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Instructional Strategy

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INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

Critical Event Analysis

Grade:

6-8, 9-12, UNIV

Type:

Read Actively
/ Develop Language (MLL)
30-40

Minutes

When:

During and after reading

Materials:

Critical Event Analysis graphic organizer, whiteboard or display, writing utensil
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Description

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© MicroStockHub— iStock / Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
The Critical Event Analysis strategy helps students delve into historical events that have significantly shaped society. By engaging in this method, learners dissect these events beyond their surface details to grasp their full complexity. This strategy guides students to explore pivotal moments, figures, and innovations through three critical lenses: “What Happened,” “Why It Happened,” and its “Impact” on both society and subsequent events. This approach not only fosters close reading skills but also enhances students’ critical analysis. Students are encouraged to identify the most significant elements in a text and assess their underlying causes and long-term effects. The expected outcome is a deeper understanding of history and its continuous influence on the present and future.
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Procedure

1
Students read a text independently or collaboratively through the lens of “What Happened.” This helps them focus on and evaluate the critical moments to determine which are most important.
2
After the initial reading, distribute a Critical Event Analysis graphic organizer. Students participate in a discussion to evaluate the key events so that they can determine the most impactful event, moment, or idea from the text. Students record this in the middle box, labeled “What Happened: Critical Event.”
3
Students conduct a second read of the text to analyze the causes and effects of the event. As they read, students should complete “Why It Happened” (the causes) and its “Impact” (the effects) boxes.
4
After reading, students should hold a collaborative discussion (either with partners or in groups) to share their thinking and learn from others.
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Differentiation

Sentence Starters: Provide a structured way for students to articulate their thoughts during discussions and presentations through the use of sentence starters. These can help students frame their explanations of new words, making it easier to describe definitions, usage, and relevance effectively.
In our recent lesson/readings, this word stood out due to…
This word relates to our studies because…
Understanding this word helps in…
To illustrate this word, I included…
This word is significant because…
One new thing I learned from my classmate’s poster was…
This activity expanded my vocabulary by…
Question Complexity: Introduce more complex, open-ended questions during the discussion to encourage deeper thinking and analysis, helping students develop critical thinking skills and a more nuanced understanding of the vocabulary. For instance, after students share their selected words, you might ask:
How might your understanding of this word change if it were used in a different context?
What could be added to this poster to make the explanation clearer?
How could the example sentence be improved to better reflect the word’s meaning?

Multilingual Learning Support

Beginning Proficiency: Support students through multilingual vocabulary previews of key historical terms and concepts before reading. Provide students with a modified graphic organizer with visual supports and bilingual labels for each section (“What Happened,” “Why It Happened,” and “Impact”). To support students, chunk the initial reading into smaller sections with guided questions in both English and the home language, accompanied by timeline visuals to help sequence events. Provide students with sentence frames in both languages to describe historical events (e.g., “The main event was…,” “This happened because…”). During partner discussions, encourage students to use their full linguistic repertoire, including their home language, to express complex historical concepts while building English academic vocabulary.
Intermediate Proficiency: Incorporate more sophisticated historical analysis through a bilingual Cause and Effect Map graphic organizer and structured academic discussions. Teachers should provide content-specific vocabulary lists with student-friendly definitions and examples in context. The graphic organizer can include sentence frames for making historical connections (e.g., “This event led to…,” “The significance of this was…”). Support students in their second reading with annotation guides that help them identify causes and effects in both languages. During collaborative discussions, provide discussion frames that encourage students to use evidence from the text while building academic language skills (e.g., “According to the text…,” “The evidence suggests…”).
Advanced Proficiency: Focus on developing students’ sophisticated historical thinking skills while supporting their academic language development. Introduce complex historical concepts and vocabulary through structured close reading activities that encourage cross-linguistic analysis. The graphic organizer can include prompts for deeper historical thinking, such as analyzing multiple perspectives or evaluating long-term versus short-term impacts. Support students in using academic language to make connections between historical events and contemporary issues. Provide discussion frames that focus on historical argumentation (e.g., “While some historians argue…others maintain…,” “The historical evidence indicates…”). Encourage advanced learners to synthesize information across multiple sources while developing their academic writing skills through the use of discipline-specific vocabulary and complex sentence structures.
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Variations

Digital and Artistic Creation: Instead of a standard poster, allow students to choose any form of visual media to represent their word, such as a painting, collage, digital artwork, multimedia presentations, or digital stories about their chosen word.
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