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Junior Scholastic Pacing and Implementation Guide

Junior Scholastic is a ready-to-go print and digital resource with rich and engaging content designed to meet a variety of teaching needs. It reinforces curriculums with robust support for standards including the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, Common Core ELA standards, TEKS, and other state standards. Many teachers use the magazine to enhance their social studies or ELA instruction, to teach current events, and to give students crucial practice reading informational text.

Teachers also vary the ways they implement the magazine in their classrooms. They may use it to spark a whole-group discussion or as part of small-group instruction. Some teachers simply assign the print and digital features for independent reading and homework. To help you take full advantage of all Junior Scholastic offers, we’ve created this guide with implementation suggestions and curriculum connections.

What You Get with Your Subscription

Printed Materials

A CLASS SET OF EVERY ISSUE: The 10 yearly issues are filled with engaging articles, primary sources, skill-building activities, captivating visuals, vocabulary support, debates, prereading prompts, maps, graphs, infographics, and political cartoons.

DIGITAL RESOURCE GUIDES: Your guides to each issue’s articles and their standards, Skill Builders, and other teaching support including videos, lesson plans, slide decks, and differentiation tools

Digital Resources

DIGITAL VERSIONS of every article allow students to read Junior Scholastic on any device.

CLOSED-CAPTIONED VIDEOS build knowledge, context, and engagement.

LESSON PLANS include objectives, prereading activities, close-reading questions, and suggestions to differentiate and customize your instruction.

LOWER-LEVEL® ARTICLES are available in downloadable PDFs that match the layout of the magazine.

TEXT-TO-SPEECH AUDIO highlights each word as an article is read aloud.

INTERACTIVE SKILL BUILDERS and QUIZZES reinforce social studies and ELA skills.

GOOGLE CLASSROOM INTEGRATION gives you the ability to sign in, sync rosters, and share content with students.

TEXT SETS offer a wide range of curated resources on the most important topics in your curriculum.

MAP SKILLS BOOT CAMP provides an easy-to-use curriculum of 13 lessons for teaching map-reading skills.

INTERACTIVE ATLAS & ALMANAC let students easily reference and research individual countries and states.

DIGITAL ARCHIVE puts easily searchable past issues and support materials at your fingertips.

Pacing and Implementation

Here are some ways you can use a Junior Scholastic feature article in your classroom. It’s flexible for whole-class, small-group, and individual instruction.

FEATURE ARTICLE: SUGGESTED LESSON (45–60 minutes)

Each article comes with a lesson plan that is tailored to the article’s content and provides ways to engage or activate prior knowledge. Each lesson plan includes questions for discussion and activities that support diving deeper into an article’s content.

1. PREPARING TO READ | 10–15 minutes

Review suggestions for building background knowledge or engaging and connecting, including prereading prompts, prereading quizzes, videos, and activities using the interactive atlas and almanac. Then preteach domain-specific vocabulary with the Words to Know Skill Builder.

2. READING AND DISCUSSING | 20–25 minutes

Read the article aloud or have students read it independently or in pairs. Lesson plans always include a text-marking or other active reading task for students to complete as they read. Then have students write responses to close-reading questions or use the questions to guide a discussion.

3. SKILL BUILDING | 15–20 minutes

Build social studies and ELA skills by having students complete Skill Spotlight activities in the magazine, assigning Skill Builders available as downloadable PDFs or interactive Google activities, and assessing comprehension with Know the News quizzes or Quiz Wizard.

ASSESSMENT: Check for Understanding

• All assessments are available as PDFs or as Google Forms.

• Skill Builders help students analyze text structures, test comprehension, guide students to apply what they’ve learned, build vocabulary, and develop media literacy.

• Range of writing activities assess key literacy skills.

 

 

DIFFERENTIATION: Support All Learners

• Preview vocabulary from the text.

• Play the video with closed-captioning.

• Share the lower-Lexile level article.

• Use the Text-to-Speech tool to have the article read aloud.

• Share Skill Builders from the Graphic Organizer Library.

• Build social and life skills with related questions and activities.

Looking for lessons that are shorter than 45 minutes? Check out some ideas below.

ANY FEATURE ARTICLE (25 minutes)

5 minutes | WATCH THE VIDEO accompanying the article. Discuss important information and make connections.

5 minutes | PRETEACH VOCABULARY and PREVIEW IMAGES and text features. Draw students’ attention to maps, graphs, sidebars, and other visuals.

10 minutes | READ THE ARTICLE ALOUD to students or have students read independently.

5 minutes | ASSESS STUDENTS by having them complete the Know the News quiz or share three things they learned, two surprising facts, and one question they have.

DEBATE (25 minutes)

5 minutes | PRETEACH VOCABULARY and PREVIEW IMAGES and text features.

5 minutes | READ THE ARTICLE ALOUD to students or have students read independently.

15 minutes | DEVELOP SPEAKING OR WRITING SKILLS by holding a class debate about the topic or having students write an argument.

NEWS ARTICLES (20 minutes)

5 minutes | PRETEACH VOCABULARY and PREVIEW IMAGES and text features.

5 minutes | READ THE SHORT ARTICLES ALOUD to students or have students read independently.

10 minutes | ASSESS STUDENTS AND REFLECT on learning by having students complete the “What I Learned: News Alert” activity.

Junior Scholastic and Your Curriculum

Junior Scholastic Supports Your Social Studies Instruction

Articles, lesson plans, and Skill Builders boost knowledge and social studies skills. You might use the articles in the following ways:

  • Make history, U.S. and world news, geography, civics, and media literacy come to life.
  • Teach and analyze historical events.
  • Read and analyze primary sources, maps, graphs, timelines, and other text features.
  • Springboard research and inquiry projects.
  • Build civic knowledge and inspire students to participate in our democracy.
  • Make connections with reference tools such as our interactive atlas and almanac.

Junior Scholastic  Supports Your ELA Instruction

Articles, lesson plans, and Skill Builders help students read and analyze informational text. You might use the articles in the following ways:

  • Help students learn and use academic and domain-specific vocabulary.
  • Cite text evidence to support analysis.
  • Determine central ideas and key details.
  • Integrate information presented in multiple formats.
  • Summarize articles.
  • Compare multiple texts on a topic.
  • Write arguments and informative texts based on articles.
  • Build speaking and listening skills.

To request a free sample and for more information, call (800) 387-1437, or email magazineinfo@scholastic.com.

Text-to-Speech