Title of Class

Book
Adapted
from
Grade Level
& Content
Area
Objectives

Instructional
Materials &
Resources

Instructional
Activities &
Tasks

OUR AQUATIC ANIMALS

Our Aquatic Animals
Writing Like Writers, p. 30, Prewriting
Honing in on: Taking Notes.
4th grade
English Language Arts, Science, and Technology
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
- Identify important ideas and document them on a tree map
- Organize their groups parts into a bubble map on chart
paper using different colors for each topic
- Write a short paragraph using the information they put into
their tree map with the use of transitions
- Illustrate their writing with a relevant picture found on the
internet
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.2 Write informative/explanatory texts
to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.7 Conduct short research projects that
build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a
topic.
Own example of what the students will be doing (polar bears will
be the example as it is mentioned in the article) to model with
Laptops (try to preload websites): scheduled for 10/20, 10/27
Bottlenose Dolphin: http://www.animalfactguide.com/animalfacts/bottlenose-dolphin/
Great White Shark: http://www.animalfactguide.com/animalfacts/great-white-shark/
Green Sea Turtle: http://www.animalfactguide.com/animalfacts/green-turtle/
Florida Manatee: http://mrnussbaum.com/mammalsplay/manatee/
Chart paper and Writing notebooks
Markers
Printer (to print image being used as illustration)
Comb binder
Opening
Day One Note-taking
o Discuss vocabulary that will be important to the lesson:
endangered animals, characteristics, habitat, diet, threats,
least concern, vulnerable, protect, conservation
o Model how to pull important information onto a tree map
using a similar article about the polar bear

o Model how to move details from the tree maps into the
bubble map
Day Two paragraph writing
o Add transitions onto the branches on the tree map
o Demonstrate the paragraph frames on the white board
o Show how to move notes and transitions into the paragraph
Development for Note-Taking (Day 1)
Students will move into their assigned animal groups (bottlenose
dolphin, sea turtle, great white shark, and Florida manatee)
1-2-3 directions
1. Read through the article about your animal
2. Put important information on your tree map
3. Move the information into the appropriate section on your
groups bubble map
Development for Paragraph Writing (Day 2)
Students will move into their assigned groups based on their topic
(characteristics, diet, habitat, threats, and conservation efforts)
1-2-3 directions
1. Add transitions onto your tree map
2. Use the sentence frame you have been given to type your
paragraph. Include the important information you found
into your paragraph.
3. Find an image for your page on kidzsearch.com
Closing/Summary
Day One
o Ask students if they would like to share something that they
learned about their animal
Day Two
o Ask students three questions: how did you feel about the
lesson? What was the most difficult? What was the most fun?
After the book is bound, bring it in for students to sign their page
and conduct a read aloud at the beginning of readers workshop
Groups:
Bottlenose Dolphin
o Anna and Ava characteristics
o Nicole habitat
o Bennett diet
o Myles threats
o Shane - conservation
Sea Turtle
o Sude characteristics
o Zander habitat
o Isabella diet
o Pieter threats & conservation

Assessment

Learner
Factors

Great White Shark

o Dante characteristics
o Savannah habitat
o Matthew diet
o Luke threats
o Eric - conservation
Florida Manatee
o Dylan characteristics
o Samara habitat & diet
o May threats
o Sydney conservation
I asked the students, informally, at the end of the lesson three questions
which would help me in the future for when I taught this lesson. The three
questions were: how did you feel about the lesson? What was the most
difficult? What was the most fun?
The students final paragraphs will be assessed using the following rubric:
3 (exceeds
2 (meets
1 (below
proficiency)
standards)
standard)
Student
includes at least
two pieces of
important (not
interesting)
information
regarding their
topic on their
tree map
Student uses
correct spelling,
grammar, and
capitalization
Student creates
a short
paragraph
addressing their
topic, using the
sentence frames
and transitions
The bottlenose dolphin group will have the support of the special
educator and one of the other teachers to assist them with reading
their article and giving more small group instruction on pulling out
details
Buddy read within groups. Note: Ava and Anna will be partnered
with a teacher

Reflection

Walking around to do check ins with each group and student

Students with writing goals may dictate their paragraphs to an
instructor, who will type the information for them
The articles also contain videos for some students who may prefer
to access the information visually or audibly
The group looking at the Florida Manatee will be challenged by
reading an article that is at a slightly higher reading level than the
other students
If necessary: students in the bottlenose dolphin group will create
their bubble map on Popplet (an iPad application for graphic
organizers)
Bubble maps will be in a central location, but will be far enough
from the groups so they have the chance to get up, walk around and
stretch after working on laptops at their desk
Lesson Implementation
This lesson met the objectives that I set up with the Common Core State
Standards in mind. It was appropriate for this class because it fit into the
different note taking methods that they are working on in class. I choose
the topic for the book based on what the two teachers in the classroom
suggested that the students liked best. The students in the class were very
excited to learn about the different animals that I had assigned them to
research and take notes about. Before the students typed their
paragraphs, I looked at each of their tree maps and noticed that they were
effectively pulling important information, relevant to their topic, out of the
article I gave them. When they typed their paragraphs, I saw how easily
each of them pulled the information from the article to the tree map and
from the tree map to their paragraph. The one thing that I noticed some
students were having difficulty with was choosing transition words; in
some cases, they used chronological transitions rather than transitions
that showed there was something being added.
What worked well in this lesson?
I know that this lesson was effective because they were all engaged
throughout the lesson and wanted to share what they were learning with
the teachers and one another. Each student achieved at least proficiency
on the core parts of the assessment: including 2+ pieces of important
information and creating the short paragraph. The modifications I set up
for the students worked well and we did not even use one of the
modifications, the use of Popplet, because the students were too excited to
write on chart paper about what they found. The use of buddy reading
was the most helpful because it effectively allowed all of the students to
discuss what they were reading with one another and they can talk about
what they were reading with one another and share what they were
learning. Students were all engaged in this lesson because they were able
to work together and move around in the classroom when it was time to

write their important information on the bubble maps, which also allowed
them to see what other groups were writing.
What changes would you propose for the next time you implement it?
One of the changes that I would make next time I teach this is to try and
give the students at least two options of how to take notes from the article.
Some of the students disliked using tree maps because, when I asked what
the most difficult part of the lesson, one of the first comments that came
up was that there was not enough room for them to write their notes. In
order to attempt to solve this, I want to give students a choice on what
kind of note taking strategy they may want to use. One other piece that
proved difficult just from observing students as I walked around the room
was how many of them found typing to be difficult; many of the students
typed with just one hand or even just their index fingers. Although this is
something difficult to change from lesson to lesson, since many of the
exams are being offered on the computer I would want to have more
opportunities for students to practice typing. Hopefully, there will be
more of a chance for students to type at home as well and this will allow
me to have them practice typing some assignments at home in addition to
during the school day.
Since this lesson fit into a larger unit on note taking, it flowed very easily
into their next lesson which involved another style of note taking and then
moving the information into a paragraph. The assessment that I
implemented in this lesson allowed us to assess how the students were
organizing the information in their paragraphs and how they used
transition words to navigate the reader through the information. From
the assessment, I was able to note what students were having difficulty
organizing their sentence structure and paragraph structure and work
with them individual on this specific paragraph the week after we finished
the lesson. I worked with them by looking at how we could alter their
sentences to use subjects and verbs in the correct parts of the sentence as
well as how we might rephrase some sentences so they made more sense.
What did you learn from teaching this lesson?
This lesson really reinforces how many different levels of writing there
may be in one group of students. Even though it is something that we are
constantly told as we are learning to be educators, it is not something we
necessarily realize until we experience it ourselves. I also noticed how
seamlessly I can introduce something that the students in the class really
enjoy into a lesson to make them actually interested in learning how to do
something because it is meaningful. Once the students saw that there
were so many different things that could threaten the well-being of an
animal, they became even more interested and wanted to find ways to
protect them, which I feel made the lesson that much more memorable
and relatable to the students.

I feel this lesson also helped me evaluate ways to properly make

accommodations that would enhance student learning. Even though some
of the accommodations were not implemented because the students were
very confident in their own abilities, it helped me learn new technologies
that I could use in my own classroom later on.
Analysis of 1. Even though the general formatting of the book is fairly basic, I am really
the Class
happy with how it turned out. The students worked really hard on their
Book
own paragraphs, especially going back through one time to make sure that
they were trying to use all the correct punctuation and grammar. Since
this book was completed with fourth graders, they focused mostly on the
writing portions and instead of illustrating; however, they still had the
opportunity to include and image by searching on kidzsearch.com for an
image that related to their animal in some way.
Next time I create a class book, I would like for it also to be focused on the
specific interests of the class that I am teaching. Not every class is going to
want to create a book about aquatic animals, so before setting them up
with a class book topic, I want to get to know the class as a whole so I can
set it up to something that they enjoy and is relevant to their interests.
Even though I created a more simple book than some may have, I believe
that it was successful at getting students interested in the lesson. I am
very proud with the amount of effort students put into the book and I
believe that it was successful. Despite the difficulty I had comb binding the
book itself, the result far exceeded my expectations.