Emily Spoelstra

EDUC240

Spring 2017

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.2.5.A

Lesson Goal:

Students will identify real-life connections between words and their use.

Anticipatory Set:

Begin the lesson by asking general questions about food. Asking who likes pizza, who likes ice cream,
who likes spaghetti and who likes tacos. Then ask the students to divide into groups of the food that
they like the most out of the four options. In those groups, I will encourage a discussion of what they like
about the food and after approximately 5 minutes, students from the groups will share what they like
about the food while I write it on the whiteboard and possibly condense their description ie: "We like
how pizza has a lot of different toppings", I might write down the word "variety" and explain that the
word used to describe a lot of different things (such as different toppings), is also known as variety.
The activity will continue until all groups have shared.

After, while looking at the words on the whiteboard, we will reflect as a class on how those words give
us information about the foods we love. Ice cream is "smooth", tacos are "spicy" or "crunchy", spaghetti
is "slippery", etc.

In this Anticipatory Set, I used the following checkpoints: optimize relevance and value, provide choice
and autonomy, develop reflection, clarify vocabulary, maximize transfer, and foster collaboration.

Modeling:

I will ask students if they can think of reasons why describing things is important and then provide a
sentence unrelated to food, but using the descriptive words they used in the anticipatory set. For
instance, I might create the following sentence about a construction site: "On my way to school, I passed
a construction site. There were pebbles on the ground that were very crunchy underneath my feet and
the workers were getting ready to begin filling a foundation with slippery concrete." Both crunchy and
slippery were words we used to describe food, and in this modeling, students begin to connect how
words can give us information in multiple settings.

In this Modeling, I used the following checkpoints: activate background knowledge, highlight critical
features, maximize transfer, support decoding, optimize relevance, highlight relationships, and promote
understanding across languages.
Guided Practice:

Students will be divided into small groups and given flashcards with a picture and the corresponding
word written underneath. Each set of flashcards will have something in common and the students will
be encouraged to find those commonalities. For instance, an elephant and a house might both be
described as "large" or a pool and a slide might both be described as "fun" or "outside"- the activity is
open-ended and there is no right or wrong answer. I will be observing each group as they find their
commonalities to see where they might need extra assistance, explanation or practice.

In this portion of the lesson plan, I used the following checkpoints: use multiple media, highlight
relationships, vary demands or challenges, foster collaboration, optimize relevance, maximize transfer
and support strategy.

Independent Practice:

The students will be asked to go around the classroom, look in their desks or on themselves and choose
two things that they think are different. Students will then come up with 5-10 words that they feel
describes both objects. They will then share with their peers, one at a time, what those objects and
words are. As an alternative, students may create a word board of those 5-10 words and objects and
make a "station" for their peers to visit in lieu of sharing orally.

With Independent Practice, this is the first part of the lesson that utilizes offering alternatives to visual
or auditory information. Choice and autonomy, using multi-media and multiple tools (if chosen) and
again maximizing the transfer of information while fostering community are other checkpoints found
within Independent Practice.

Closure:

The class will form a seated circle and each student will pull a number from a hat. The number
corresponds to the order in which they'll share. The students will then write and show (or say and
speak) the word they found to be the most versatile or descriptive from the lesson and why- this
provides an opportunity for reflection.

A common theme in this lesson is community and collaboration, which suits the lesson as the lesson
discusses relationships between words while we work together as well. Reflection is another important
component in this closure while optimizing the value and facilitating self-reflection.

This lesson attempts to combine as many methods of the UDL Framework as possible. Beginning with
the three pillars of UDL: Engagement, Representation, and Action and Expression and working through
the checkpoints- the lesson is designed to reduce as many barriers as possible while including every
student and building upon their current knowledge and ability regardless of what that knowledge and
ability is.