Instructional Goals:

1. Academic Goals
Week 1: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it
is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal
opinions or judgments.
To begin the discussions of the Graveyard Book, an anticipation guide was planned. The
themes of the book were pulled out and then formulated into statements that could be agreed or
disagreed with. This helped the students to become familiar with the themes of the book and
start their thinking about the topics that would be discussed in the book, and in the Page Turners
sessions.
Week 2: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL. Follow rules for collegial discussions, set specific
goals and deadlines, and define individual roles as needed.
This lesson focused on the Say Something: activity and the ABC chart. The Say
Something Activity required students to read passages of the text and periodically pause to say
something about what they read. This could be making a prediction, asking a question,
clarifying a confusion, or commenting on what was happening. The goal of this lesson was to
have the students engage in a discussion as they read. The ABC chart plan was to engage the
students in discussion about two of the main characters of the book, Bod and the man, Jack. The
ABC chart required the students to come up with words starting with certain letters of the
alphabet to describe their character. They were then expected to explain why that word fits their
character. This process allowed for discussion to occur.
Week 3: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL. Review the key ideas expressed and demonstrate
understanding of multiple perspectives through reflection and paraphrasing.
This lesson focused on a double-entry journal. Usually, students choose passages or
events from the text to write on one side of a journal, and then comment on that passage on the
other side of the journal. This activity was modified by the teachers to an interview format. The
students orally gave their responses to the double-entry journal. The students were expected to
respond to the passage from their perspective as the reader, as well as taking on the perspective
of the characters in the story. They could discuss how they would feel about an event in the
story if they had been one of the characters, or connected the event in the story to an event in
their life.
Week 4: CCSS.ELA-Literacy. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions
(one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 6 topics, texts, and
issues, building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly.

This week focused on discussion with the use of a think aloud activity. A think-aloud
encourages the students to think out loud about what they are reading, either summarizing what
was just read, making a prediction about what will happen next, or images they are creating
about the text. This activity encourages collaborative discussion with a partner to encourage
quality reading of the text. The students were expected to read a portion of the text and then
respond with ideas that they were thinking about while reading. This lesson included both group
and teacher-led discussion. Instruction began with teacher-led discussion in order to model the
activity for the students, and then developed into group discussions as the students added their
ideas and opinions.
Week 5: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word
relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
The activity for this week focused more on vocabulary instruction with a bookmarks
activity. The teachers chose specific words from the book and gave the students the page
numbers to read the word in context within the story. The students were then asked to write
down a definition of the word based on how it was used in context. The group discussed the
words and their different meanings based on how the words were used in context, and how the
words were defined in the dictionary.
Week 6: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL. Pose and respond to specific questions with
elaboration and detail by making comments that contribute to the topic, text, or issue under
discussion.
The lesson for this week was called Post-It notes. This activity is another during reading
strategy where the student writes down on a post-it note something that is being thought of while
reading. This includes predictions, summaries, vocabulary, and their own thoughts on the
events. The students were asked to write down at least two things under each category for the
post-it note while reading a portion of the text.
Week 7: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL. Describe how a particular storys or dramas plot
unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves
toward a resolution.
This week, the students were given an opportunity to focus on the characters of the story.
Since the end of the book was approaching, the teachers wanted to discuss with the students the
characters and see if they noted any changes in who the characters were, by creating a character
bulletin board. The students drew a picture of the character and then wrote different words,
phrases, or questions that described the particular character. The students used chart paper to
discuss some of the characters, both major and minor, of the story.
Week 8: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH. Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs,
photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

This week, the focus of the lesson was to discuss the book as a whole by the use of two
activities on chart paper. The first was a Likert Scale. This scale was used to give the students
statements about the themes of the book. They were to respond by scaling their agreement or
disagreement with the statement. The other activity was the Somebody Wanted but So
activity. The students summarized an event in a structured, charted way. They answered who is
the somebody involved in the event, what the character wanted, but what complications ensued,
and so what happened as a result. Doing this activity on the chart paper helped the students to
visual everything that was being discussed.
Week 9: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL. By the end of the year, read and comprehend
literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 68 text complexity band
proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
The last week of Page Turners was spent playing a board game pertaining to the
Graveyard Book. The teachers created a board that the players moved through by answering
questions about vocabulary, comprehension, and more. Some of the questions involved the
students reading a passage of the book or acting out a lesson. This lesson helped to check the
students on their overall comprehension of the book that was read during the semester.
2. Executive Functioning Goals and Interventions
During the weeks at Page Turners, several incidents occurred that required intervention.
Johnny struggled to maintain emotional control at times during book club. Times of open-ended
discussion were the most difficult because he struggled to understand the answers that were
given by the other student. When this happened, Johnny did not have the emotional control to
restrain himself from commenting on the incorrectness of the other students answer. This
caused the other student to become frustrated with Johnny, causing words to be exchanged. This
would sometimes then lead to Johnny removing himself from the room to hide in the restroom.
This occurred twice during Page Turners, both times being during open-ended questions or
discussions. In order to prevent these outbursts, the teachers tried to keep all activities as closedended as possible. In order to help with this situation, the ticket economy could have been used
to improve his emotional control. The goal would be for Johnny to accept the answers of the
other student and learn to make constructive, rather than degrading comments in order to receive
tickets and then exchange the tickets for preferred items or activities.
Johnny also struggled during times where he had to wait to begin the next activity, or
waiting for an answer to be given. He became very anxious during these times and would resort
to singing or hand flapping to handle the anxiety. Most times, the teachers used redirection in
order to end the behavior. This helped but did not completely diminish the behavior. In order
for intervention to occur for this behavior, the teacher first needs to determine the frequency and
duration of the behavior and then set goals accordingly. Since it did not happen during each
session, this information could not be accurately determined for Johnny. However, the goal that

should be set is to eliminate all singing that is out of context of the lesson. This again could be
done through the use of the ticket economy.
Johnny also struggled with flexibility and times of transition. This was especially
apparent during times of transitioning from one question to the next. Once Johnny began talking
about a particular subject, he had great difficulty changing his thought process to something new.
He did not like to be interrupted or told that it was time to move on to a new subject. Again, the
ticket economy could be used for this difficulty. This could be done by giving him a certain time
limit to answer the questions, and then use tickets to reward him for answering within that time.
This is especially necessary for the open-ended questions. Eventually, he can be given less time
in which to answer in order to help him make his answers more concise.
While Johnny struggled in these three areas, he also excelled in some other areas. His
task initiation was very strong; he cooperated with all of the activities that had been planned.
Johnny also has a very strong working memory and was good at remembering facts and themes
of the book.