The Summerbridge Project: A Six-Week Summer Program

The Products
Click on the following links to view .pdf versions of the materials developed through the Summerbridge Study.

• Raisin in the Sun (with graphics)
  Raisin in the Sun (without graphics)
• Lottery Rose (with graphics)
  Lottery Rose (without graphics)

The Process
The Psychology Department at Yale University has developed a six-week reading curriculum for teachers of middle school students. The curriculum emphasizes the development of reading skills through the Triarchic method. This method enables the teacher to focus on the students' analytical/memory, creative, and practical abilities through classroom exercises and homework assignments.

The students are required to read one book for three weeks, for a total of two books in six weeks. They consist of A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry, dealing with family life and poverty, and The Lottery Rose, a novel by Irene Hunt, dealing with child abuse and trust.

Through homework assignments, quizzes, and classroom participation, the students learn to analyze the content of the material they have read, create emotionally oriented scenarios through individual or small-group exercises, as well as engage in debates concerning the practical application of the story issues to their daily lives.

The teacher is provided with instructional materials that include daily and weekly lesson plans, homework assignments, vocabulary lists, comprehension assessments, and writing days. Pretesting and posttesting are also used to assist the teacher in monitoring the students' progress.