by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Emperor of All Maladies is a “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist.
Strategies/Skills Used
Reading Strategy 1: Access background information.
Reading Strategy 3: Figure out unknown words.
Reading Strategy 6: Connect what you read with what you already know.
Reading Strategy 7: Determine the most important ideas and events and the relationship between them.
Reading Strategy 8: Extract information from text, charts, graphs, maps and illustrations.
Reading Strategy 10: Summarize what has been read.
Reading Strategy 12: Reflect and Respond
Writing Skill 2: I organize my ideas based on my purpose for writing.
Writing Skill 6: I choose the tone and point of view that suit my writing purpose.
Writing Skill 8: I re-read, reflect, revise and edit.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: PRE-READING
(1) Have students access their background knowledge of the topic of their chosen book by brainstorming.
(2) Have students share their brainstorming in discussion with other reading group members.
(3) Having shared information, group members fill out the what we know column of the know-wonder-learn graphic organizer, then discuss and fill in the wonder column about the topic of their book.
(4) Have students include their brainstorming and know-wonder-learn chart as their first entries in their reflective journals.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: DURING READING
(5) Instruct students to identify unfamiliar vocabulary and determine the meaning by either dictionary definition, context clues, and/or group discussion by vocabulary self collection.
(6) Have students record in their reflective journals new information, as well as important events in the text related to the book’s topic, while making connecting to their own knowledge.
(7) Have students discuss with their reading group their new knowledge and what they have been able connect to what they already know.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: POST-READING
(8) Explain the format and focus of the collaborative summary, focusing on new knowledge since the introductory brainstorm.
(9) Have students, in their reading group, work on a collaborative summary of the book they have read.
(10) Have students discuss their know-wonder-learn charts and fill in the what we learned column.
(11) Divide students into Jigsaw discussion groups to share the books read, using their collaborative summaries and know-wonder-learn charts; students return to their lit circle reading group to discuss the other books.
(12) Instruct students to choose the final oral presentation format for their book: either a group presentation; a video; an interview; or a report – assessment based on the connection of their book to the course material and the student’s real life.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: POST-READING EXTENSIONS
Use current newspaper or magazine articles related to the book topics to reinforce biology subject matter and reading/writing skills.