Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission

n to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

LESSON PLAN OUTLINE JMU Elementary Education Program TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON Chapter 19 Hatchet/Comprehension CONTEXT OF LESSON Over the past couple months, the students have been reading the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. This book has been used as a read aloud novel for the class during their literacy class time every day. Normally, the students will gather on the rug in front of the teachers chair and the teacher will read a chapter each day and will ask questions throughout the reading to gauge the students comprehension. For each chapter there are one to two new vocabulary words that are discussed as well. Then, after the reading and discussion is over, the students are given a worksheet that works on combining sentences. They also respond to a reading response prompt about the reading in their reading journals. This lesson begins with me reading the last chapter in the book, chapter 19, to the students, and ends with me reading the epilogue at the end of the book aloud to the students. Throughout the entire reading I paused when I felt were good times to stop and asked relevant questions to see how much the students wer e remembering and comprehending. After the reading was finished, I introduced the two new vocabulary words that were used within the text. First, I asked the students if they already knew what the words meant, then I defined them, and read the parts of the text where the words were used. After that, I showed the students the sentence combining worksheet and read the two sentences they were going to combine. Finally, I introduced the reading response prompt and asked them if they had any initial thoughts about the questions to get the students thinking. Then I set the students lose to go back to their desks and handed out the two activities. Hatchet is a fourth grade level book that has been approved by Staunton County and is therefore appropriate for the 8-9-year-old age group. The students have previously been read the 18 chapters that came before chapter 19 and the epilogue, so they are ready to discover what happens next and how the book ends. The students have also already done several sentence combining activities and reading response prompts from the other chapters in the book and were therefore capable of doing both the activities in this lesson. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Understand The students will understand how a read aloud works. The students will understand the sequence of tasks that occur throughout a read aloud/comprehensions lesson. The students will understand the text that is being read to them throughout the reading.

Know The students will know what the book the Hatchet is and what it is about. The students will know what the new vocabulary words (butane and encased) mean. The students will know the answers to the questions that are asked throughout the reading. The students will know what the sentence combing worksheet looks Page 1

Do The students will be able to listen carefully while I read the chapters to them. The students will be able to comprehend the text that is being read. The students will be able to answer questions about the text with supporting details that they already previously learned or had just learned from the reading. The students will be able to fill in

Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

like and how to fill it in. The students will know what the reading response looks like and how to respond to it.

the sentence combining worksheet correctly. The students will be able to respond to the reading response prompt correctly with supporting evidence from the text. The students will be able to respond to the reading response prompt with at least 5-7 complete sentences. The students will be able to glue the reading response prompts into their journals.

ASSESSING LEARNING During the lesson, I asked relevant questions to the text and students raised their hands to answer them. Several different students participated and gave excellent answers and shared interesting opinions to the class. When I introduced the two new vocabulary words that were used in the text, a couple students already knew what the words meant from remembering how they were used in the text, which I found impressive since they retrieved that information from memory of what they had just been read. While the students were working on combining the two sentences and responding to the reading response prompt, I walked around and read the students work to give guidance to students who needed it, or to give helpful hints. If students did not combine the sentences correctly I would ask them to reread what they wrote and to try to think of those helpful connecting words that would make the sentences flow better. If the reading responses were a little off topic, I would ask the students related questions to redirect them in the right direction and would ask them to write a couple more sentences about what I had suggested. After the students finished their sentence combining worksheets, I collected them as I went around and checked them. Then I collected the ones that were not finished and will have them finish them the next day. The reading responses were done in their reading journals, so I had them turn in their journals for me to read. If the students did not finish, they are allowed to work on their responses in the morning as morning work. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING 4.1 The student will use effective oral communication skills in a variety of settings. a) Present accurate directions to individuals and small groups. b) Contribute to group discussions across content areas. c) Seek ideas and opinions of others. d) Use evidence to support opinions. e) Use grammatically correct language and specific vocabulary to communicate ideas. f) Communicate new ideas to others. g) Demonstrate the ability to collaborate with diverse teams. h) Demonstrate the ability to work independently. 4.4 The student will expand vocabulary when reading. Page 2

Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

a) Use context to clarify meanings of unfamiliar words. b) Use knowledge of roots, affixes, synonyms, antonyms, and homophones. c) Use word-reference materials, including the glossary, dictionary, and thesaurus. d) Develop vocabulary by listening to and reading a variety of texts. e) Use vocabulary from other content areas. 4.5 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of fictional texts, narrative nonfiction texts, and poetry. a) Explain the authors purpose. b) Describe how the choice of language, setting, characters, and information contributes to the authors purpose. c) Identify the main idea. d) Summarize supporting details. e) Identify the problem and solution. f) Describe the relationship between text and previously read materials. g) Identify sensory words. h) Draw conclusions/make inferences about text. i) Make, confirm, or revise predictions. j) Identify cause and effect relationships. k) Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension. l) Read with fluency and accuracy. 4.7 The student will write cohesively for a variety of purposes. a) Identify intended audience. b) Focus on one aspect of a topic. c) Use a variety of pre-writing strategies. d) Organize writing to convey a central idea. e) Recognize different modes of writing have different patterns of organization. f) Write a clear topic sentence focusing on the main idea. g) Write two or more related paragraphs on the same topic. h) Use transition words for sentence variety. i) Utilize elements of style, including word choice and sentence variation. j) Revise writing for clarity of content using specific vocabulary and information. k) Include supporting details that elaborate the main idea. MATERIALS NEEDED Hatchet by Gary Paulsen Question sheet (for during the reading) Pencils Sentence combining worksheet (20 copies) Reading response prompt (20 copies; cut small enough to paste into their journals) Glue sticks Scissors Reading journals

I will be responsible for securing each item. Page 3

Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

PROCEDURE 1. PREPARATION OF THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: Earlier in the day, the students listened to chapter 18 of Hatchet on tape and the teacher told them that after lunch I will read the rest of the book to them. When it came time for my lesson, I told the students to push their chairs in and gather on the rug in front of the teachers chair. I sat in the chair and told them I was going to read the last chapter of the book and the epilogue. I than asked if anyone knew what an epilogue was. One student thought it was the authors notes at the end of the book. I told them what is was, made sure all of the students were sitting appropriately and quietly, and then began reading. 2. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LESSON: I began reading chapter 19 aloud to the students. Then I stopped on page 171 and asked the students a question. The question was, Why does Brian think of these things as unbelievable riches? 3. I asked the students to raise their hands with any ideas they wanted to share. 4. Then I continued reading. I stopped on page 173 to ask another question. The question was, How did Brian light the fire this time and what does that signify? 5. The students raised their hands and I called on them one-by-one to share their ideas. 6. After I finished the page, I asked one last question, which was, What does Brian mean when he says, Without the rifle I had to fit in, to be a part of it all, to understand it and use it the woods, all of it.? 7. Again, the students raised their hands to answer the question. 8. I continued reading. I stopped on page 177 and asked, What happened to lead to Brians rescue? 9. The students raised their hands and shared their ideas. 10. I continued reading and stopped at the bottom of that page and asked one last question, which was, Why is Brians question at the end of this chapter rather unusual? 11. The students raised their hands and shared their ideas again. 12. After we had a brief discussion about how the story ended, I introduced the two new vocabulary words, which were butane and encased. I asked the students if they have any ideas as to what these words meant. 13. Then I read them the sections in the text that used the words. After that I defined the words and explained what they meant with a couple additional examples. 14. Then I read the epilogue aloud to the students. 15. After that, I told the students that when they went back to their desks they were going to do a sentence combine and reading response in their reading journals. 16. Then I read the two sentences aloud for the sentence combining worksheet, and read the reading response prompt as well. I then asked the students if they had any initial ideas about the questions asked in the prompt. 17. After I got their minds thinking, I sent them back to their seats and began handing out the worksheet and prompts. 18. I told the students to then get out their glue sticks to glue in the prompts into their notebooks. I also told them that if they needed to trim the prompt sheets they could get scissors and do so as they desired. 19. CLOSURE: As the students worked on their activities, I walked around to observe the students, read over their work, and give any helpful hints or guidance when I felt it was appropriate. 20. As the students finished their sentence combining worksheets, I had them raise their hands and I came around to check them. If there were mistakes, I get them helpful hints, such as telling them to try to think of good connections words to help make their sentence flow better, and had them revise their work. Page 4

Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

21. After they finished, I wrote something like Good job! or Nice work! on their sheets and collected them. After most of the students were finished, I briefly read some of the reading responses and told the students if they did not finish that they could work on it the following morning as morning work. 22. Lastly, I told the students to put away their glue sticks and scissors and to get ready for math. The entire lesson and activities took about 45 minutes. DIFFERENTIATION If students finished early, they could start on their homework, or work on other reading responses that they had not finished. If they did all of that, they could get out one of their library books and silently read. This way, the students are still engaged in a task, get a head start on their homework, or are working on their silent reading. If students struggled with the sentence combining worksheet, I gave them hints as to what words would help connect the two sentences, such as and or but. Scaffolding was key during this process in order to give the students enough help to further their learning without too much assistance. As a teacher, I want the students to discover the answers mainly on their own. I gave positive feedback to help prevent frustration from developing. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT? Several things could have gone wrong during this lesson, but a few main things come to mind. The students could have not been paying much attention during the read aloud of the chapter and epilogue, in which case those students would have had a harder time responding to the reading response prompt. Some students might just simply struggle more with comprehending text that is being read to them, which would have the same effect on the response prompt response. Students could distract other students during the read aloud, which could hinder students from hearing important information in the story. For the students who were a bit distracted during the reading, or who had a harder time comprehending the information, I assisted them one-on-one and refreshed their memory about what the chapters were about and talked about some key things that happened. For the sentence combining worksheet, students could have not thought enough about the two sentences and just rewrite them without punctuation instead of actually forming a complete and correct, single sentence. When this happened, I asked them if they could try to write a better sentence with more connecting words to make the sentence flow better.

Lesson Implementation Reflection

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why you made them. During my lesson, I had planned to ask six questions throughout the read aloud, but I ended up only asking about four. I also asked the questions at the end of the reading instead of during it because I did not feel there were appropriate times to stop reading and the students seemed to be very interested in what was going to happen and how the book was going to end, so I did not want to stop. I only asked four questions because some of the questions were worded poorly, or were about information I already could tell the students had already comprehended judging from their comments made throughout the reading. I had also planned to hand out the worksheets before beginning the reading, but I ended up passing them out after I had finished the reading and discussions. I did that so I could show the students the worksheets while I had all of their attention. I also did that so I could read the sentences for the sentence combining worksheet out loud to them and so that I could go over the reading response prompt with them and get them thinking about ideas they had about it.

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Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student learning? Did they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that your conclusions are valid? The students learned a great deal of information from the read aloud, sentence combining worksheet, and reading response prompt. I am confident to say this because the students actively participated during the read aloud questions and discussions and within those questions and discussions contained valuable information from the text that they comprehended. They understood how to combine the two sentences on the worksheet and did so by omitting words that could be removed without missing the big ideas of the sentences, and by using connecting words such as and or but. They understood how to respond thoroughly to the reading response prompt because they wrote accurate, complete sentences answering the questions in the prompt. They also showed strong comprehension in their prompts with the ideas they wrote about and by incorporating their opinions.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would come up with my own questions about the text to ask after the reading to spark a valuable discussion with the students. I want my students to think on deeper levels and to relate stories and experiences to their lives, so I think incorporating some new questions that related the story to the students would have made the lesson more valuable to the students. At the ages of eight or nine, children are still in the mind sets that everything is about them and they love to talk about themselves, their friends, their family, their pets, etc. which is why I think these additional questions would be a positive addition to the lesson. IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom teacher? Based on the assessment data I collected I would either do a wrap up activity or project about the entire story of Hatchet and make the project more relatable to the students, as I mentioned earlier that I believe will be beneficial. Another idea of what to teach next could be to research another fourth grade level novel to start with the class. I would try to find a story that was about something entirely different from Hatchet. I would do research to find an exciting, interesting book that the students could relate to or have fun imagining and would think of as an adventure. V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young children as learners? As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, I have learned that fourth graders respond well to clear, stepby-step instructions and need instructions to be repeated multiple times in order to fully understand what to do and how to do it. These children as learners need constant feedback throughout the time spent in the classroom on work. Therefore, the teacher needs to have a sharp awareness of what indicates whether or not a student understands the new material. I learned that eight and nine-year-olds work better individually when it comes to getting work done. VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching? As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, I have reinforced that effective teaching includes repetition of instruction and of practice of whatever is being taught, and consistent feedback throughout class time. I also learned that eight and nine-year-olds work better individually compared to in groups because this age group gets easily distracted by classmates since they all become friendly over the span of the school year. I also learned that this age Page 6

Meghan Reed Ware Elementary School 4th Grade Dolores Bates Taught on March 11, 2013 at 12:30PM Submission to Teacher on February 31st, 2013

group needed to have an authority keeping a close eye on them in order to keep the majority of them focused on tasks at hand. VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about yourself? As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, I learned that most times a lesson will not go perfectly according to the lesson plan. As a teacher, I can only predict so many things that may go wrong and plan as much as I can. However, I believe that keeping a positive and productive mind set will help these situations. When students had questions, I learned that answering those questions as clearly as possible and for the whole class was effective. I also learned that teaching is harder than it looks, but good teachers will put in the time and effort to plan fun and effective lessons and activities in hopes of inspiring their students. From this lesson specifically, I learned that it is better to keep read alouds shorter than longer due to the students attention spans and to keep their interest before putting them to sleep. Overall, I feel as though the lesson went well and the students grasped all of the main ideas and really enjoyed reading the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

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