Lesson Planning Form for Accessible Instruction Calvin College Education Program

Teacher: Melissa Maiste

Subject/ Topic/ Theme: So Much Depends Upon

Date: Thursday, April 16th

Grade: 6

I. Objectives
How does this lesson connect to the unit plan?
This lesson will begin helping students learn to write poetry. Working on imitating a poem will be a good starting point for them, and as the unit continues they will
become more comfortable writing poetry and will work up to writing their own free verse with less guidance. This poem is also a good example of imagery, which
connects to figurative language. At the end of the day they will take a figurative language quiz that will connect back to what we have been doing since the start of the
unit.
cognitiveR U Ap An E C*

Learners will be able to:

Read a poem and state an opinion on it, giving reasons to support why they do or do not like the poem.
Read a poem and explain the theme or meaning of it.
Read a poem and then write their own poem imitating the style and themes of that poem.

physical
development

socioemotional

U An E
U An E
EC

Common Core standards (or GLCEs if not available in Common Core) addressed:
ELA RL.6.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band
proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
ELA W.6.3 Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to convey experiences and events.
ELA W.6.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a
day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
(Note: Write as many as needed. Indicate taxonomy levels and connections to applicable national or state standards. If an objective applies to particular learners
write the name(s) of the learner(s) to whom it applies.)
*remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create

II. Before you start

Identify prerequisite
knowledge and skills.

Students should have basic reading, writing, and comprehension skills. They should now know the
figurative language terms we have talked about well.
Pre-assessment (for learning):

None
Formative (for learning):

Outline assessment
activities
(applicable to this lesson)

What barriers might this

lesson present?
What will it take
neurodevelopmentally,
experientially,
emotionally, etc., for your
students to do this lesson?

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I will collect their poems at the end of the day to see how they did and check if there were any issues
any of them seemed to struggle with that I can address next time we write poetry.
Formative (as learning):

I will walk around as they are writing their poems and see how they are doing with this lesson, and
offer ideas or advice if they need it.
Summative (of learning):
At the end of the day, students will take a quiz on the figurative language terms they have worked with
for the past couple of lessons.
Provide Multiple Means of
Representation
Provide options for perceptionmaking information perceptible
Students will each have their own
copy of the poem so they can see it
visually and reread it as many times
as needed. We will also read it
aloud verbally for those who
perceive better that way.

Provide Multiple Means of

Action and Expression
Provide options for physical actionincrease options for interaction

Provide Multiple Means of

Engagement
Provide options for recruiting
interest- choice, relevance, value,
authenticity, minimize threats
Students will be writing a poem
about anything that has significance
to them, giving them a lot of choice
and allowing them to express
something that is relevant to their
world.

Provide options for language,

mathematical expressions, and
symbols- clarify & connect
language

Provide options for expression and

communication- increase medium
of expression

I will ask students questions

about the language of the poem
and together we will break it
down and clarify what it is the
poem is saying.
Provide options for comprehensionactivate, apply & highlight

Before we write, I will try to

ask students questions that
activate the areas of relevance
this poem could have to their
lives, and highlight the
important themes I want them
to understand.

Materials-what materials
(books, handouts, etc) do
you need for this lesson
and are they ready to
use?

Provide options for sustaining

effort and persistence- optimize
challenge, collaboration, masteryoriented feedback

As they work on their poems I

will be walking around
interacting with them and
encouraging them in their
writing.
Provide options for executive
functions- coordinate short & long
term goals, monitor progress, and
modify strategies

Provide options for self-regulationexpectations, personal skills and

strategies, self-assessment &
reflection

Handout of the poem The Red Wheelbarrow for each student.

Journals and writing utensils (students)
Figurative language quiz for each student

Students will be sitting at their desks in groups of 2-4, and will stay there for the class period.
How will your classroom
be set up for this lesson?

III. The Plan

Time

Components

9:30
Motivation
(opening/
introduction/
engagement)

Describe teacher activities

AND
student activities
for each component of the lesson. Include important higher order thinking questions and/or
prompts.

9:35

9:45

Development
(the largest
component or
main body of
the lesson)

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Tell students to get out their journals and

hand out the poem The Red
Wheelbarrow to each student. Ask one
student to read the poem aloud for the
group.
Give students 5 minutes to respond to the
poem independently in their journals.

Read The Red Wheelbarrow and

respond to the poem in their journals.

Ask if any students want to share what

they thought about the poem.
After they have shared some opinions, ask
them some questions and guide the
discussion toward the meaning of the
poem.
What figurative language device do you
see in this poem?
(Mainly imagery)
Why does the speaker mention chickens?
(Maybe they are on a farm)
So why would the wheelbarrow be useful

Share their opinions/thoughts on the

poem.

Participate in discussion as exemplified by

the parenthesis in the left column.

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to the speaker?
(For farming, carrying crops and etc.)
Is the wheelbarrow important to the
speaker? How can you tell?
(Look for them to identify the line where
the speaker says so much depends upon
the wheelbarrow.)
Talk about how this wheelbarrow was
important to him, and although the
wheelbarrow may not seem important to
us, we probably all have objects in our
lives that seem small and insignificant but
to us, so much depends upon them.
Encourage students to think about some of
these objects, and instruct them to write a
poem imitating The Red Wheelbarrow
but describing an object that is important
to them.
Read an example of this written by the
teacher.
Walk around and guide students as they
write. Some may need help choosing a
topic, a good sequence of questions to ask
would be What do you really like to do?
and then What do you need to do that
activity?
Collect the poems at the end to read and
give feedback and return later.

When all the poems have been collected,

give out the figurative language quiz.
When students have finished the quiz, tell
them they may read or work on something
else quietly for a few minutes.

Thank students for working hard on their

poems, and tell them that tomorrow we
will be doing more poetry writing with a
new type of poem! If there is time, ask if
any students would like to share their
poems with the class. If it is time to go,
dismiss them.

Think about objects that are important to

them, and then work on writing their own
poem.

Take the figurative language quiz, and

then work on something else silently until
the end of the period.

Listen.
Share their poems if there is time left and
they would like to share what they wrote
with the class.
Leave.

10:20
Closure
(conclusion,
culmination,
wrap-up)

Your reflection about the lesson, including evidence(s) of student learning and engagement, as well as ideas for improvement
for next time. (Write this after teaching the lesson, if you had a chance to teach it. If you did not teach this lesson, focus on the
process of preparing the lesson.)
This lesson went well, but there were some parts that could have gone better. When we discussed the poem, it was a little harder to
lead them to the answers than I had thought it would be, so I basically just ended up telling them what I thought the meaning of the
poem was. One of them did catch that the part about chickens may have meant they were on a farm without me even asking about
the chickens though, so that led nicely right into the discussion. The writing still went well; most students were very engaged in the
writing part of the lesson. Some of them wrote really awesome poems! If I could do this lesson again, I would emphasize more
clearly that I want them to write in the exact style of the poem we read, and model this style for them on the projector. (I did write an
example poem, but I just read it aloud to them because the projector wasnt on.) There were a couple of students who did not want to
participate in writing poetry, and were very hesitant. One student couldnt think of anything he wanted to write about and needed a
lot of pushing I ended up practically writing his poem for him. I am not sure how to get him engaged for the rest of the unit, but
hopefully I will figure out something that helps. Also, I did not actually give the quiz in the classroom because the students are doing
a vocabulary unit this week along with poetry and they took that quiz instead. But if I had given it, I anticipate that it was a fair quiz
and those who have been engaged in class and studied on their own would have done well.
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