Lesson 30: Look Both Ways, Discussion, Part 3

Turn and Talk

Instruct students to take out their homework from the previous lesson.

• Lesson 25 Homework: Students were instructed to answer the following prompts in their Journal: How do you think adults view kids your age? Has there been a time recently when you felt that you were unfairly judged because of your age? What would you like adults to know about middle schoolers?

Instruct students to share their response from the previous lesson’s homework with a partner. Even if students have not completed the homework, they can still discuss the prompts.

• Say these Directions: Discuss your response to the prompts at the end of the previous lesson with a partner. How do you think adults view kids your age? Has there been a time recently when you felt that you were unfairly judged because of your age? What would you like adults to know about middle schoolers?

  • People should understand how creative, funny, and kind middle schoolers can be.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, we are going to explore how stories—both fictional and nonfiction—can challenge assumptions about middle schoolers and help people build understanding, empathy, and community. We will also examine how authors make specific craft choices to shape those stories effectively.

Display Essential Question 2, and note its connection to the questions students just discussed during the Launch.

• How does sharing our stories help build community and empathy?

Relate the idea of building community and empathy to understanding middle school students better, both of which can be built through telling effective stories.

• Say: We all want to be understood, and when we understand each other, we can build community and empathy. Stories can be a great way to help us understand others and even ourselves.

Connect this idea to some of the vignettes in Look Both Ways, and prompt a discussion in which students share vignettes that helped them better understand a character, a classmate, or themselves.

Say these Directions: Choose a vignette from Look Both Ways and think about how it helped you better understand a character, another person, or yourself. As you discuss, explain how the author’s choices helped create that understanding.

Begin by modeling a response.

• Say: The vignette “How to Look (Both) Both Ways” helped me understand Fatima, my friends, and myself. Seeing Fatima’s list of what changed and what stayed the same and then seeing how the list changed based on her experiences, really helped me understand how nervous she was about walking home alone and how much meeting Benni changed her point of view. It also helped me understand how some of my friends can get so worried about small changes in our routines. It also helped me realize how many lists of my own I keep, just in my head, not on paper. I think change and new experiences can be hard for everyone, and it’s good to understand that everybody is dealing with them all the time.

Prompt students to share and discuss their own examples.

• Say: When you share, name the vignette, identify a specific craft choice (such as pacing, structure, or dialogue), and explain how that choice helps the reader better understand the character or situation.

  • The vignette “Skitter Hitter” helped me understand Marcus as a character, and some of my classmates at school. I got so mad when Marcus was mean to Stevie and Pia. From Pia’s point of view, I learned about how hard Marcus’s homelife is and how embarrassed he got the first time they played together. This helped me understand how Marcus and some of my classmates might act mean because they’re hurt or embarrassed. Maybe we’d all be nicer to each other if we understood those things better.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, we’re going to compare how a fictional text and a nonfiction article both help readers understand middle school experiences and build empathy, and we’ll look closely at the author choices that make that understanding possible.

Part A: Building Empathy and Understanding: “Middle School is More Than You Think” (RI.6.2, SL.6.1.c) (10 minutes)

Have students take out their copies of “Middle School is More Than You Think.” Have students follow along as you read the article aloud.

Say these Directions: Follow along as the article is read aloud, and think about its main ideas about middle school. As you listen, notice ideas or details that connect to empathy, understanding, and community.

Display the excerpt and read the introduction and first section aloud, pausing briefly to clarify key ideas. Students will then work in pairs to discuss the text.

• Say: Work with a partner to summarize the article and connect its ideas to what you discussed during the Launch. Be ready to explain the article’s central idea and what it suggests people should understand about middle schoolers.

Display and say the following prompt.

• Ask: How would you summarize this article? Does this article address any of the things you wish people would understand about being in middle school? Discuss with your partner for two minutes.

  • The article says that most people think of middle school as just being a really tough time, but it can also be a great opportunity for learning and growing. It also says that there are a lot of ways that schools and teachers are trying to change how they teach and talk to middle schoolers to help them feel included and supported. The central idea is that middle schoolers are often misunderstood, but with the right support and understanding, they can succeed and feel more connected. It says some of the things I wish people would understand about middle school, like how we need more creative teaching, but I wish it talked about some of the harder parts, like feeling left out.

Return to Essential Question 2, and prompt students to discuss it further in relation to the article.

Display and say the following prompt.

• Ask: How does this article help support the essential question “How does sharing our stories help build community and empathy?” Discuss with your partner for two minutes.

  • The article explains that middle schoolers are often misunderstood, but when people learn more about what they are going through—like changes in their brains, emotions, and social lives—they can better understand their behavior. This helps build empathy because it shows that students aren’t just being difficult; they are growing and learning. When people understand these experiences, they are more likely to be patient and supportive, which helps build a stronger community.

Part B: Pacing and Empathy in Look Both Ways (RL.6.3, SL.6.1.c) (20 minutes)

Display the Timeline graphic organizer, and hand out copies to students.

Teach: Pacing

Say these Directions: Today, you will look closely at how pacing works in “What Middle Schoolers Actually Need.” As you track events on the timeline, think about how the author reveals information over time and how that changes the way readers understand the characters.

Remind students of the idea and importance of pacing in a story.

• Say: If you ever start to feel bored when you are reading a story, it might be because the pace is too slow!

• Say: Authors have to carefully choose how to combine description, action, and dialogue so that the reader stays interested in the characters.

Remember that pacing is how quickly or slowly an author introduces different characters, ideas, or events as the story goes on.

The events of the story take place in just about an hour, from the end-of-school bell until a few minutes after 4 p.m. But pacing is about how the events of that hour are fed to the reader.

Briefly remind students of the basic plot of “The Low Cuts Strike Again” from Look Both Ways. Lead a class discussion on how the plot unfolds over the course of the story, and record students’ plot points on the timeline.

Say these Directions: Label the timeline with the events as they happen in the story. What are some of the major events of this story, and where do they fit along the timeline?

• Say: Looking at our timeline, we can see how we gradually learn more and more about the Low Cuts.

Say these Directions: Now, label the events on the timeline as either description, dialogue, or action. As you do this, think about how each type of information is revealed and how it shapes your understanding of the characters over time.

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Fishbowl Conversation

Have students work in two large groups for a Fishbowl Conversation based on the following prompt:

• How does the pacing in this story help build empathy?

Remind students of how the Fishbowl Conversations routine works, and model playing both parts.

Say these Directions: Half of you will begin in the inner circle and discuss how pacing in this story helps build empathy, while the other half will observe, listen closely, and take notes. Then you will switch roles. Use details from the timeline and the story to support your ideas and respond to what others say.

• Say: Someone in the inner circle might say, “It really changes how you look at the Low Cuts when the narrator mentions all their parents are cancer survivors.” Someone else might agree and say, “I was kind of judging them before that, and then I felt bad.” Meanwhile, people in the outer circle will listen and take notes.

Arrange the two groups of students into an inner and outer circle, and give the inner circle five minutes to discuss the prompt while the outer circle observes. Prompt students in the inner circle as necessary to keep the discussion going.

Display sample prompt.

• Ask: What do we know about the Low Cuts at the very beginning, a few pages in, and at the end? How does this information change how we view them? You have five minutes to discuss.

  • At the beginning, we learn that they steal from everybody. Then we learn that they’re poor, their parents are cancer survivors, and they don’t steal for fun. Then we learn that they were stealing today so they can buy Bit’s mom ice cream. That changes how we view them. We move from thinking they’re bad to thinking maybe they have a good reason to be bad to seeing they’re not bad at all and are just helping their families.

After five minutes, have the two groups switch, and give the new inner circle another five minutes to discuss the prompt.

If time allows, lead a whole-class discussion about how the author uses expectations to tell the story and build empathy for the characters.

• Ask: How does the author create expectations and tension about the characters? How does the title play a part in that?

  • “Strike again” sounds like someone committed a crime or an attack and then did it again, so it sets up your expectation that the characters are bad criminals. Tension is created because the author starts the story by describing the Low Cuts as bad and letting the reader think that until their actions and conversations in the last few paragraphs.

• Ask: How does the author use those expectations later in the story to help build empathy?

  • First, the story creates tension and reinforces bad expectations when it introduces the Low Cuts by describing them as thieves. But the rest of the story gives more and more information that shows you that those expectations are wrong. This gives the reader more empathy for the Low Cuts and adjusts their expectations once they learn the whole story.

Quick Write

Instruct students to reflect on today’s discussion by writing a brief response to the following prompt.

• Ask: What are the possible effects of a story’s pacing?

Optional Sentence Starter:

• “The pacing of a story can create a feeling of ____ in the reader by ____.”

  • The pacing of a story can create a feeling of tension in the reader. Authors can achieve this by playing with readers’ expectations, gradually giving information that challenges those expectations, and then moving the pace more quickly as the story goes on. This makes readers pay more attention to the ideas and characters because they want to know what happens next!

Inform students that in the next lesson, they will write an original narrative about an ordinary day or event in the life of a character from Look Both Ways. Instruct students to brainstorm and take notes in their Journal on the following prompts:

• Choose the character from Look Both Ways you want to write about.

• Invent a situation for your character that is not from the book.

• Brainstorm ideas about how you want to use pacing to reveal the new event.