry set?”3. According to the author, what are some potential benefits in this field of research?4. Does the author explain that printing medicine is a good idea or a bad idea? Why?