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acTIVITY 4.6 continued
Text Complexity Overall: Very Complex
Lexile: 1410L
Qualitative: Moderate Difficulty Task: Moderate (Analyze)
6 Based on the observations you made during the first reading, you may want to adjust your reading mode. For example, you may decide for the second reading to read aloud certain complex passages, or you may group students differently.
278 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8
278 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8 ScaFFOLDING The TexT-DePeNDeNT QUeSTIONS
the credentials of the people being quoted. Does the author use names? When you read a news article with known speakers being quoted, how do the quotations affect your perception of the article?
2. Craft and Structure (RL.8.4) What role 9781457304644_TCB_LA_SE_L8_U4.indd 278
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1:48 A
does the first paragraph play in the structure of this article? Read paragraph 1. What institution is being impacted by the budget cuts? From where is the article being reported?
3. Key Ideas and Details (RL.8.1) How do quotes from specific people throughout the article add to the development of ideas? List
aCTIVITy 4.6
continued
satirical Humor
my Notes
Grammar UsaGe
Active and Passive Voice
Active voice emphasizes who or what is doing the action. Active voice: The past tense provides students with a unique and consistent outlet for self-expression.
Passive voice contains some form of the verb to be and the past participle of the verb.
It is best used if the person
or thing being acted upon is important or if the actor in the situation is unknown or not important.
Passive voice: School districts in California have been
forced to cut addition and subtraction from their math departments.
INdepeNdeNT
readING lINk
Read and Connect
Choose a humorous text from your list that demonstrates satire. Create a graphic organizer to explore the satire and compare your results to the graphic organizer you completed in exercise 6. List the similarities and differences in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
3 “This was by no means an easy decision, but teaching our students how to conjugate verbs in a way that would allow them to describe events that have already occurred is a luxury that we can no longer afford,” Phoenix-area high school principal Sam Pennock said.
4 “With our current budget, the past tense must unfortunately become a thing of the past.”
5 In the most dramatic display of the new trend yet, the Tennessee Department
of Education decided Monday to remove “-ed” endings from all of the state’s English classrooms, saving struggling schools an estimated $3 million each year. Officials
say they plan to slowly phase out the tense by first eliminating the past perfect; once students have adjusted to the change, the past progressive, the past continuous, the past perfect progressive, and the simple past will be cut. Hundreds of school districts across the country are expected to follow suit.
6 “This is the end of an era,” said Alicia Reynolds, a school district director in Tuscaloosa, AL. “For some, reading and writing about things not immediately taking place was almost as much a part of school as history class and social studies.”
7 “That is, until we were forced to drop history class and social studies a couple of months ago,” Reynolds added.
8 Nevertheless, a number of educators are coming out against the cuts, claiming that the embattled verb tense, while outmoded, still plays an important role in the development of today’s youth.
9 “Much like art and music, the past tense provides students with a unique and consistent outlet for self-expression,” South Boston English teacher David Floen said. “Without it I fear many of our students will lack a number of important creative skills. Like being able to describe anything that happened earlier in the day.”
10 Despite concerns that cutting the past tense will prevent graduates from communicating effectively in the workplace, the home, the grocery store, church, and various other public spaces, a number of lawmakers, such as Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, have welcomed the cuts as proof that the American school system is taking a more forward-thinking approach to education. “Our tax dollars should be spent preparing our children for the future, not for what has already happened,” Hatch said at a recent press conference. “It’s about time we stopped wasting everyone’s time with who ‘did’ what or ‘went’ where. The past tense is, by definition, outdated.” Said Hatch, “I can’t even remember the last time I had to use it.”
11 Past-tense instruction is only the latest school program to face the chopping block. School districts in California have been forced to cut addition and subtraction from their math departments, while nearly all high schools have reduced foreign language courses to only the most basic phrases, including “May I please use the bathroom?” and “No, I do not want to go to the beach with Maria and Juan.” Some legislators are even calling for an end to teaching grammar itself, saying that in many inner-city school districts, where funding is most lacking, students rarely use grammar at all.
12 Regardless of the recent upheaval, students throughout the country are learning to accept, and even embrace, the change to their curriculum.
13 “At first I think the decision to drop the past tense from class is ridiculous, and I feel very upset by it,” said David Keller, a seventh-grade student at Hampstead School in Fort Meyers, FL. “But now, it’s almost like it never happens.”
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
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