Week 6: Assignment 2

Activity-based lesson adjusted to Common Core.

Lesson topic: Text to Text connections

Grade level: Kindergarten

AIM questions:

1.     What learning objectives/main ideas do students need to know (maximum of 3)?

·      Different stories have similarities and differences

·      How to connect different texts to each other

2.     What common core skills will be introduced or reinforced during the lesson?

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.9
With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

3.     Which content area standards are addressed in this lesson?

Reading

4.     What academic and content specific vocabulary is introduced in this lesson?

Compare, Contrast, Characters,

5.     What materials (e.g. Map, Song, and Activity Sheet) will I present to students?

2 pictures that are almost similar

2 books with similarities and differences.

6.     How will I open the lesson (motivation) and capture student interest?

Students of this age love being the “same” as their friends. Have two students come up and have the class say what is the same about them and what is different. (for example, both wearing a black skirt, one is wearing black socks and one is wearing blue socks.) Classify the things that are the same as comparing and the things that are different as contrasting.

7.     What additional individual/team/full class activities will I use to help students discover what they need to learn (suggest three)? If these are group activities, how will student groups be organized?

·      Students will be split in to partners one will be the compare partner and one will be the contrast partner. Each pair will receive 2 picture that are almost the same except ten obvious differences. The compare student will state 10 things that are exactly the same, and the contrast student will say 10 things that are different.

·      First the teacher will demonstrate this activity call up three students and ask them questions like how many siblings do you have, where do you live, what’s your favorite song… Then the teacher would exclaim, we are the same because… or we are different because… Have the students split into groups of four and do the same activity.

·      The teacher will read two books which have similar characters and different characters. Tell the students to think while we read who are the similar and different characters. Have the students color mini “puppets” of the characters. The teacher will tell the students to pick up two characters and compare them then pick up two characters and contrast them.

8.     How will I differentiate instruction with multiple entry points for diverse learners?

The activities are all different. For students who are visual, the picture activity will teach them how to compare and contrast. For those who need to live the lesson, asking question to each other will help them realize what it means that people are different and the same. Different students will use the coloring and cutting of the puppets to understand how to compare and contrast characters.

9.     What H.O.T. (Higher Order Thinking) questions will I ask to engage students in analysis and discussion?

Why are these characters the same?

Can two characters be both compared and contrasted? How can this be?

10.  How will I assess student mastery of the skills, concepts and content taught in this lesson?

If they are successful at comparing and contrasting characters from the text at the end of the lesson, I will know that all the activities accomplished their goal and the students understand what it means to compare and contrast characters.

11.  How will I bring lesson to closure (summary questions)?

Have students explain what the word compare means

Have students explain what the word contrast means

12.  How will I reinforce and extend student learning?

·      Classroom application/follow up: Whenever we read a text encourage children to connect it to other texts we have read as a class or they have read by themselves.

·      Enrichment activities: Have students in groups listening to audio of books and make connections.

·      Homework: Think of another character they are familiar with who they can compare to a character they read about in one of these two texts.

13.  What topics come next?

·      Tomorrow? Do another two books and have the students compare and contrast characters, as well as the plot

·      Day after? Have students compare a text with themselves

14.  How do I evaluate this lesson?

·      Strengths: This is a real hands on way for children to learn how to compare and contrast things

·      Weaknesses: too much in one lesson

·      Areas to work on: Split the lesson plan into realistic size

·      Things to change: I may split this lesson into a few days