Overview of

Lesson

The five elements of a Short Story

Description
of Learners

There are 25 students in the class

The class consists of 6th and 7th grade students between the ages 12-14.
There are 13 boys and 12 girls in the classroom.
These students have had 2-3 years of English classwork with low to
moderately low speaking and understanding abilities.
There is one whiteboard available in classroom.
Projector and internet accessible to the teacher and students.

Intended
Learning
Goals

Students should be able to identify and successfully use the five elements of
a short story:
o Plot
o Character
o Conflict
o Theme
o Setting

Lesson
Content

The teacher will show a video clip of a educational rap about the five
elements
The teacher will read a story to the students for about eight minutes.
The teacher and the students together will identifying the five elements of
the story we read
Students will write their own short story and share with a partner
Short quiz on matching the 5 elements

Learning
Objectives

Standards

Given the description of the five elements in the educational Youtube rap
video, students will be able to identify what the five elements and what they
are from the story we read together.
Given the short story the teacher has read, the students will be able to
identify the five elements and summarize them within two to three
sentences.
Given the previously learned elements, students will be able to successfully
match the descriptions of the elements to their terms.
Given the assistance of the informational video and the class discussion
work, the students will be able to write a short story using the five elements
within ten minutes.
Listening and Speaking
o ELL I-V
The students will
express orally his or her own thinking and ideas
(ELL-L&S-1)

Writing
o ELL I

Procedures

The students will

express in writing his or her own thinking and ideas
(ELL-W-1)
identify, describe, and apply conventions
of Standard English in his or her communications
(ELL-W-2)

Reading
o ELL I

Required
Materials

identify, describe, and apply conventions of Standard

English in his or her communications (ELL-L&S-2)
listen actively to the ideas of others in order to
acquire new knowledge (ELL-L&S-3)

The students will

demonstrate understanding of print concepts of the
English language (ELL-R-1)
identify and manipulate the sounds of the English
language and decode words, using knowledge of
phonics, syllabication, and word parts (ELL-R-2)
acquire English language vocabulary and use it in
relevant contexts (ELL-R-3)
analyze text for expression, enjoyment and response
to other related content areas (ELL-R-5)

The teacher will need a projector and internet access in the classroom.
The teacher will need a whiteboard.
The teacher will need to have a short story book.
The lesson will need standard classroom materials (paper, pencil,
highlighters, etc.) are required.
At the end there is a matching quiz is required.
Explanation
o Show the students an informational video on the 5 elements of a
story
https://www.flocabulary.com/fivethings/
o After the video the teacher will review and explain again to the
students to make sure they understand the concept of all five
concepts
Demonstration
o The teacher will read a short story to the students.
o Following, the teacher should have the students identify the five key
elements in the aforementioned story and write them on the
whiteboard and explain why they are what they are.
Individual

o
o

Group
o
o

Assessment

References
Reference
Materials

Have the students take a matching quiz over the 5 elements on their
own
Next have the students write their own short stories.
When the student is done with their stories, have them trade with
another student.
The partner student will then highlight the five elements in the story
as they read reading it.

The students will turn in the stories to the teacher that they wrote and grade
the stories to make sure that they included all the five elements of a short
story.
The students will individually complete a matching quiz to show they can
match each element with its description.

Donald, F., & Richards, J. (1996). Teacher Decision Making in the Adult ESL
Classroom. Teacher Learning in Language Teaching (pp. 197-216).
Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Press Syndicate of the University of
Cambridge.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bMzxRKupZUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA109&dq=first+time+teaching+english+experie
nce&ots=qUCx0eAvOP&sig=Iy6awelzcPE2JoD70JZq0JfZdow#v=onepag
e&q&f=false

This is our assessment.

Match the following terms to their definitions:
A.) Plot
B.) Setting
C.) Character
D.) Conflict
E.) Theme
1.) _________________ - a series of events and character actions that relate to the central
conflict.
2.) _________________-a person, or sometimes even an animal, who takes part in the action
of a short story or other literary work.

3.) _________________-the time and place in which it happens. Authors often use
descriptions of landscape, scenery, buildings, seasons or weather to provide a strong
sense of setting.
4.) _________________-is the central idea or belief in a short story.

5.) _________________-a struggle between two people or things in a short story. The main
character is usually on one side.
Now write your own short story with a partner and highlight the five elements of the story.
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Here are the two summaries of the two sources.

Donald, F., & Richards, J. (1996). Teacher Decision Making in the Adult ESL Classroom.
Teacher Learning in Language Teaching (pp. 197-216). Cambridge, United Kingdom:
The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
This summary is in regards to the book edited by Donald and Richards, entitled Teacher
Learning in Language Teaching, specifically, chapter 9, Teacher Decision Making in the Adult
ESL Classroom. In this chapter, they discuss a study they conducted. This study is from the
perspective of the teachers, which the authors rave about because at this time there are not many
other studies from the teachers perspectives. The first part talks about what goes into making
decisions for lessons, which directly affects lesson plans. It talks about the pre-active factors
such as the teachers beliefs about teaching and learning and their perceptions of the instructional
task and context. It also talks about planning decisions such as the curriculum level or the
institution and setting. It then talks about the structuring of lesson tasks and participation.
Examples of this are the accuracy of the students language learning focus, the type of tasks at
hand, and the time frame allotted for said tasks. The next part of the study involved interviewing
9 teachers in order to get data to fill the aforementioned sections of that which lead to decisionmaking. The next section was about the procedures that were used to analyze the data. The final
part of this was the findings. They found that teacher beliefs about language teaching and
learning a second language were the main factor in making lesson plan decisions. They said that
each teachers teaching style differed, but they all were based off of and related to the teachers
beliefs about teaching ESL and also what they have come to find works well when teaching ESL.
It says this affected how they made lesson plans but also the approach they took to teaching said
lessons.
Kroll, B. (1990). Second language writing: research insights for the classroom. Cambridge
England: Cambridge University Press.
Second Language talks about the composition, developments, issues, and directions in ESL. The
author also shares her experienced in teaching English as a second language to students. Barbara,
the author states that it is difficult to teach students who have limited understanding in English
because she also had to pick up on Spanish. She had to be familiar with the students' language
equally as English so she could translate the information she teaches. Patience is also another key
aspect when teaching English to students because every student learns at a different pace. The
relationship between reading and writing go hand in hand. To teach students how to pronounce
words in English also requires them to write it out which can also be extremely difficult for
certain students.

Here are the four links to our Weebly pages.

http://allystein43.weebly.com/blog (It is down before the Web 2.0 posts)
http://sarali95.weebly.com
mlkroegeedci270@weebly.com