LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE SET Program

Teacher Candidate _________________Lisa White________________________________________________

Grade Level ____7____ Subject/Content:____English___________
Title ______Context Clues_________________________________
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS (e.g. ethnicity, gender, exceptionalities, ELL, GATE, etc.) which need
differentiation in instruction and assessment.
24 students, 15 male, 9 female
Ethnicity: White: __17____
Hispanic/Mexican: __7___ Native American: ___1__
Four students ESL, two of which are advanced. Spanish is an alternate language.
Eight students with an IEP. One student has cerebral palsy with low motor skills. Two students are emotionally
disturbed. One of these students can exhibit violent behaviors if pressured too much in the classroom. Others
have learning disabilities. To encourage equal participation in the classroom, the mentor teacher has created
notecards with each students name on them. The teacher can then shuffle the notecards and begin calling on
students to answer questions as their names come up on the cards.

WALK-AWAY (what do I want students to know, understand, and be

able to do?)
Include: Big Ideas/ Essential Questions
State Standard/Objectives
Language Standard 4
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning
words and phrases based on grade 7 reading and content, choosing
flexibly from a range of strategies.
Objective A. Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or
paragraph; a words position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the
meaning of a word or phrase.
Content Walk-Away: Unpacked Curriculum
Students will learn about skills needed to apply context clues to
unknown words to uncover their meaning.

Big Ideas
Using context clues will help me
understand a text better and help me
become a better reader.

Essential Questions
What words am I having trouble with in
this passage? How can I use context clues
to learn unknown words?

Reading/Language Content Walk-Away:

Same as content walk-away.

ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE (formative/summative checks for learning)

(Match the Content Walk-Away)

Modifications/Accommodations (ELL,

IEP, GATE, etc.)

Formative Evidence (checking for understanding throughout the lesson):

The slideshow presentation provides students with several slides where
they apply context clues to learn the meaning of unknown words. I will
use name cards to call on students at random to answer the question.
Content Walk-Away Evidence (Summative):
Students will complete a context clues worksheet where they refine the
definitions of the unknown words that they created in lesson four and
identify how they discovered the definition.
Students will write down a word they found using context clues and how
they knew the definition.
Language Walk-Away Evidence (Summative):

Some students will be hesitant to ask

questions if they are having difficulty
understanding the concept. If I suspect
that a student is not understanding, I
should privately meet with that student
during independent work time.
Some IEP students will not be able to
complete the worksheet in the time
allowed. Accept partially completed
work if the work shows evidence that the
student pair understands the concept.
Also review the students notecards to
ensure understanding.

*same as content walk-away

ACTIVE LEARNING PLAN

Modifications/
Accommodations
(ELL, IEP, GATE, etc.)

Activate Prior Knowledge/Experiences

I will remind students that yesterday we covered prefixes and suffixes and
used what we learned to add prefixes and suffixes to our vocabulary words.
I will explain that I have a worksheet of words they probably do not know
and they will use context clues by reading the article and using their
knowledge of prefixes and suffixes.
Focus Lesson (I do it)
I will begin with a slideshow presentation that states what context clues are
and provides examples of different types of context clues. The presentation
can be viewed at
https://docs.google.com/a/dmail.dixie.edu/presentation/d/1B8wiOG197sR
NkciBS7LzFgAWThKHgtbOhN4OvQ_RcEI/edit?usp=sharing
Guided Instruction (We do it)
The last few slides of the presentation will have some example sentences
with words that students should be unfamiliar with. Using the student name
cards, I will call on individual students to tell me what these unknown
words mean. If the student is struggling, his or her peers will be able to
help answer the question. .

Some students will be hesitant to ask

questions if they are having difficulty
understanding the concept. If I suspect
that a student is not understanding, I
should privately meet with that student
during independent work time.

Collaborative/Cooperative (You do it together)

I will then hand out the article that students are to read and the worksheet
of unknown words. I will explain that students are to write the definition of
the word based on the context of the article and a short statement that
explains which type of context clue was being used to find the definition.
They are also to use their handout from the day before to highlight prefixes
and suffixes. I will also explain that they are not to use the internet to find
these definitions; they are to rely on the context clues of the article.
However, they can look up definitions of the prefixes and suffixes if they
are not listed on their handout.

Some IEP students will not be able to

complete the worksheet in the time
allowed. Accept partially completed
work if the work shows evidence that
the student pair understands the
concept. Also review the students
notecards to ensure understanding.
ESL students may struggle with
difficult words in the science article.
Check for comprehension.

Independent (You do it alone)

Each student will be given a note card. On this card, they will write one of
the words that they defined on the worksheet, its definition, and how they
knew the definition using context clues.

Summarization/Closure
I will remind the student of our big idea and state that using context clues
will help us become better readers.
Revisit Essential Questions
I will use student cards to call on a student to say a word they did not know
and how they came to know its meaning.
NOTES TO TEACHER
What do I need to remember to do? prepare presentation slides, check that
technology is functioning properly, get notecards for students.
Materials to have ready? extra worksheets for absent or neglectful
students, presentation, student name cards
Approximate time needed for lesson? 87 minutes

REFLECTION AFTER LESSON

How can I use the assessment data to reflect on & evaluate the outcomes of teaching and learning? How can I transfer

what I learned from teaching this lesson to future teaching? What was effective and not effective? What goals can I set
to improve my practice and student learning?
The hardest part of this lesson was the war against technology. It was difficult for me to explain why students could not
just look up the definitions in their phones. I tried to explain that we will not always have access to the internet while
reading and that relying on context clues instead of the internet will save time. However, this was a difficult concept for
students who are hardwired to technology to understand. Some students even looked up definitions and neglected to
read the article. To combat this, I should have had some sort of accountability for students to show that they read the
article, such as annotating.
Another difficulty that I had was that very few students explained how they found the definition. I think this was a result
of the worksheet not having a specific spot for students to write that portion of the summative assessment. Another
struggle that I had was time. I ran out of time while students were working together to read the article and answer the
questions (those that did choose to read). I also had to have the students highlight and define prefixes and suffixes of the
words, which we did not have time to do the day before. Therefore, I did not pace the time well enough for them to write
on a notecard one word that they used context clues to find and how they found it, nor did I leave myself enough time to
sum up the lesson and review essential questions.
My ESL students also would have benefitted from hearing the article read aloud and following along. If I were to teach
this lesson in the future, I would read the article aloud to the class before they began working to aid my struggling
readers.