Wildfire Helping Trio

Students are curious by nature. Students want to make sense of the real world around them. In this lesson, students will learn about wildfires. Students will explore the helpful and harmful effects of wildfires. They will then collaborate to understand how the enbvornment impacts how often wildfires occur. 

This lesson requires no additional prep for the teacher! This activity can serve as the lesson, or can be a great addition following a hand-on learning activity. This is an excellent replacement to the traditional method of direct instruction! Students will be able to read and interpret information from a grade level text. This will aid students as they make sense of the phenomena and collaborate with peers to continue to refine their understanding. With the guided questions and sentence stems, students should all be able to come to the same conclusions and understanding together. Through this gradual release built into the activity and peer collaboration, students gain a deeper understanding of the lesson phenomenon.

The Helping Trio begins with a grade-leveled text about wildfires. Students will then independently respond to thinking questions which are text dependent, but also require students to make predictions and inferences about the phenomena presented in the article. Once students have independently completed the reading and questions, students will then engage in collaboration with their peers. Students use their guided prompts to discuss and make sense of  wildfires. Once all students have shared their initial ideas about wildfires, they will begin to apply their knowledge to a situation. 

This structure offers additional support for close reading in the Common Core. This structure supports EL students with multiple opportunities for reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and encourages the development of knowledge through collaboration among peers. Additionally, this resource has also scaffolded appropriate math practices to further support Common Core.