Lesson Plan Template

Name: Jamie Ray Date: 10/18/2010 Cohort: A

Topic/Grade Level: Fourth graders will identify the features of informational texts and why they are used.

Big Ideas/Learning Goals/Driving/Questions: In fourth grade students need to be able to explain how and why authors use certain features in informational text. At the end of this lesson students will be able to identify these features, and understand why they are used and what an informational text does for the reader.

Content Standards or GLCEs (state or district

Objectives/Assessment

R.IT.04.03 explain how authors use text features including appendices, headings, subheadings, marginal notes, keys and legends, figures, and bibliographies to enhance the understanding of key and supporting ideas.

Students will be able to: identify various features of informational text and their uses. These features will include the index, maps, glossary, table of contents, titles, headings, and captions.

Student will: go on an informational text scavenger hunt and make a list of features that they find in their informational text, as well as what the reason for that feature.

Teacher will discuss in a group the features that the students found in their text as well as go over the reasons for the features in the text.

Context: Students already know what the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts. All students are aware of certain features of fiction texts.

Duration: 1 hour

Materials: Wipe board, marker, 31 pollination brochures, 30 Discovering America books, 30 Scavenger Hunt sheets, 30 “cheat sheets”, students should have their clip boards and pencils.

Time/Task Instructional Moves Teacher Considerations

Opening5 minutes

Have the students come and sit on the rug in their rug seats. Ask the students, “If I say the word informational text what do you think that means? What do you think of when I say informational or information?”

The students did great at giving me their ideas on this!

Goal: want the student to say that they think of text that teaches or informs the reader about something.

Guided Practice20 minutes

Tell the students that there are certain attributes that informational texts have that make them different than other texts such as fiction. (Hand out the brochures). “Everyone has a brochure right now, I want to know what you see in the brochure that makes it look differently than another book that you may be reading, for example The Firebug Connection. I will give you two minutes to look over the brochure and try to see what you notice that is different. (Set the timer for 2 minutes)Once the timer goes off ask the students to give you examples of what they see (practice using wait time). As they give examples write them on the board and ask them why they think they have such features (example: it has a map, it shows pollination and honey production by state, maps help people understand where

things are). Once there are no more volunteers address the examples that they have already given, make certain that Table of contents, index, glossary, photos, magnification, bold print, titles, headings, captions, maps, and time lines are all addressed. Write everything on the board with how the features help a reader next to the feature.

Practice20 minutes

Tell the students that you are going to send them on an informational text scavenger hunt. Explain the scavenger hunt sheet. Ask if there are any questions. Break them into small groups (groups of 3) and give them all a copy of the Discovering America book, and a scavenger hunt sheet. Have them look through their Discovering America book and fill out their scavenger hunt sheet. Give them 20 minutes for this with their groups (set timer) As they are doing this walk around and help various groups as needed and listen to the discussions that are happening.

The students groups of 3 are already made up.

Closing15 minutes

Once the timer goes off have the students re-convene on the rug and ask them what they noticed in their books (all books have extremely similar set ups). Call on students (no duplicate students) who have their hands raised. Once they are done, tell them that you are going to give them a “cheat sheet” that they can keep on their clip board that they can refer to.

Double check if Debra (CT) wants students to put their “cheat sheet” in their writing folder or on their clip board.

Create as many boxes as you need

Reflecting on students’ learningDid your students accomplish the goals and objectives you determined for them? How do you know?I am so happy with this lesson. I think that the students really got a lot out of this lesson. I called on every student who had their hand raised (which was most of them) to get some of their observations that they found in their informational brochure. While they took their two minutes to look over their brochure I observed every student analyzing the text. During our discussion portion of the lesson some of the things that the students said amazed me. One student stated that one of the reasons for pictures and diagrams in informational text was similar to the supporting details in writing. In writing there are supporting paragraphs to help someone understand and in informational text the pictures are used for better understanding. I was so impressed with this thinking! Another student said that the cover of the informational text does not suck the reader in such as a fiction book’s cover. He said that the reason for this is that a fiction book is almost trying to sell itself to a reader, and an informational text the reader already knows what he wants to read. Once again I was very impressed with this way of thinking. The scavenger hunt went well, the students found many features in their books that we did not even discuss, such as an area called “for further reading”, they understood that this was in case a reader wanted to learn more about the subject they knew where to look.

How did your instructional moves help students make progress toward the lesson goals and objectives? What instructional and/or management moves would you repeat? What would you change? Why?I gave really clear directions I felt. The student seemed to understand exactly what they were supposed to do and why there were supposed to do it. One of the moves that I thought benefited the students immensely was my use of wait time. I observed during my viewing of the lesson that during my wait time I saw many more students process their thoughts and raise their hands. If I had not used this wait time I would have only had maybe a choice of 3 students to call on and not the 20 that ended up raising their hands. I also feel that I made eye contact with all of the students throughout the lesson. I was also impressed with my presence, I truly felt and looked “in the moment”, I was engaged and it seemed obvious that I was really enjoying this lesson.

How will you use what you learned to inform your teaching? What next steps will you take?

One thing that I noticed in this lesson that I have observed of myself in other lessons is my arms. I must be unsure what to do with my arms during giving a lesson if I do not have anything in my hands because I put my hands on my hips. I do not like this. I look quite bossy and I think it gives a bad impression. I am going to start noticing what both my CT does as well as my professors do. I think if I had to choose one thing that I wanted to improve on it is my body language because of the arm issue.