Introduction
Need for this lesson: As part of their Reading Unit 5, students are reading an advanced fictional textbook in which many of the students do not comprehend what is going on in the text. Therefore, this lesson is needed so students can learn how to analyze text features from fictional texts to help them better understand the text.
Lesson content:
Unit: Unit 5, Digging Deeper: How to Analyze the Text
Focus/Topic within the unit: Analyzing text features to help us better understand the text.
Teaching Point/Goal/Central Focus: What will students know, and be able to do, as a result of this lesson?
Students will be able to analyze the text features in El arbol eterno to help understand the text better.
Connection to Previous Learning/Prior Knowledge: Considering the teaching point/central focus of this lesson, what prior academic learning and requisite skills will students require?
Students have been working on their art projects with their art teacher. One of the concepts they have been learning about while doing their nonfiction stories is drawing along the borders of their books. Their drawings around their borders should enhance their stories by providing graphics to help their reader better understand what their story is about. Today we are going to learn how to analyze text features such as timelines, charts, diagrams, and graphs to help us better understand the text.
Task
Model/Demonstrate (I try):
1. [Before] I will instruct students to open to page 690 in their textbooks. I will tell them to scan the pages 690-691 and to scan the pictures illustrated on those pages and alongside the borders.
2. [During] We will then read the two pages aloud, as students take turns reading paragraphs I will instruct them to listen while their classmates read. I will also tell them to keep in mind the illustrations on the page and try to make connections while the text is being read.
3. I will pause throughout the book asking the students questions to make inferences about the illustrations and the paragraphs read.
4. [After] I will model how the graphic organizer should be filled out. I will project it on the elmo so students can follow along. I will fill out the first example of the graphic organizer. In the first column I will write…..In the second column I will write….. and in the third column I will write…..I will check their understanding by asking them to repeat what is expected of them and how should the graphic organizer be filled out. If the students do not grasp the concept I will proceed on modeling another example.
Active Involvement-Guided Practice (We try):
5. The students will then have an opportunity to turn and talk with a partner and analyze the illustrations, timelines and diagrams of the story El arbol eterno and then fill in another row on their graphic organizer.
Independent/partner activity/group activity/learning tasks (You try):
6. Once the students have got the gist of what is expected of them they will be divided into groups. There will be three sets of groups the green (high level students), yellow (mid-level students) and red (below level students).
7. Each student will have a job within their group such as a time keeper, person making sure each student talks, an editor, and a presenter.
8. I will come around to each group to explain to them what is expected of them for the text features analyzes graphic organizer. The students will also be handed an index card with the instructions to refer back to.
Share/Closure:
When the class has finished with the assignment, I will have the presenter of each group share out a response from their graphic organizer that they worked on in groups. I will also reiterate that analyzing visuals in a text help the reader grasp the material better. It also previews what one is going to read about. This can be essentially helpful when it is time to pick out a book for independent reading.