Objectives

After completing this lesson, students will be able to:

• Identify the cause and symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).
• Explain how the immune system works and its relationship to autoimmune diseases such as MS.
• Apply the reading skill of context clues to understanding an article about a medical advance in combating a dreaded disease.

Introducing the Lesson

Remind students that the body has its own internal army to fight against outside diseases and infections that attempt to harm it. Ask whether students can name this army (the immune system). Note that recent medical research has revealed that a number of diseases, called autoimmune diseases, are a result of factors that cause the immune system to go haywire and turn against the body it was meant to protect. Challenge students to name a famous disease that was one of the first diagnosed autoimmune diseases (AIDS).

Explain that students will be reading about a disease that was discovered only within the last year to be an autoimmune disease. Write multiple sclerosis (MS) on the chalkboard. Reveal that symptoms of this non-infectious disease, which affects the nervous system, include paralysis.

Teaching Strategies

Read aloud the following sentence, which contains a nonsense word, to students: "After reading the last chapter of the flibble, Boris put it on his nightstand and turned out the light." Ask students to define flibble (book).

Note that even though this is not an actual word in English, students were nevertheless able to infer its meaning by using context clues. Explain that context clues are words and phrases surrounding a term that provide information about its meaning. Add that this skill can sometimes help readers define unfamiliar words "on the fly."

Observe that there are two basic types of context clues:

• Synonyms-words that have the same meaning as the unfamiliar word.
• Negators-words like although or but, which suggest an opposite meaning. (For example, in the sentence "Although John was in a hurry, he managed to complete the entire blip," it is clear that the nonsense word blip refers to something time-consuming.)

After students have completed the reading, you may either use the following as class discussion questions or assign them as individual or group work.

Follow Up

1. Summarizing. What, according to the article, is the cause of multiple sclerosis? What are some symptoms of the disease?
2. Analyzing. What are autoimmune diseases? In what way do these diseases cause the immune system to become an enemy of the body?
3. Making Inferences. Find the sentence that starts the fourth paragraph under the heading "Programmed for Destruction." This sentence contains the word paradoxically. Based on context clues, what do you think this word means? Check your hunch by looking up the word in a dictionary.
4. Evaluating. Imagine you overhear a reader of this article state that "it's too early to be optimistic" about the findings noted. Would you agree with this conclusion? Why or why not? Find evidence in the article to support your response.

A Newsmagazine on Autoimmune Diseases

The article mentions other autoimmune diseases besides MS that might be stamped out by a procedure similar to the one being used in studies on MS. Working as a class, research these diseases using print or online resources. For each disease, describe (1) its earliest believed cause, (2) what researchers now believe to be the cause, and (3) how far the research has progressed (i.e., has the human population begun to benefit from the findings, and if so, how?). Compile your findings on all these diseases, as well as original drawings or diagrams, into a newsmagazine. Print out and distribute copies of your newsmagazine to other classes in your school.

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