Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Writing in Response To Literature
Writing in Response To Literature
Writing in Response To Literature
10/5/15
CI 5426
Writing in Response to Literature
Lesson Rationale
Developing and using higher-level thinking skills throughout literacy
time is incredibly important for students to read well and comprehend the
text that is presented. In order to incorporate higher-level thinking into a
lesson, the right questions need to be posed. Discussion cannot just be
listing facts or summarizing what has happened, but rather in depth
questions that ask students to compare and contrast, make predictions and
inferences, and think about the meaning behind the text. In this lesson, I will
be presenting the book A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon. I will
read the book aloud to the class and allow them to use their critical thinking
skills to analyze the meaning behind the text. I will do this by using the state
standards, specifically a benchmark related to using details and examples
from text to make inferences. Im doing this lesson to build upon previously
learned skills, as well as to get my students to use their higher level thinking
skills to analyze a text and make meaning of it. My class has been working
on writing personal narratives, therefore I thought that having them write a
personal narrative poem would be a great activity to tie into state standards
for fourth grade, the classs current work, as well as my read-aloud choice.
State Content Standards
Reading Benchmark:
4.1.1.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text
says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
Writing Benchmark:
4.6.3.3 Write narratives and other creative texts to develop real or imagined
experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and
clear event sequences.
Content Information (resources and research used to support lesson
plan)
This lessons focus on higher-level thinking is really grounded in
research based on Blooms Taxonomy. Blooms taxonomy shows the different
levels of critical thinking that can be applied throughout ones learning. This
lesson is really focused on hitting some of the highest tiers such as: analyze,
evaluate, and create.
Previous Learning
Students in my classroom have been working on a few key reading and
comprehension ideas recently in the classroom. My cooperating teacher, Mrs.
Ogden, will have worked with the students on 3 of 4 strategies for reading
comprehension through a reciprocal teaching approach. The students will
have worked on predicting, questioning, and clarifying. The day of my lesson
the focus will be on summarizing, so I will include some summarization
throughout my lesson in a way that shows higher-level thinking.
Content Objectives
Reading Objectives:
C1: Students will be able to use information from the text to make inferences
about the meaning or hidden metaphors within the story.
C2: Students will be able to summarize the story, and make connections to
themselves.
Writing Objective:
C3: Students will be able to apply what they learned in the reading to their
own writing in order to write about their own Lima Bean as well as an AutoBiographical poem based on their self reflections.
Academic Language Objectives
L1: Students will adjectives and expressive language to write an auto-bio
poem using phrases and sentence stems such as lover of or who
fears
Formative Assessment
Students responses to higher-level thinking questions will serve as the
primary formative assessment for this lesson. Throughout the lesson
students will be prompted with questions that get them thinking deeply
about the content and meaning of the book. While students are answering
these questions, I will assess and gauge if they are understanding the
content and looking deeply into the materials or if they are giving shallow
answers. After the reading portion of the lesson is over, there will be a
writing assignment that can also serve as a more formal form of assessment.
This writing will include a worksheet with comprehension questions about the
book and related to the topics and ideas we will have discussed throughout
our reading. This will be a formal way to summatively assess the students
level of understanding. There will also be a poem for the students to fill out,
which serves as a connection between themselves and the text.
Provisions for Individual Differences
a student begins to blurt out, they will be reminded of our procedures. The
big management piece to this lesson is the transition between the different
activities. Having three different portions will require clear expectations. For
example, the worksheet will be explained before the students even leave the
carpet so that when they get up they can quietly walk to their desks and sit
down to get right to work without losing time because of chatter and resettling down to explain the next part. Once I am ready to explain the poem
assignment, I will clap twice and three times in order to get all of the
students attention.
Co-Teaching Model
This lesson will be primarily be taught by one teacher, being myself.
However, for the writing portion my cooperating teacher will most likely be
walking around the check students understanding and help with questions.
This would resemble a one teach, one assist co-teaching model.
Instructional Strategies and learning tasks to support learning
Time
Objecti
ve
Code
(C1,
C2, or
L1, L2)
9:309:33
C1
Purpose (Why)
Orientation/Engagement
Good morning fourth graders! Today
we will be reading the book A Bad Case
of the Stripes by David Shannon. Now I
know that some of you have read or
heard this book before, but I want to
remind you that sometimes as readers
and writers, we will reread books for
different purposes. Once were done
With such a
popular book, its
important to
point out that I
know that some
of my students
have read this
book before and
C2
9:339:45
C1
C2
C1
Read Aloud
Begin reading the book aloud,
beginning with the title and author
again. Be sure to show students the
illustrations so that they can gather
information from the pictures as well as
the text. After the first page, stop and
ask the students Can any of you relate
to that feeling? How many of you were
nervous for the first day of school like
Camilla? Wait for raising hands. Use
your crystal ball, fourth graders, why do
you think Camilla screamed? What did
she see in the mirror? (take one or
two predictions)
Continue reading and if someones
prediction was correct, mention this
(great predicting class, you used
context clues from just two pages to
guess what was going to happen!)
Continuing to
bring in the ideas
of predicting and
C2
questioning in an
intentional
manner is
important, as
these are
concepts that
were highlighted
earlier in the
school week. To
continue them
and scaffold is
important
Asking a
rhetorical
question helps
students to
develop higherlevel thinking,
coming up with
solutions to
problems
Comparing the
lima beans in the
story to a
persons
differences
creates a
metaphor out of
the beans, giving
some kids an
idea or stance on
the story they
may not have
taken otherwise.
This is honing in
on their critical
thinking and
higher-level
thinking skills
9:459:55
C2
C3
L1
9:5510:09 L1, C3
Writing
Keep the students on the carpet and
show and explain the first portion of the
writing assignment before they go back
to their desks.
As I said earlier, we are now going to
work on some comprehension questions
and a little bit of writing! So you all
have this sheet on your desk right now,
this top portion has four questions
about a bad case of the stripes.
Remember what we talked about with
the metaphors and how I asked you to
think about irony throughout the story
when youre answering these questions.
The bottom portion says whats your
lima bean? This part is asking what
makes you you!? just like Camillas
Verbally
reviewing what
concepts we
discussed, to
keep them in the
front of their
minds in writing
Im keeping the
students at the
carpet to explain
the next part of
the assignment
intentionally, so
that there isnt a
loss of time in the
transition and
then getting their
attention again
once theyve
moved to explain
it all. This way
they stay focused
and they can
begin writing as
soon as theyre
dismissed for
their desks.
Giving personal
examples (and
more than one)
can give kids an
idea of what you
are searching for
in their answers
without being
C3, L1
10:09
10:10
limiting. Im
purposely giving
them two
separate and
different personal
examples.
Poetry is
something that
can be very
expressive and
help students to
connect to a text.
This type of poem
is quick and easy
enough to fit into
a lesson while
remaining
meaningful for
the subject. This
will give students
a chance to
relate once again
to the story, and
to practice our
idea of higherlevel thinking and
creating from
Blooms
Taxonomy
Allowing students
to make their
own version of a
striped person
just re-grounds
the writing
Closing
Do the clapping to gain attention one
last time. Fourth graders thank you so
much for working so hard today! I had
fun reading A Bad Case of the Stripes
with you and using our thinking caps to
think critically and deeply! Your poems
all look wonderful! If your poem and
worksheet are done you can hand them
into the assignment bin. I cant wait to
read about your lima beans and what
makes you unique through your work!
Reflection
I taught this lesson, related to the book A Bad Case of the Stripes, by
David Shannon, on October 8th, 2015. I taught my lesson right at the
beginning of the school day in order to be able to fit it all in throughout
reading time. I was honestly surprised about how smoothly this lesson went.
a great way to enforce the idea driving my book; that differences are okay. I
said to the class that everyone learns differently and because of this, some
students re really into writing, and for other students it may be more difficult.
I ended up giving all students the choice between the two versions of the
poem.
I think that overall my students learned what I had hoped they would
for this lesson. I wanted my students to be able to make inferences from
details in a text, relate the text to themselves, understand metaphors, and
write about themselves. Out of these objectives that I set before my lesson,
the only one that I think the students may not have taken away is the idea of
a metaphor. None of my students knew what metaphors were before
starting, so this was something that I added in to my lesson. Metaphors could
really be a lesson on their own, so this concept didnt exactly become
concrete for my students through this lesson. Some of them grasped it, but
some I can tell took the word but not the meaning behind it. I can tell that
my students learned my objectives from this lesson through their work. I
looked at their worksheets as well as their poems and checked for
understanding of the objectives (pictures of student work are attached for
examples).
I really learned a lot about my students through this activity, both
about their personalities and also about them as learners. I learned that my
students like it when we can incorporate art into content-driven lessons, and
that they work really well when examples are provided to show expectations.
The poems were a great way for me to learn some basic likes and dislikes
about my students. I got to hear about their biggest fears, how they would
describe themselves, and what they love to name a few. I also learned what
they thing makes them unique through the writing portion of the worksheet
that they completed in class
If I were to do this lesson over again there are a few small things that I
would like to work on or change. One of the main things I think that needed
fixing was how I presented the idea of a metaphor. I sort of casually defined
it during the read aloud time, but if I got to do this lesson over again I think
that I would actually make some sort of visual and I would present the idea
of a metaphor to the class before the lesson began. Another change that I
would make would be to either plan for more time, or take out the
comprehension worksheet. I thought that the activity itself was fine and it
went well- it really helped me to see if the students understood what we had
talked about, but I was crunched for time to complete my whole lesson. The
lesson ended up being nearly an hour, rather than the 40 minutes I had
originally planned for.
Moving forward, I cant really say for sure that I have plans for the
future instruction, as this isnt necessarily up to me at this point. Because my
CT still does all of the planning outside of my few lessons I cant say many
content-specific next steps. Despite this, I can say that moving forward I will
try to change things for the better in regards to my teaching and the
strategies I utilize with my students. For starters, I will be very intentional in
Resources and Student Work (names on work have been covered up)
Who
Who
Who
Lover
Who
feels:
gives:
fears:
of:
would like to see:
Summarize:
What caused Camilla to get the stripes?
What do the lima beans symbolize in the story? What lesson are
they teaching us?