Jose!

Born to Dance by Susanna Reich Reading Lesson Plan In this reading lesson, my 4th grade class engaged in a read aloud of Jose! Born to Dance by Susanna Reich. We focused on character analysis since we were reading a narrative biography of Jose Limon, a renowned modern dancer. ur ob!ective was to describe the main character using specific details from the te"t. #any of my students struggled with using evidence from the te"t to support their answers so we wor$ed to identify Jose%s character traits by using character maps. ne of my priorities was using appropriate strategies to support &LLs. 'o guide vocabulary instruction I employed vocabulary cards with illustrations. 'hese are valuable for &LLs and non(&LLs ali$e, since they provide a visual aid for students to figure out the definition. Students also referred bac$ to the te"t and read the section where the word appeared in order to use conte"t clues to determine the meaning. )or these words, we also tal$ed about synonyms, different tenses, and other related words, which built on students% vocabulary. *nother tool that assisted &LLs with the open(ended +uestions were character map graphic organi,ers. -raphic organi,ers are great tools to help &LLs highlight and organi,e important information. .ifferent grouping strategies also benefitted all students. /esides whole class and seatwor$, small group discussions allowed students to tal$ to people at their team about different aspects of Jose Limon%s character. 'his was beneficial to &LLs who are not always comfortable spea$ing in a whole group setting. It was useful to have students tal$ to each other rather than !ust tal$ to me because it helped engage every student and gave them the opportunity to delve deeper into Jose%s character.

An aspect of the lesson I would change is the discussion of character traits. Although I attempted to explain the difference between character or personality traits and feelings, some students were still confused about the differences between these two. One of my students explained that character traits are something you are all the time and I reiterated that point, but during the lesson some students talked about Jose being happy and student 3s open ended !uestion incorrectly describes Jose as sad. I think the way the discussion was structured confused students because at the beginning, we were "umping between describing Jose as confident and daring. #or next time, I think I would need to be more ordered so that we "ust focus on one trait at a time. At another point, we described Jose as being proud, but students had a difficult time coming up with e$idence that supported this. It would also ha$e been helpful if I had asked students what each trait meant so that they would know how that trait would be exhibited in a character and thus know what e$idence would pro$e that particular trait. #or the future, I need to continue learning how to lead whole group discussions because they do need to be somewhat structured, but not so much so that it constricts the flow of the con$ersation. In future lessons, I want to focus more on learning how to gather details from the story since se$eral students were unable to pro$ide enough proof from the story for their responses. I think it would be helpful if we took some character traits and actually talked about how those traits can be displayed through actions and feelings. %y students need to make the explicit connection as to how a characters actions and feelings contribute to his or her character traits. O$erall, recording this lesson was $ery insightful because I was able to pinpoint aspects that worked as well as aspects that I can impro$e on in the future.