To help others better understand their contributions, I’ve created multiple Famous Scientist readings. I use them to help tackle literacy in my class by having my students read and answer questions from these articles. The questions include knowledge (direct from the paper), thinking, connecting and open-ended varieties.
These articles can be used to:
• introduce your topic
• improve your students reading comprehension and scientific literacy skills
• improve your students’ analysis skills
• provide an extension activity to students who move at a faster pace
• provide extra credit to students in need
• measure your students literacy skills
These articles are no prep. Simply download, print (or upload to your class site) and you’re all set. Each covers:
– An Overview of their life
– His/Her early life
– Career
– Personal Life and Legacy
– Additional Facts
The following Famous Scientists articles are complete:
• Albert Einstein
• Niels Bohr
• Sir Isaac Newton
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Rosalind Franklin
• Gregor Mendel
• Nikola Tesla
• Marie Curie
• Stephen Hawking
• Carl Sagan
• Leonardo da Vinci
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Here are some additional Scientists I am currently working on.
Nettie Stevens
Dmitri Mendeleev
Benjamin Franklin
Bill Nye
Edmund Halley
Ernest Rutherford
Erwin Schrödinger
Francis Crick
Galileo Galilei
Georg Ohm
Gustav Kirchoff
Gustav Ludwig Hertz
Heinrich Hertz
Henry Moseley
J. J. Thomson
James Chadwick
James Prescott Joule
James Watson
James Watt
Jean Piaget
Johannes Kepler
John Dalton
Leonardo da Vinci
Linus Pauling
Max Planck
Michael Faraday
Nicolaus Copernicus
Noam Chomsky
Pythagoras
Richard Feynman
Robert Bunsen
Rudolf Virchow
Theodor Schwann
Thomas Alva Edison
Werner Heisenberg
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli
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Each summary is rich with age appropriate content (grades 8 and up) and is 5-6 pages long (13-font). Following each is a list of 8-13 questions along with the answer key, which will help guide your students understanding.
How this product will help your students:
– Improve their scientific and disciplinary literacy skills
– Improve their reading comprehension and scientific knowledge
– Give them insights into important scientific concepts
– Provide an extension activity for your faster moving/more gifted students
How this product will help you:
– Allow you to meet the NGSS, TEKS and Common Core Standards
– Provide you with a concise introduction to your topic
– Provide you with an engaging and easy to leave substitute plan which will keep your students engaged and on task
– Prove you a means of measuring your students’ literacy skills
We don’t spend enough time teaching scientific literacy to our students. This is either because we don’t have the resources to do so effectively or we don’t have the time. However, teaching our students to become scientifically literate is vital if we want them to succeed in life. We need them to know about the world they live in and about the issues they face. Even issues as simple as the common cold are misunderstood and can lead to the misuse of antibacterial drugs eventually rendering them ineffective.
It can be used as a tool in your teaching arsenal on a regular basis, an extension activity for your faster learners, left for a substitute in an emergency or planned absence or as an extra bit of information for a topic.
Praise For My Reading Comprehension Resources:
“Perfect for informational text reading standards! Thanks!”
“I teach middle school science and need to include informational text in my classroom. These readings are great for independent reading for my grade level and upper-level readers. The articles address CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.1 (Citing specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts.) and CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.10 (By the end of grade 8, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.). The leveled questions allow you to subtly assign the questions to different ability students working in a group.
Topics are relevant to the students and current. Graphics draw the students into the article.
I’m going to have one printed and waiting in for my substitute folder too!
THANKS!”
“Thanks for putting together a wonderful resource.”
“I teach Special Education high school science in Maryland in a special school for children with learning disabilities/Autism. I liked the readings and I think students could relate to the topics. I know these are too high a reading level for most of my students and I would read it out loud and highlight the important information together. I would not be able to use the higher order thinking questions (which I like) with these kids. For my high students (very few of these in my school :), I really like these especially how you noted where you got the information which if they were inclined, they could go back to the original source. I like that you have scaffolded the questions and I would only be able to use these with a handful of students, but I think in a regular high school classroom (I spent many years in regular ed) these are spot on. Thank you for sharing.”