EDUC 2220- Educational Technology Lesson Plan

Understanding Short Stories

Caitlyn Offenbacher
Third Grade / Reading
Common Core Standards:
RL.3.1 Ask and answer questions to demonstrate
understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text
as the basis for the answers

RL.3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their

traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their
actions contribute to the sequence of events.

Lesson Summary:
During this lesson students will be examining a short story and then answering questions relating to the story
they just read. Students will be asked to answer questions and also to come up with questions that relate to
the story. The purpose of this lesson is for students to be able to comprehend and interpret what they read and
to be able to describe the story that they read. This lesson is also meant for students to be able to understand
the characters and their attributes in each story. Students will need to be able to identify these attributes from
each of the short stories.

Estimated Duration:
This lesson will take about 120 minutes. I plan to divide the lesson into sections over a four day span with
each lesson per a day lasting 30 minutes.

Commentary:
I plan on getting students interested in this lesson by using stories that are interesting to them and by using
technology resources with the stories. This will help to show students that reading can be fun and that stories
can be relatable.
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Instructional Procedures:
Day 1:
first 10 minutes: students and I will read the story as a class on an iPad app
5 minutes: I will have students return to their seats with their iPads and I will pass out a worksheet that goes
along with the story we just read together
15 minutes: Students will answer the questions on the worksheet
5 minutes: students clean up and put away their iPads and will hand in their worksheets to me and I will
review them and hand them back on day 2

Day 2:
First 10 minutes: I will hand back students worksheets from day one and we will go over them as a class
10 minutes: I will pass out a short story on paper without pictures to students and we will read it together as a
class
2 minutes: I will pass out iPads to students

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7 minutes: Students will use an app to draw an image of what they feel the character in our story looks like
based off of the descriptions in the short story
2 minutes: students will be given a clean up warning and will submit their images to me through an email portal
on their iPads

Day 3:
first 10 minutes: have students independently read and listen to short stories on iPads
5 minutes: Have students put away iPads and meet me on the carpet with a white board and dry erase marker
10 minutes: go through questions about the short story and have students answer questions on dry erase boards
and hold up their answers so I can see them.
5 minutes: Have students put away dry erase boards and markers

Day 4:
first 10 minutes: I will read out loud a short story for students
10 minutes: students will join me on the carpet with an Ipad to complete and activity using an online quiz to
submit their answers for the questions
5 minutes: students will use the smart board as a class to write out some attributes of characters from the story
5 minutes: students will put away iPads and return to their seats

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Pre-Assessment:
Have students complete an online quiz on iPads and submit answers after we have read a short story so that I
can gage as to what concepts students already know and what concepts students still need some practice with.
Scoring Guidelines:
The quiz will be multiple choice so I will be able to see what answer students choose for each question.
Quizzes will not count towards a students final grade but will help me to gage how much more practice
students need on these concepts.

Post-Assessment:
For my post-assessment I will have students complete an assignment by using the Ipad's. I will ask students
questions about a short story that we read as a class such as drawing a picture of the character, being able to
describe the setting and questions about the theme of the short story.
 Scoring Guidelines:

My scoring guidelines for the post assessment will be wether or not they complete the assignment
appropriately. I will base students scores on wether or not they answered questions correctly relating to
the characters, theme and setting of our short story. This assignment will consist of a pass, needs some
work or fail grade.
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Differentiated Instructional Support
Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated
students:
Instruction can be modified to fit the needs of those who are accelerated by providing them with some more
challenging short stories and with some more in depth questions about the text. Giving students some more
challenging actiqtrs can help them to advance their skills in terms of understanding short stories.

Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material:
If students are struggling some modifications can be made to the lesson by providing some one-on-one time
with me where we could read the short story outlaid and then I could give students some simpler questions and
then build up the questions from there.

Extension
https://learnzillion.com/lesson_plans/8190-describe-characters-in-a-story-using-key-details-from-the-text
This site has a video that students can watch and can learn more about what a character is and how we can
describe them from the story The Tale Of Peter Rabbit. This video can help reinforce what students have learned
from our discussion about characters in class.

Homework Options and Home Connections

Students will have a reading chart and worksheet each week that tells them what needs to be completed. Each
night students will need to read for 15 minutes. Students will be able to choose what story they want to read
each week but I will provide them with a worksheet where they will answer questions about their chosen book.
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Interdisciplinary Connections
My lesson could be integrated with history. I could discuss what the characters look like in our story such as if
the women are wearing long dresses with bonnets that this could give us a clue that this story might be set in the
1800s. Another subject that I could integrate would be writing. I could have students work on writing
assignments to help reinforce some of the topics we discuss in our lesson.
Materials and Resources:

For teachers
-smartboard
- dry erase board
- access to short stories
- printer
- access to online document tools

For students
- Ipad's for each student

- hand held dry erase boards and markers

- pencils

- student work stations or desk

- paper to print activities on

Key Vocabulary
-Charter
-Theme
-Plot
-Description
-Setting

Additional Notes

Overall this lesson will help students to understand stories that they read and will allow them to understand
what the different aspects of stories consist of.