TEACHER: Rose M.

Bauer

PRIMARY SUBJECT AREA AND GRADE LEVEL: Third grade, reading comprehension,
retelling.

INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS:
Communication
Students will speak as they retell about what they are reading about in their
mystery novel.

LESSON DURATION: February 15th, 15 minutes.

RELEVANCE/ RATIONALE: Looking through a combination of student scores on DRA

assessments, Jim, Lina, and John each have difficulty with comprehension. One specific
component of comprehension missed by each student was being able to retell the entire story by
stating the beginning, middle, and end. It is essential for students to know how to restate a story
in their own words. Knowing structure of a story, will directly correlate to improving the
students own writing.

OBJECTIVE: Students will discuss character, settings, and events of their mystery book with
their peers with 75 percent accuracy.

CORE STANDARDS:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.2
Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures;
determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed
through key details in the text.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT:
Miss Bauer will be watching the students play the game and she will look to see if each student:

John Jim Lina

Read assigned pages

Recalled character names

Recalled specific events

Recalled vocabulary from the text

 Recalled settings

CLASS INFORMATION:
Literature IEPs
John - Communication Impaired
Jim - Specific Learning Disability
Lina - Specific Learning Disability

OVERVIEW: At the start of the school year students looked at building stamina in reading, by
looking at a series of narratives. Gradually students were taught to look at complex characters in
literature. Further, students looked into non-fiction, informational reports, with a connection to
their rocks and minerals science unit. Prior to the mystery unit, students worked on fables,
folktales, and adaptations of fairytales, where they studied themes of a story. Presently, they are
in their mystery book club unit. All students in the class are working on re-telling events in a
story. It is crucial for students to be able to recall the characters, events, and settings of the
stories they read. In addition it is essential for them to use transition words to recount stories. To
conclude the school year, students will be looking at poetry and biographies.

TECHNOLOGIES & OTHER MATERIALS/ RESOURCES:

Book, A-Z Mysteries: The Haunted Hotel and Nancy Drew and The Clue Crew: Case of
the Missing Snowman.
Board game
Formative assessment checklist

GROUPING STRATEGY: Students were selected for the mini-lesson based on their DRA
assessments.

ACADEMIC VOCABULARY:
Alibi: An excuse that an accused person uses to show that he or she was not at the scene
of the crime.
Clue: A fact or object that gives information that helps the detective solve the crime.
Crime: Drawing a conclusion or making a judgement about something based on
information you have.
Detective: An investigator who looks for and gathers clues
Evidence: An object or statement that helps prove who committed the crime.
Motive: A reason that a person does something - motives may be anger, hatred, jealousy,
or greed.
Mystery: Something that is unknown; oftentimes something is missing or stolen.
 Red Herring: A false flue that throws the investigator off track.
Sleuth: An investigator or detective.
Suspect: Person who has a motive to have committed a crime.
Witness: Person who has seen something or has knowledge about the crime that might
help solve it.

LESSON PROCEDURES:
Beginning
Go over the board game instructions and rules
Pick up a card, answer the question. If you answer correctly, according to
your classmate(s), roll the dice and whatever number you land on move
your place holder that many spaces.
Whoever gets to the finish line first wins the game.
Use the Recount - Text Organizer sheet to help you use transition words.

During
Students will play the game and use the text organizer sheet to state their
responses to the questions the game asks.
Miss Bauer will listen to the students and record their responses in the data sheet.
After
Students will be asked to plan out the pages they will read for homework and in
class the next day. They will then go into the writing period.

DIFFERENTIATION:
Visual Aids
Shortened writing (use page numbers only)
Recount - Text Organizer sheet

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS:

Miss Bauer will be watching the students play the game and she will look to see if each student
read the assigned pages, stated the correct setting, characters, and events in the text, and used
vocabulary found in the novel.

ANTICIPATED DIFFICULTIES:
Students may not know how to answer a question.
It is okay to not know how to answer a question. Although the students game
placeholder will not move, they can discuss with their peers to try to get the right
answer.
REFLECTION:
What Went Well
Students loved the idea of the game and
were enthusiastic to play.
Students mapped their answers to the
questions to the book text without being
asked.
Students did not get upset if they lost the
game, as it was based upon luck of the
dice.
For Next Time...
Make clear to the students the
questions must be answered based
upon the books they are reading and
not their own life experiences. For
instance, Lina started to talk about a
soccer event when asked the question
Name an event and why it was
important?