About This Lesson
Unit 2, Calling All Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor, addresses science topics in an informational text read as part of the language arts program. Students will learn about inventors and their inventions. Students will also learn more about how the processes of invention happen as a result of problem-solving using logic. Students will focus on the literary skills examining different kinds of text structure such as problem and solution, cause and effect, sequential, and procedural text structures. Students will also learn more about frequently confused words, sentence types, Greek and Latin root words that indicate numbers, and prefixes and suffixes.
Students will read selections from Calling All Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor by inventor and animal scientist Temple Grandin. It details the author’s failures as well as her successes. It is a good opportunity to show students that it is okay to fail. In fact, failure is often a valuable learning experience on the road to success. Students will learn that Grandin is on the autism spectrum and speaks openly about her challenges and advantages growing up as an autistic person. The “All Minds” in the title of the book refers to the author’s assertion that different kinds of minds and thinkers are valuable and important contributors to society, each in their own way. This is an opportunity for students to think about their own differences and similarities with others and how this impacts how they learn and what interests them.
