Hayley CunninghamWOK Humanities- LAP 1

Implementation: October 30th, 2015 at 1:30pm

I. Content : Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content?

In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of home. This lesson will get

students thinking about what is a home/what are the features that make a home a home. Students

will also participate in a read-aloud of Let’s go Home: The Wonderful Things About A House by

Cynthia Rylant. Students will engage in a visualization activity based off of the book. After the

read aloud, students will activate their schema by reflecting on their own concept of home and

produce a piece of writing similar to the style of Cynthia Rylant (lots of adjectives) about a room

in their house. Additionally, they will be given the opportunity to draw that room.

II. Learning Goal(s) : Describe what specifically students will know and be able to do after the experience of this class.

Students will begin to form an understanding of the characteristics of a home/

what makes a home a home.

Students will begin to form their self-perception of home.

Students will be able to reproduce visualizations- “the movie” that plays in their

mind as they read/listen to reading- onto paper.

Students will be able to make text-self connections.

Students will be able to identify Cynthia Rylant’s use of adjectives and use

adjectives in their own writing.

1

III. Rationale : Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your Curriculum Unit Plan learning goals.

The ultimate goal of my unit is to propel students to think deeper into the concept of

home. I want my students to understand that a home isn’t simply a shelter or where you live. I

want students to extend their thinking into home as a physical structure, home as a place where

your friends and family live, home as a cultural component, and home on a community level.

This lesson serves as the basis for the rest of this unit of study. In the end, I hope to enable

students to extend their thinking into their perceptions of their own homes and what gives them

that sense of belonging. This lesson begins to establish that foundation as it addresses the

characteristics of a home and strives to answer the question of what makes a home a home/what

makes a home special. Students need this foundation to further delve deeper into their study of

home.

IV. Assessment : Describe how you and your students will know they have reached your learning goals.

Students will be informally assessed on engagement and participation throughout the

lesson. In terms of formal assessment, students will be held accountable for engaging with the

read aloud by producing visualizations. Students will also be expected to complete a writing

prompt. I, along with my students, will know that they have reached my learning goals by

participating in the engagement and completing the visualization/ writing prompt.

V. Personalization and equity : Describe how you will provide for individual student strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each student and scaffold learning? How specifically will ELL students and students with learning disabilities gain access and be supported?

2

Many of the students in my class are English Language Learners (ELLs). To support

these learners, as well as other lower level students in the class, I will be reading the story aloud

in order give them practice with listening as well as for them to hear fluent reading. Furthermore,

I will provide differentiated handouts of the writing prompt that scaffold them into the activity.

Low language learners (Level 1 & 2’s) will be asked to draw a picture of the room and label the

pictures whereas mid-level students will be given sentence starters to get them started in their

writing.

VI. Activity description and agenda a. Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of your

class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path toward understanding.

Time Teacher Activity Student Activity Materials Needed1-2 Minutes:Turn & Talk

2-5 Minutes:Anchor Chart

Facilitate Discussion:What is a home?

Write down student ideas on anchor chart.

Turn & talk in pairs Anchor chartMarker

5-25 Minutes Interactive read-aloud:Let’s Go HomeThe Wonderful Things About A House by Cynthia Rylant I will not be

showing the pictures this time through.

Ask questions to probe thinking and to help students monitor their thinking: What color is the

sofa? What food is in

Visualize the story:During the read aloud students will visualize the story and recreate their interpretations of the rooms that Cynthia Rylant describes on their handout.

Let’s Go Home HandoutCrayons

3

the kitchen? Does the tub have

bubbles in it? What is the color

of the blanket on the bed? Does it have a design?

Is the bedroom neat and tidy or are their toys on the floor?

Walk through pictures

While viewing pictures make connections between their interpretation and the actual pictures.

25-40 Minutes Introduce writing prompt:

Write a description of what makes your home special? Your writing should include a description of a special room in your house like the way Cynthia Rylant wrote about homes in her book.

Read model/sample

Filter around the room helping students as needed and checking for engagement.

Engage in writing prompt.

Draw a picture of their room.

(Differentiated prompt: lower language learners will be asked to draw a house in their room and label the parts of the room).

Differentiated Handouts

Model expectations

b. What particular challenges, in terms of student learning or implementing planned activity, do you anticipate and how will you address them?

One particular challenge that I anticipate is students not being able to relate to a home or

students who cannot think of reasons why they call someplace home. If this is the case, then I

will have students write about someplace special to them and explain that it doesn’t have to be

their home but anything ranging from their school, their favorite store, their favorite park, etc…

4

VII. List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses.

SL.4.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

SL.4.2 Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

L.4.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

L.4.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuations, and spelling when writing.

RL.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

VIII. Reflection

a. In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose and learning goals, in what ways was the activity successful? How do you know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned differently another time?

During this lesson, students were definitely at the point of understanding that I wanted

them to be at this point in time. In their discussion on what is a home, students answered that a

home is:

A place that you live in

A shelter that has food, water, electricity, and your belongings

Where you sleep

Where your bed is

Where you go when you’re done with school

Where you grow up

What immigrants look for when they come to America

5

At this point in time, students only perceive home as a physical construct. Throughout this unit, I

want students to develop this idea more and expand on it.

In terms of the visualization activity, it could have gone smoother. This lesson was

implemented at the end of the day after art class, so the class was rowdy. Because it took a bit to

settle the class down, my lesson time was cut by about 5 minutes. I proceeded to rush through the

book to the point where students couldn’t keep up with what I was reading and hence couldn’t

visualize properly. I decided that instead of describing four of the rooms in the book, we would

focus on the living room and either the bathroom, kitchen or bedroom. The class picked

bedroom. The bedroom section wasn’t as descriptive as the bathroom section of the book. I wish

we did the bathroom section. Once we slowed down a bit, the class got really into their pictures

and wanted to perfect them. Most of these students nailed the visualization. They perfectly drew

the fireplace with two rocking chairs; the dog under the coffee table and one of our low language

learners even drew a strawberry muffin. Some students had trouble getting into this activity.

Misconceptions ensued when students drew their own house rather than visualizing. Better

clarification on my part would’ve benefited my students better.

Most students understood the writing prompt as well. Many of the “academically

advanced” students made comparisons and connections to Cynthia Rylant’s style. They used

descriptors throughout (See Student Samples) their writing prompt. For example, Noelani wrote,

“I love my warm, sweet bed and a nice chair and table where I drink my hot cup of tea and

cookie when I feel sick, sad or mad”. This sentence contains many of the descriptive factors

prevalent in Cynthia Rylant’s story.

Other students weren’t too into this activity and moaned and groaned. It was pulling teeth

trying to get them to write about a special room in their house- maybe because they didn’t have a

6

special place at home? Maybe they were bored because they couldn’t relate to the home from

the book? These students struggled the most and simply wrote one sentence listing the items in

their room.

In the end, if I were to this lesson again, I would definitely use a model of my own

writing sample. I think many students struggled coming up with ideas of their own home, but

having a concrete example may spark some ideas for them. It also shows them clear expectations

and guidelines. Also, having more time to go over the elements of the story and read the

bathroom and kitchen sections would have been more beneficial to achieving my goals of this

lesson.

b. What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your next LAP?

From this lesson, I learned that I need to slow down as a reader. I rush through and expect

people to understand what I’m saying. This is something that I need to work on for my next read

aloud. I also need to give time for student information processing.

Student Work Samples

7

8

9

10