Bianca Johnson Avery Finch Term III Literacy Lesson On Retelling and Sequencing Date/Time to be Implemented: Wednesday 11/20

and Wednesday 11/27 Students: First and Second Grade at the Penn Alexander School Anticipated Time: 40 minutes What? Both of our classroom mentors have mentioned that retelling is something that many of their students struggle with. Based on our observations, it seems that many students are able to recall main characters and settings, but are often so preoccupied reading the words on each page, that the context of the story is often lost. Retelling is not only a useful way for readers to summarize what happened in a text, but it can also demonstrate a students understanding and comprehension. We believe that one of the key aspects of retelling is recalling the sequence in which events take place, which is why we want to emphasize not only retelling, but also identifying the beginning, middle and end of a story. Avery: My focus for these Term III lessons is the role of effective questioning in facilitating valuable discussion that both deepens student understanding and hopefully inspires further inquiry and thinking. This literacy lesson provides several opportunities for discussion with students, regarding both the content of the book and the strategies that we use to retell the events therein. Students will be asked to discuss their beliefs about the problem and the main ideas of the story, defend their statements, and ask about and comment on their peers ideas. They will also be asked several times to work with their peers to come to a consensus about a plan of action, which will once again call on their ability to think about and articulate their own ideas and consider the ideas of others. In leading this lesson I hope to put into practice the type of effective, open-ended questioning that allows students to work through their thoughts and then share their ideas. Bianca: My focusing questions stems from my summer placement in a pre-k class. My classroom mentor at the Parent Infant Center had very strong opinions on praise. She did not believe in saying things like, good job or nice work or I like the way you did that. The praise that she did give was very explicit and specific. Following this experience, I became interested in the various types of praise and how a teachers use of praise can affect a class environment as well as student work. In short, my focusing question is, how can effective praise be incorporated into my teaching practices? How? Using Arthurs Thanksgiving by Marc Brown as a guiding text, the teacher will stress the importance of paying attention to the order of events in a story. Throughout the lesson, the teacher will emphasize and focus on the ability to retell what happened. In order informally to assess student learning, we plan to conduct an interactive group activity in which students must demonstrate their understanding of the storys sequence. Students will then work in pairs to extrapolate main ideas from the group-generated list

of recalled events. After this, the group will work together to build a concise retelling based on the key facts they pulled. The final activity and assessment involves putting pictures from the book back in order. Why? As students and teachers, we believe that teaching literacy should be both a personal and interactive process, which is why we wanted to incorporate a group discussion, brainstorm and activity. We believe that retelling is a core reading strategy, not only at the elementary school level, but into and throughout adulthood. To that end, this lesson provides students with an opportunity to practice this key skill step-by-step. From listening to the story, to conceptualizing ideas, to narrowing in, to ordering, and concisely retelling. By breaking down the process of retelling, students will be able to see the key components of the retelling strategy, namely: recalling events, identifying the main ideas, and retelling them in chronological order. This lesson gives students practice in a strategy that they will hopefully be able to use when they read independently. Goals/Objectives Students will be able to: recall details from a story that was read aloud. recognize the beginning, middle, and end of a sequence of events. from among all the recalled details, identify the main ideas of the story in order to give a concise retelling. put isolated events from a story into chronological order in order to demonstrate understanding of story sequence. In addition, second grade students will be able to: identify a storys problem and its solution in order to help them map the storys sequence. Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts Pennsylvania State Standard 3: Reading Literature Grade 1: o CC.1.3.1.A: Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson. o CC.1.3.1.B: Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. o CC.1.3.1.C: Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. Grade 2: o CC.1.3.2.A: Recount stories and determine their central message, lesson, or moral. o CC.1.3.2.B: Ask and answer questions such as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. o CC.1.3.2.E: Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action. Materials and Preparation four pieces of poster paper and two markers (different colors)

in advance of the lesson, write one-word heading on three of the pieces of poster paper: Beginning, Middle, End o last piece of poster paper is for our three-sentence retelling of Arthurs Thanksgiving one piece of paper and pencil for each of the three pairs of students one copy of Arthurs Thanksgiving by Marc Brown one color photocopy (and protective sheath for each) of each of the following six pages from Arthurs Thanksgiving with the text removed: pages 4, 12, 16, 24, 28, and 32

Classroom Arrangement and Management Six students will partake in this lesson seated around a circular table. For time and noise purposes, this lesson will take place in a small room located on the main floor of the building. Chart paper will be hung in front of students in a highly visible area. Potential concerns include the fact that the room has large windows, which could lead to possible distractions. To address this concern, we plan to seat students facing away from the windows. Plan The Hook Introduction (about 2 min.) Teacher introduces the topic: Retelling is an important skill for all readers and writers. Its good to be able to retell a story youve heard in order to be sure you understand it. Its also important to think about the main events of the story, and the order they happen in. Teacher asks students to name some things they think about when retelling a story. Likely responses include: Beginning, middle, and end; characters; setting. (Probably second grade only: Problem and solution.) Teacher encourages students to think about these things as they listen to the read-aloud. Read-aloud (8 min.) Teacher introduces the book Arthurs Thanksgiving and solicits predictions about what will happen based on the cover, the title, what the students know about Arthur, etc. Teacher reminds students to listen carefully to the story, paying particular attention to the order of events as they happen. o For second grade lesson, teacher asks students to give a quiet thumb when they think they notice the problem. Teacher reads Arthurs Thanksgiving aloud. o For second grade lesson, teacher acknowledges thumbs that go up for the problem but does not talk about it during the read-aloud: Im noticing some thumbs up. Do you think weve come to the problem? Okay, hold onto your ideas and well talk about them at the end. Body of the Lesson Guided Practice (10 min.) Teacher hangs up three pieces of poster paper, each labeled with Beginning, Middle, or End. Teacher says that now we will work on retelling the story. 3

Teacher reads the top of each sheet aloud (for the benefit of all students, but particularly first grade students who may be slower readers) and asks, What do you think were going to write on each piece of paper? Students will likely respond, What happened in the beginning, middle, and end. Teacher continues, Yes, and not only that, were going to list every single thing we remember that happened in the story! (This list of all recalled events will later be used for a discussion about the importance of selecting just the most important details to include in a retelling of a story.) o For first grade lesson, teacher asks, Where do you suggest we start? Students will likely suggest the beginning. o For second grade lesson, teacher talks about the problem of the story. Thinking about the problem is a great way to help us map the events of the story, because it often comes around the same place in no matter what the story. I noticed some of you had your thumbs up when you thought you noticed the problem. Turn and talk with your neighbor about what you think the problem was. Teacher lets partners talk for about a minute, listening in on each conversation for 20 seconds. Teacher calls students back to attention and takes a couple of answers and justifications. Teacher checks for agreement. Teacher then says, The problem usually comes in the middle of the story, so Im going to write this problem right at the top of the Middle page. Teacher writes Arthur couldnt find anyone to play the turkey (for example) and puts a P for problem next to it. Teacher asks students to recall the events of the story in order. Teacher lists all the details from each section of the book under the appropriate heading. Students will probably not remember every detail, but some important ideas to be sure to include are: o Beginning: Arthur was chosen to be the director of the Thanksgiving play. He had to assign the parts to his classmates. o Middle: None of his classmates agreed to play the turkey (this is the problem of the story). He asked his family members to play the turkey but they wouldnt. He made an announcement on the PA system asking for someone to play the turkey. Still, nobody wanted to play the role of the turkey in the show. Rehearsals went terribly. Arthur brought in a real live turkey but it was a disaster. His friends said, No turkeyno show. o End: On the day of the show people didnt know if there would be a turkey. The play was going really well. Arthur surprised everyone by coming out on stage as the turkey (this is the solution, in combination with the following sentence). It turned out the rest of the cast had put on turkey costumes too. Once the students agree that there is nothing more to add, teacher quickly reads aloud everything listed under each heading to ensure that all students (particularly those who are unable to read the whole list) know what is on the lists. Introduction to Main Ideas (2 min.) Teacher says, Wow, we remembered a lot! Its clear that we really understood what happened in this story [and that we noticed the problem and the solution]. Teacher continues, Now lets imagine that a friend wants help deciding if she

should read this book, so she asks you to tell her what happens in it. Would you tell her everything we listed? Teacher talks about how when we retell a story, we dont need to give all the information in the book: It would take too long, and our friend doesnt need to know everything that happenedjust the main ideas. Teacher asks for a volunteer to explain main ideas in his or her own words. A likely student response is, The most important things that happen. Teacher reiterates: We can think about the main ideas of the story as the most important partsthe things that tell us what the story is really about. Partner Work (5 min.) Teacher tells students that they will work in pairs and each be assigned a list: Beginning, Middle, or End. In pairs they will choose only one item from their list to represent the main idea of that part of the book. They will write it down on a piece of paper in a complete sentence (with a capital letter and a period). Teacher assigns each of the three pairs either Beginning, Middle, or End. o For second grade lesson, teacher reminds the students that the problem is a good guide for thinking about the story. Teacher gives each pair two pencils and a piece of paper labeled with Beginning, Middle, or End. Teacher reminds students that they should talk together for a few minutes to be sure they agree, then choose someone to write it down. Teacher listens in on conversations for several minutes, offering guidance as needed. When students seem to be reaching conclusions, teacher encourages them to take another minute to write down their ideas and get ready to share. If students finish early they may draw a picture to illustrate the sentence they wrote. Sharing with the Group (6 min.) Teacher calls the group to attention and asks for each group to share the sentence they chose. Each pair reads the sentence aloud and explains their reasoning (and they may show their illustration if they had time to make one). Teacher documents each pairs selected sentence on a piece of chart paper. After each group has presented the sentence they chose and why, there will be a concise three-sentence retelling of the story written on the paper. o For second grade lesson, other students may comment or ask questions about each groups choice (in accordance with Averys focusing question). There will also probably be some discussion of the problem in the middle. Students decide together if they agree with each groups sentence (and why) before its written on the poster. As a group, we discuss how we know that this is a clear and efficient way to retell the story: We know we found the main ideas because our sentences tell what the story is really about, without any extra details. Closing Group Activity (3-5 min.) Teacher: We did a great job retelling the story using fewer words than were in the book. For these last few minutes, lets see if we can retell it using just pictures. How well do we really know this book? Every student is given a color photocopy of a picture from the book with the words removed. When the teacher says go, they must work together to put the pictures in order, then stand in line with their pictures held in front of them.

Students do so. They should take no more than two minutes or so; teacher gives a 30-second warning when they are clearly getting close. Teacher asks if they all agree on the order, and how they made their decisions. With students still standing, teacher flips through the pages of the book. As she gets to each picture a student is holding, that student sits, and the teacher moves down the line until they have checked off every picture. If there are still students standing, the other children will have the opportunity to offer help in placing the incorrect students in the correct place. If students are unable to successfully determine the order of the pictures, teacher will work together with the group to reach the goal. Teacher confirms that students know the book well, and were able to retell it using just what they see in the pictures.

Assessment of Goals/Objectives Teacher will observe the children as they work on ordering themselves/their pictures into chronological order. Teacher will also assess students on their ability to pull key facts from a story. This informal assessment will take the form of a conversation about what happened in the story and by having students write down what they think is the most important detail from either the beginning, middle, or end. Anticipating students responses and your possible responses Some of the students, particularly those in second grade, may say that they have read the book before, in which case the teacher will remind them that books are even better the second time. If, during the brainstorming activity, students are unable to recall some important details from the book, teacher will open the book and revisit the events of the story to the extent that students need to be reminded. Accommodations None of the accompanying activities require students to work independently, so they will all have the support of at least one peer. Because the class size is so small, the teacher will be available to address students difficulties. Students who finish the Partner Work (main idea identification) early may draw a picture to illustrate their chosen sentence.