Lesson Plan: Racing Toward a New Future

Essential Questions

• How can we turn challenges and disappointments into opportunities?
• Why are goals and dreams important?

Literature Connection

• Novel: The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
• Novel: Ghost by Jason Reynolds 

Preview Text Features (10 minutes)

Guide students to locate the article in their magazines or at Action Online. Then preview the text features by asking the following questions:

• Read the article’s title and subtitle (the text beneath the title) and look at the photo of Zeke on page 21. What does the phrase “Racing Toward a New Future” mean to you? Answers will vary. Students might say that the title, along with the subtitle and the image, hints at Zeke’s transformation from a passionate football player to a highly successful track athlete. The word “racing” has two meanings here—one literal, relating to Zeke’s track career, and the other metaphorical, relating to moving quickly toward one’s goals.
• Look at the photos of Zeke throughout the article and read their captions. What do they tell you about Zeke? From the photos, we can tell that Zeke had surgery that required him to stay in the hospital, that he took flying lessons, that he has a big family (3 brothers!), and that he plays trombone in the marching band. 

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Point out the vocabulary box. Read the terms (cardiologist, valves, mechanical, devastated, dwell on) aloud and discuss their definitions.
• Play the Vocabulary Slideshow. 

Make a Plan for Reading

Before students start to read, walk them through a reading plan:

• Set a purpose for reading: Tell students that after reading, they’ll analyze problem-and-solution relationships in the story. Point out the activity at the end of the story. 
• Encourage students to pause at the end of each section so they can monitor their comprehension. Prompt them to take note of sentences they think tell them important ideas in each section, as well as any words or sentences they don’t understand.

Read the article. (Higher- and lower-Lexile versions are available on the Story page at Action Online. Click Presentation View to access an audio read-aloud.) Then discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.

Close-Reading Questions (15 minutes)

• Why did Zeke have to stop playing football? (cause and effect) A valve in Zeke’s heart was leaking. Doctors replaced it with a mechanical valve. You can’t play contact sports with a mechanical heart valve.
• Why did Zeke decide to run track after giving up football? (cause and effect) Zeke loved competitive sports and the rush he got from running fast. After his surgery and the end of his football dreams, he still wanted to play a sport. He realized that track might be right for him.
• Based on the article’s last few paragraphs, how does Zeke feel about his life now? (inference) Zeke seems happy with his life. He’s been successful in his new sport, and he’s joined some other activities too. It sounds like he feels good about his new interests and goals.

Critical-Thinking Questions (10 minutes)

• How would you describe Zeke’s mindset, or his attitude, when it comes to  disappointments and challenges? How did his mindset help him when he had to stop playing football? Zeke has a positive, can-do mindset. Because of a health problem that was outside his control, he had to give up a sport that was a big part of his life. But instead of deciding that life was unfair and hard work was pointless, he looked for other goals and activities to focus on. He became a star athlete because he kept looking for ways to move forward.  
• Zeke says he wanted to get back to sports because he loved being part of a team. What do you think feels good about being on a team? What other activities might offer the same feeling? A team can be like a family: a close group of people who support each other and have some goals in common. That same feeling of belonging might come from being in another activity-based group, such as a band or a drama club.

• Assign students to work in small groups to complete the Spotlight Skill Workout: Problem and Soluion activity.
• Go further: Use our Central Idea and Details Skill Builder, available in higher and lower level versions. (Click here to view all your Skill Builders.)
• Writing prompt: Resilience is the ability to get over disappointment or deal with change. Zeke needed resilience to find a new dream after he had to give up his dream of playing football. Think of a time when you needed resilience. What disappointment or change did you face? How did you deal with it? How do you feel about it now? Answer these questions in a short essay.