In order to spiral reading effectively from Grades K-16, articulation among levels is essential, so that both students and teachers can capitalize on their learning.  To enable articulation, teachers at all instructional levels have to be willing and able to talk to one another and appreciate what preparation is reasonable for teachers of advanced grades to expect and what uses of that preparation are reasonable for teachers of more elementary courses to anticipate.

     The Standards are ideal guides for articulation because, when they spell out in detail the expectations for students in Grades 4, 8, and 12, they explicate the differences teachers need to account for at representative stages in our students' cognitive development.  The terse indicators below review expectations about English language development under the assumption that it is pointless to attempt to teach concepts in a foreign language for which a cognitive-linguistic base does not already exist in English

For pre-reading, those expectations may be summed up as follows:

-Grade 4 (K-6): cognitively able to use words in English that name familiar things, people in present time, limited past tense reference, that is, virtually no conceptual applications of connectors for sequential logic or language for comparison or causality

-Grade 8 (7-9): cognitively able to use tenses in English to signal shifts in time, thus identification of dates, time frames, gender distinctions expressed in individual words and occasional phrases are meaningful; conceptual applications of sequential logic established, some connectors for contrast and comparison under control, causal reasoning still difficult

-Grade 12 (11-16): cognitively able to use the range of linguistic connectors for sequential, comparative, and causal logic; use of adverbial and adjectival phrases may, consequently, occur at this level, even with beginning students

     To exemplify these points, the following sections of this unit will introduce sample pre-reading exercises appropriate for each level.  All the exercises that follow will be based on the sample text introduced above, scenes from Draußen vor der Tür, and supplementary materials, all available from InterNationes through the AATG.

     As you approach the next sections of the Unit, assume that you are a teacher in a school system that is trying to integrate among levels, or simply a German instructor who wants to get in touch with other German teachers whose students are likely to be shared or perhaps need to be encouraged to continue their German studies.  You have been told that a Grade 12 class and second-year college classes in your vicinity read Draußen vor der Tür in its entirety.  You want to select a sequence of reading activities appropriate for spiraling this text K-16.

     In the links that follow, you will have three pairs of pre-reading activities, two each for Grades 4, 8, and 12.  For each set of exercises, you have the option of brainstorming about how exercises should be put together, or proceeding directly to Hints that accompany the brainstorming questions, to see our suggestions for exercises usable in a curriculum that spirals upward.  In each case, you should select the tasks that best accommodate the Standards and the cognitive development of the grade in question.

What are the differences between the cognitive abilities of students in Grades 4, 8, and 12? To answer this question, decide how the idea of war could be presented to students at each level: what ideas would aid them in orienting themselves to talk about or read a story in which a World War plays a part?

     Either add comments to the Brainstorming Forum, or proceed immediately to the introduction to pre-reading at each level.

 Grade 4 Pre-Reading Exercise
 Grade 8 Pre-Reading Exercise
 Grade 12 Pre-Reading Exercise
 Exercise Introduction