Module 1: Instructional Challenge

Hocked gems financing him, our hero defied the scornful laughter. Think of it as an egg, not a table, he said. Then three sturdy sisters sought proof, forging over vast calmness, and sometimes over turbulent peaks and valleys, until at last welcome winged creatures appeared, signifying monumental success.

Answer these questions about the passage:

1. What are the hocked gems?

I found that hocked can mean to pawn something for money, so this leads me to believe that the hocked gems are a significant object that someone had to pawn or give away for something like money in return.

2. What should we think of as an egg and not a table?

We should think of it as an egg and not a table, because an egg is fragile and if it is broken it’s a big deal, but a table is sturdy and strong. So the situation should be handled with concern and care.

3. Who are the three sturdy sisters?

The three sturdy sisters are three people or maybe groups that are looking for proof for what they seek and though the journey was hard at times they were successful.

4. What kind of winged creatures appeared?

I am assuming some type of bird or maybe this signifies the sought after destination?

 

If I were using this passage with students, I would first try to activate prior knowledge of vocabulary words. I would encourage the students to look up key words like hocked, defied, and turbulent so they would have a schema to go by when first reading the passage. This would be a helpful strategy for students whose schema and the text content do not match, because they would have attained new knowledge of the selected vocabulary to go by.

I feel that it is very important for student’s to spend lots of time working with texts that do not match students interests or schema because this will allow them to develop strategies to understand complex texts and build up their schema for future reading.