To introduce breast cancer and to explore learners' knowledge of, experience with, and feelings about breast cancer.
1. Write the title, Breast Cancer As I Lived It, on the blackboard. Ask the class to predict from the title what they think they will learn from the reading. What does the phrase "as I lived it" tell the reader about the author? List all the responses on the board.
2. After brainstorming about the title, explain to the students that this reading contains a lot of health-related and medical vocabulary essential to understanding this story about breast cancer. Introduce the Breast Cancer As I Lived It Vocabulary Journal Page. Explain again how syllable division can help anyone pronounce difficult new words. Say the words aloud. Students may repeat. Do syllable divisions.
3. Then discuss the vocabulary by asking students which of the words they have heard before. When and where did they hear them and what do they mean? Students may have had experiences related to this vocabulary that they can share even if they can't come up with an exact definition. As you discuss the vocabulary, you can pause after each word and have students look up the definition in the HEAL:BCC Word List. Students can take turns reading definitions aloud. You should record definitions on newsprint. Students should also record definitions on their vocabulary Journal Page.
It is very important that students understand this vocabulary and feel a certain mastery over it.
4. Provide an introduction to Mary Scanlon's Breast Cancer As I Lived It. You could say, "Mary Scanlon is an Irish- American woman who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. While preparing to get her GED at SCALE, the Somerville Center for Adult Learning Experiences, Mary participated in an earlier breast and cervical cancer project. She wrote this story describing her experience with cancer. Mary was in her mid-40s while she attended SCALE; she is alive and cancer-free today. She got her GED and is studying to be a nurse." You may also want to ask students if they know anyone who has had breast cancer and to comment briefly on this person's experience.
5. Pass out the Breast Cancer As I Lived It Journal Page to the class. Ask students to read Mary's story to themselves. When they have finished, check students' understanding of the story by asking some basic comprehension questions such as:
What happened to Mary Scanlon?
What surgery did Mary have for her breast cancer?
What follow-up treatment did Mary have?
How did Mary feel at different points in the story?
At the beginning?
Before her surgery?
During chemotherapy?
At the end?
What obstacles did Mary face during this experience?
What support did she have?
In what ways did this support help her?
6. Once you have covered some basic comprehension questions, give each student a copy of Learning from Experiences: Mary's Story Journal Page. Ask students to write the answers to the following two questions in their health journals:
What did Mary learn from her experiences?
What did you learn from Mary's experiences?
Ask volunteers to share their answers with the class:
Ask students to review pages 14-16 in the Passport to Health and fill out the information on these pages. Reading pages 24-25 before the health educator presentation is strongly suggested.
Learner responses to the Learning from Experiences: Mary's Story Journal Page questions can be displayed on a Community Health Wall along with an enlarged copy of Mary's story. Invite teachers and students from other classes to read them.
ESOL learners can read the Breast Cancer As I Lived It: Adaptation for ESOL Journal Page. All the medical terminology from the original story is used. However, sentence structure and other vocabulary has been simplified to facilitate reading ease and comprehension.
Read the story aloud as students follow, so they can hear the pronunciation of health-related vocabulary.
In addition to the HEAL:BCC Word List and the dictionary, students can go on-line to find the definitions of health and medical terms. Below is a suggested on-line glossary of medical terms that students can explore.
Available at: http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/dictionary.html A comprehensive dictionary of cancer terms by the National Cancer Institute.