Your name: Kate Greenfield

Elementary Inclusive Preservice Program Lesson Plan

Lesson title: Reading Coming up With the Whole Book Idea
Grade/age level: second/6-7
Date (intended teaching date): October 10, 2013


Learning Objective(s)
What do you want students
to know, understand, or be
able to do as a result of this
lesson?


Students should learn that although books use characters and story to teach a
specific lesson related to the story, that lesson can be interpreted and applied to
other circumstances as a general life lesson.
Evidence for
assessment
Where will you look
(product, performance,
documentation you create,
etc.) for signs of student
learning?
What will you look for?
What are your criteria?
(examples of statements or
actions that would show the
particular kinds of
understandings, learnings,
&/or skills you are after?)

After I model the thought process of how I go from thinking about the specific
lesson, to the general lesson of a book using a story they are already familiar with, I
will ask them if they can do the same using another book. I will call on some
students with raised hands, and others who tend not to participate. When I call on
those students who do not typically participate, if they dont come up with an
answer right away or seem uncomfortable, I will provide hints about what the
meaning is.
I will also have them make post it notes in books when they are working
independently, and so will move around the class while they are reading to see what
they write down.
Rationale
Why are you teaching this
lesson? What connections
does it have to standards?
Does it connect to students
interests, strengths, and
needs?


This lesson has value because it contextualizes an individual book within students
life experiences, and within the broader context of other books. For example, if a
student takes away that the general message of a book is that they should be brave
and stick up for other people, they may connect the value of this story to real life,
and may be more likely to act in this manner. Similarly, if they connect that this
message is similar to messages in other books, they can begin to see that there are
many different ways of telling similar stories. This can aid them in understanding
other texts, if they can apply strategies for decoding that they learned from the first
text. It is also an introductory way to begin working on the concept of abstraction,
which will assist them in more complex books.
It fits students need to see connections between what they are learning in school,
and values for how to participate in daily life.
It relates to, and builds on the standard that requires that students Identify the main
purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe

Prerequisite Knowledge
What prior knowledge are
you counting on? Will this be
a problem for any of your
students and if so, what will
you do?


I expect that students will recall the two stories I will be using as examples (The
Big Orange Splot and Officer Buckle and Gloria), and be able to extrapolate from
that, the specific lesson of each. If there are any students who dont recall the story,
or arent able to figure out the lesson, they will be able to participate, because we
will review the plots of each, and I will model my thinking for the specific and
general plot of one.
Learning Experience
In each section below, specify the sequence of instructional activities.
Consider how you will manage materials, bodies, and time. Use small
boxes to indicate time.
Assessment
What will you look/listen to/for?
Starting It
How will you invite students
into the learning experience?



I. Connection
Students will come to the rug, and I will
begin by saying that I just finished
reading a book, which was about a
brother and a sister who get
in a fight, because the sister
thought that the brother didnt want her to
be on his football team. At the end, they
end up on the same team, and won the
game because they practiced together.
I thought about how it was a good lesson,
that they were able to win because they
both were good at football, and played
well together.
Then I was thinking that maybe the
author was trying to teach a lesson that
was about more than a football game, that
maybe she was trying to teach me a big
life lesson.
I will see who is paying attention by who
is looking in my direction and/or facing
me
Doing It
Outline your sequence of
instructional moves including
participation structures,
materials, intellectual
resources, and time allotted.
Is there a product or
performance you will be
expecting students to
create?
II. Teaching Point
I will say that the lessons in books dont
just apply only to the story they come
from, but can often be used to apply to
other stories or to real life. That we can
come up with a Whole Book Idea in
which the author is telling us something
important (write Whole Book Idea on the
whiteboard). An idea like this will often
start with the sentence, A person
I will be looking for students to be able to
connect that Officer Buckle and Glorias
Whole Book Idea is that people work
better when they are working together,
helping each other out. I can assess this
with the turn and talk, and when I call on
students to tell me what they think the
whole book idea is

1 min
should or Its important that and
then you fill in the end of the sentence
with something the author thinks it is
important that you know (Write A
person should, People should
on the white board).

III. Model
Ill model this practice using the Big
Orange Splot.
First I will quickly recount the plot, in
which Mr. Plumbean had a big orange
splot on his house, and his neighbors
wanted him to change it, but instead he
made it look like his dreams. Then when
his neighbors would go to speak to him
about painting it so it looked the same as
everyone elses, to make a neat street,
instead theyd change their houses to
look like their dreams.
The specific lesson of the story is that at
first, Mr. Plumbeans neighbors wanted
to have a neat street, and so wanted Mr.
Plumbean to paint his house to look like
everyone elses. But then after talking to
him, they realized they wanted their
houses to look like their dreams, which
looked like ships, and palaces, and hot air
balloons.
I will model asking myself: Is the Whole
Book Idea that people should be able to
paint their houses whatever color they
want? No
Then what is the Whole Book Idea?
What are things I can think about to
figure out what the authors Whole Book
Idea is?

Show evolution of thinking:
-First I noticed that Mr. Plumbean wanted
his house to be different than his
neighbors, even though they wanted him
to be the same
-Then I thought about how we have
talked in class about how being different
is really great, and how we should learn
about each other because we are all
different and thats what makes us
interesting.
-Then I thought about other books where
characters are different, like The Story of
Ferdinand
In the book, Mr. Plumbeans
neighbors at first say that everyones
houses should look the same. So maybe
the Whole Book Idea isnt just that its
okay for a house to look different, maybe
it is that its okay for a person to be
different, or look different, or like
different things
A person should.be allowed to be
different

IV. Active Engagement

After modeling this type of thinking, I
will say that together we are going to try
to figure out the Whole Book Idea of
Officer Buckle and Gloria, but first I will
refresh their memories, by giving a 5
finger retell.
First Officer Buckle spoke to students at
Napville school about safety, but they
didnt really listen.
Next, he got a partner dog named Gloria,
who did fun tricks when he spoke to
students about safety so the students
started to listen more
Then, Officer Buckle thought that people
were only paying attention to Gloria, and
so didnt want to talk about safety
anymore
After that, Gloria went to the school for
the safety speech, but didnt do anything
(because dogs cant talk), and the
students didnt listen and had a very
unsafe day
Finally, Officer Buckle and Gloria went
back to giving talks about safety together

Ill ask, what was the authors specific
lesson? (That Officer Buckle and Gloria
worked best as a team, and not very well
when it was just the two of them.)

What is the Whole Book Idea?
If the students have trouble getting
started, Ill start by remembering that
-Officer Buckle had a hard time getting
students to listen to him when he spoke to
students at Napville School by himself,
but when Gloria became his partner, the
students paid attention
-When Officer Buckle wouldnt go to the
school and it was just Gloria, the students
didnt pay attention either.
-I wonder if it has something to do with
partners.In kindergarten and first grade
we had reading buddies, and now we
have line partners

At this point, Ill ask the students to think
about how they think this information
might be related to the Whole Book
Ideaand to turn and talk to their
neighbor about what they think the
Whole Book Idea might be

Then we will talk about how the
Whole Book Idea is that people can help
each other out when they work together,
and that when they work together, they
do better than when they are on their own
People shouldwork

10-15min

together to do their best
work.
V. Independent Work
Students will then be instructed to pick a
book from a basket of short books I have
pre-selected, and take post its and a
pencil to their reading spot. After they
finish their book, they should make post
it notes with what they think the specific
lesson of the book is, what the Whole
Book Idea is, and why. If they finish
their book and post it, they should go
back and make more post it notes for the
other reader tools we have talked about,
like places in the book that surprised
them, or made them predict, or made
them laugh.
I will put a list of tasks they should be
doing on the whiteboard to remind them.

Mini Lesson
During the time when the students are
working independently, I will convene
with a small group of 4-5 students who
are at lower reading levels. I will re-
teach them the lesson Colette taught them
in September in which they stop every 5
pages to reflect on what they have
learned.
I will remind them that when we read, it
is important to pause and reflect, to think
about what we have learned while we are
reading. I will give examples of things
that strong readers think about when they
pause and reflect, such as asking
-Who are the characters?
-Whats happened in the plot so far?
I will model this activity, by picking a
book to read to them. First, I will count 5
pages from the beginning, and put a book
mark in to remind myself to stop. Then I
will read 5 pages aloud to them, then stop
and ask myself these questions. Ill
answer the questions, making sure to look
back over the 5 pages to show them
where I found the answers in the story, to
demonstrate the importance of being able
to use clues from the text.
Also, now that we are stronger readers,
we can use post its to write down the
answers to these questions.
I then count ahead another 5 pages, put
the bookmark in again, and repeat the
process.
Students will be instructed to do this 3
times.
Debrief
We will debrief after 15 minutes, and
they will give me examples of what they
wrote on their post its. We will talk
about how writing down facts about
characters and events helps to clarify
what is important, and to remember it
later.
The small group will now be instructed to
try the Whole Book Idea activity that the
rest of the class is doing.





30 min
mins


Finishing It
How will you bring students
to closure with this learning
experience and connect it to
future learning?



VI. Debrief
At the end of the lesson, I
will call the students back to the rug, and
ask volunteers to give examples of Whole
Book Ideas that they found in their book.
After a few examples, Ill ask why its
important to find the Whole Book Idea. I
will explain that I can use what I learned
in this lesson to make me a stronger
reader. It will allow me to make
connections between what I read in books
to my life, like the book I read about the
brother and sister, and connections to
other books. I will say that I can now
remember whenever I read a book to ask
myself, what is the books Whole Book
Idea?

Accessibility
What accessibility and
participation challenges have
you taken into account and
how have you addressed
them? (material and human
resources, sequence of
instruction)
For students who have a hard time performing the work of abstracting the lesson of
Officer Buckle, I can seed their thinking by giving them ideas of what is
important in the book, such as noticing how well Officer Buckle and Gloria worked
together.
Materials Needed

Officer Buckle and Gloria, The Big Orange Splot, Whiteboard, 28 short fiction
books, post its




5 min
mins