T: What are hurricanes before they become hurricanes



Introduction:

The class is reading the story “Hurricanes” by Patricia Lauber, which appears in their reading/language arts anthology. Half of the students have been studying weather in science class for the past several weeks. The discussion takes place as the story is being read.

Class Description:

This is a seventh grade class consisting of 24 students, 13 boys and 11 girls. Most of the students are from lower to middle class families whose parents mostly work for local furniture and textile industries. Since this is an English as a Second Language (ESL) inclusion class, there is a variety of cultures represented: Hmong, Spanish, and white. The academic abilities of the students range from below average to above average. The specific breakdowns are: 13 below average, 6 average, and 4 above average. Ten of the below average students are classified as ESL and one of the average students has a 504 plan. An ESL teacher comes in to assist during this Language Arts time.

Lesson Background:

The students had viewed a three-minute video to activate their knowledge about hurricanes as well as to provide some visual pictures. They had also looked over the vocabulary words for the selection and identified those that they already knew. Finally, they had written in their journals some thoughts or feelings they would have if they were ever caught in a hurricane.

(insert reading)

Teacher: What are hurricanes before they become hurricanes? What are they called?

Student 2: Typhoons.

Teacher: No, typhoons are when hurricanes occur in the Pacific. Before it becomes a hurricane, it’s called something else. You should know this from watching the weather on the news.

Student 19: Student 7 said that they are tropical storms.

Teacher: You’re right Student 7. They’re tropical storms. First they’re tropical depressions and then they turn into tropical storms. All of you should know that if you’re paying any attention to the weather.

(insert reading)

Teacher: What are you supposed to do when you see a little number or a letter beside a word?

Student 13: Look down at the bottom.

Teacher: Right, so everyone look down at the bottom and see what it says. [Pause] Now, I have a question for you. Can technology protect people from storm devastation like what happens during a hurricane or a tornado? Can technology protect people?

Student 20: No, because it can’t tell you exactly where it’s going to go.

Teacher: Right. It’s just guessing. We still don’t know exactly where Hurricane Ivan is going to go. They’re just guessing right now. What are ways that technology can help people though?

Student 14: Gives you warning.

Teacher: Right, because if you’re warned, what can you do?

Student 21: You can evacuate.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Why would people be told to evacuate?

Student 3: Because they didn’t know exactly where it was going?

Teacher: OK. Why else would people be told to evacuate? Someone from that back middle table, why would people be told to get out?

Student 1: So they won’t get hurt.

Teacher: Right

(insert reading)

Teacher: Does it sound like a storm’s coming - blue skies, warm air, temperatures in the 90’s.

Student 17: No.

Teacher: So, why do you think that the author wrote this? [Pause] Do you know a storm is on its way?

Student 22: No.

Teacher: But do you know that a storm is on its way? Look back into the text – August 22 – where is the storm headed?

Student 23: The coast of Florida.

Teacher: Right. Now the author though makes it bright and sunny. Has anyone ever heard the saying “the calm before the storm”? [No answer]. This is what it means. Everything is nice and bright and sunny, but you know that something bad is going to happen. We know that Ivan is going to hit somewhere in Florida, but it hasn’t gotten there yet. It’s calm and sunny. It’s not windy or raining there yet, but the people know its coming.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Do you remember in the video you saw the wind tearing off roofs and shingles and the U-haul truck that was upside down on top of a building’s roof? Well, that’s what is being described here about the wind.

Student 3: Was that from Andrew?

Teacher: Uh-huh. All of that was footage from Andrew.

Student 15: Up hill on Brown Mountain, there was a trailer flipped over.

Teacher: But not because of this, right?

(insert reading)

Teacher: Think about sitting in your house and watching the walls coming in and out like it was breathing. You know how your chest goes in and out when you breathe? Well the walls were doing that, bulging.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Did any of your words that you listed match up with any listed here? Or have similar words of how you would feel? Did you have any similar words Samantha?

Student 8: Yeah, terrified.

Teacher: I think that a lot of you wrote that word down as well.

(insert reading)

Teacher: So you see the trees blowing one way and then all of a sudden they’re blowing in the opposite direction. Everything that you just saw blowing by you just might blow by you again going in the opposite direction.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Does anyone know what fronds are? Like on palm trees?

Student 17: Is it the bark?

Teacher: No, it’s not the bark. The palm fronds are what you see, like the leaves.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Reread that paragraph again starting with “the sun”. The image, or picture, that they’re giving you, what would it look like? Can you compare it to another type of storm? [Pause] Picture it in your mind. Large boats hurled ashore now leaned against lampposts. Winds have stripped fronds off of palm trees. What is it going to look like? Picture it in your mind. There are no stoplights. What other force in nature is going to cause such destruction?

Student 12: A tornado?

Teacher: What does it look like after a tornado comes through?

Student 8: Same thing as described in the book.

Teacher: So, is there anything left at all?

Student 9: It would be all gone.

Teacher: Right, it would all be destroyed with nothing left. Here in the story, it says that there was nothing left for twenty-five miles. It was all just sticks. I don’t know if any of you have seen pictures during wars when bombs were dropped and exploded. There’s nothing left then either.

Teacher 2: They had a lot of pictures last week on TV exactly like what you were reading about. The tops of palm trees gone, stoplights. You really should watch TV so you can see all of the pictures. On the Weather Channel they have “Storm Stories” every night at 8:00.

Teacher: They’ve probably been doing a lot with hurricanes lately. It might even be better than some of the science videos Mr. Jewell shows.

(insert reading)

Teacher: What we were just reading about was nothing compared to where it actually landed on shore. The center of the storm.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Do you know what “kindling” is? [Pause] Do any of you build fires in fireplaces? Do you start off with whole big logs or do you start off with sticks and brush and paper first?

Student 2: We use paper.

Teacher: That’s what kindling is. So, that is what these houses looked like now.

Just like small sticks.

(insert reading)

Teacher: That one big long paragraph, reread that again to yourself. Think about which picture you can see clearly in your mind. Which one can you identify with? Which one do you think would be the hardest to happen to you - maybe your home completely gone or losing your pets? Which would have the most impact on you? Student 5, do you think that you’d like to be part of a hurricane?

Student 5: No.

Teacher: Andrew was a category five hurricane. That’s the worst and there’s only been a few ever.

Teacher 2: Ivan is a category five now. They had on the news that some people refused to leave their homes during Hurricane Frances because they couldn’t take their pets with them since hotels along the east coast wouldn’t accept pets. So the only choice they had was to leave their pets or stay with them.

Teacher: How would you feel about that? Would you leave your pets?

Student 3: Why didn’t they just sleep in their car?

Teacher: People might have done that.

Student 3: That’s what I’d of done.

Teacher: Of course you can’t spend the night at rest stops because the police patrol that and will run you off if you’re there too long. You might get little cat-naps there.

Student 3: I’d let my kids sleep and me and my husband would switch off driving.

Teacher: That sounds like a plan. These people are going to need a lot of help aren’t they? No house, grocery stores wouldn’t have a lot of food. They were showing pictures last week of how police cars were escorting in tankers of gasoline because the gas stations were completely empty. People needed it for their power generators and cars so they could pick up and go. Gas was so valuable that police had to escort the tankers in. So, these people are going to need lots of help and that’s what we’re going to read about next.

(insert reading)

Teacher: So what do you think about this help? Is it coming quickly?

Student 10: No it was slow.

(insert reading)

Teacher: Think 250,000 people had no power, no food, no home just what they had with them is all they had. And help was slow to come? What kinds of problems would they have or what could occur?

Student 16: Flooding?

Teacher: How would flooding be a problem? What would be a consequence? How are people going to react or feel? Someone from the 1st table, what would be a consequence? [Pause] Think about how you’d feel. You’ve lost everything that you’ve ever owned in your life. The only clothes you have are on your body. How would you feel if you couldn’t get some clean water or you couldn’t flush a toilet somewhere? In south Florida, it’s really hot and humid down there and you don’t have an air conditioner because there’s no power.

Student 18: Bad.

Teacher: I don’t want to hear the word “bad”. All of you use “bad” and “good” too much. You need to think of other words to use besides those.

Student 19: Nervous.

Teacher: Why would you say nervous? What would you be nervous about?

Student 19: Because you’re going to be afraid because it’ll take too long to get food and clothes.

Teacher: What about from this front table. How would you be feeling? No home, no electricity, can’t go flush a toilet anywhere, you’re hot all the time, maybe you’re hungry.

Student 4: Embarrassed.

Teacher: How are you going to be embarrassed? There’s nothing coming. How are you going to feel? How do you feel when you want something really, really bad. Think about a kid when they want something really bad and the parents look at them and say “I’m sorry but you can’t have that right now.” What does that kid do?

Student 15: Cry and get mad.

Teacher: What else are they going to do? Pitch a temper tantrum aren’t they? Well what about these people? How do you think that they’re going to feel? What are they going to do? Would you be mad if you hadn’t had clean water in days? Would you be mad if you didn’t have a dry place to stay out of the rain?

Student 14: Yes.

Teacher: Well, these days because of Andrew, they send help in as soon as the danger has passed. They used to not do that. So just think, 250,000 people and probably most of them are very, very angry. Wouldn’t you be angry if you’d lost everything?

Student 5: Hopeless.

Teacher: You may be hopeless at first, but then you think “well I have nothing to do but be mad.”

Student 3: I have a question. They say that the best thing to do is get into the basement with a mattress but if you did that couldn’t you pass on anyway?

Teacher: Like for a tornado?

Teacher 2: Sure but your chances are better down there.

Student 4: What about crouching in a ditch?

Teacher: Well you’re thinking about a tornado and it’s different than a hurricane.

Student 19: But isn’t a tornado worse?

Teacher: Well, if you ask someone who went through Andrew they’d probably say that a hurricane is worse. Think about it – no shower, no toilet, no TV, no video games, no telephone – that’s what it would be like because they would have to put up new power lines and power poles. That’s what is going on right now in Florida because the wind just broke them in half. I know it’s hard to think about this but remember what it’s like when your power goes out and then multiply that by ten, fifty, or a hundred times over.

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