Mini-lesson into Workshop

11/17/14
RATIONALE FOR THE LESSON:
This lesson is developed for students who are emergent readers (levels A-B) through transitional
readers (levels H-M.) The ranges in developmental reading patterns are vast so this lesson is
designed to try and meet the needs of all students in the class. I have been in the classroom for
about 10 weeks now. I able to identify more closely which students are lower and higher level
readers. I am trying to further develop this lesson to meet all ranges. The students have previously
been learning about what makes up a nonfiction book. They have been exposed to different text
features such as title, index, glossary, labels, captions, and table of contents to help them
understand nonfiction texts. I will be narrowing in on how captions are helpful when reading a
nonfiction book because they give us a clue as to what the author wants to tell us about the
pictures. I will teach the children to focus on real life photographs and illustrations and how
captions help us to understand these. In the future the students will be expected to understand
how a caption enhances a book and why we should look for captions to help us understand real
life pictures.

OUTCOMES/GOALS:
For the Student:
CCSS. RS.5.1
Know and use various text features (e.g., headings, table of contents, glossaries, electronic
menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.

For the Teacher:

WI Teaching Standard for Teacher Development and Licensure 1:
The teacher understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the disciplines he
or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter
meaningful to students.
- Performance: the teacher effectively uses multiple representations and explanations of
disciplinary concepts that capture key ideas and link them to students prior
understanding.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE:
The students will be able to identify real life photographs and use the text feature captions to
help them discover what the picture is teaching them.

ASSESSMENT:

Through this lesson I will use a variety of informal assessment to see if the children understand
my objective. During my demonstration I will be inviting the students in to answer questions.
During individual reading time I will be conferencing with students and keep an anecdotal note
sheet of the students who can use text features (captions in particular) to help them understand
real life photographs. The anecdotal note sheet will help me monitor which students can find
captions alone and which need assistance. The students will also be writing a caption on sticky
notes about one picture in their text. This will be my formal assessment portion that I will collect
from students. Then during partner reading I will be making marks on my anecdotal note sheet to
monitor which students are discussing with their partner what they wrote on their sticky note. I
will be assessing which students were able to create an appropriate caption for the picture they
selected any their reasons why.

STRATGIES FOR STUDENTS OF VARYING LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT AND

IDENTIFIED LEARNING NEEDS:
I will be creating an anchor chart for the visual learners. This will help remind students what a
caption is and its purpose in nonfiction texts. This anchor chart will tell students where they can
find captions, what captions are, and why we use them to support our reading. This will help
students who are struggling to find captions in their nonfiction books. I will be modeling how I
find captions in the books that I bring to the classroom. This will help guide students in figuring
out where to find captions. I will also be conferencing with students one on one to help them get
a better sense of my objective. I will be monitoring students during my demonstration to see
which students seem like they need a bit of extra help.

MATERIALS:
Anchor chart describing the term caption
Piranhas and Other Fish by Mary Schulte
Bobcats by Ann O. Squire
Veterinarians Help Animals by Carol Greene
Just-right book boxes

TOTAL TIME NEEDED: 45- 50 minutes

PROCEDURES:
Introduction: 5 minutes
Good morning boys and girls, I hope you had a great weekend. I would like you to join me
over by the ACTIVE Board because we are going to continue talking about nonfiction books. I
will encourage students who are sitting quietly and ready to listen. Who remembers learning
about non-fiction books? Who can tell me how you know if a book is non-fiction? This will
help the students recall on how they know a book is nonfiction. I will tell the students that
nonfiction books often use lots of different features to help us read and understand things about
real life. Sometimes, we can look at different features such as the title can anyone think of a
different feature Mrs. Korpal has been talking about?I will tell the students all features of a
nonfiction text help guide us through the book and that today we are going to discuss how to find
captions in nonfiction books. I will ask the students if anyone can tell me what this term means.
I will then explicitly state captions help readers find out more about real life photographs. We
can use captions to help us understand what is going on in the book.

Demonstration/Participation: 12-15 minutes

I will then pull out the anchor chart I created describing nonfiction books. This anchor chart will
have questions about captions. This will be good for beginning inquiry for the students.
- I will first start by telling the students again captions are small descriptions that are used
to help us find out more information about the photograph.
- I will then say, Photographs in nonfiction books help us learn about topics. Captions
help us figure out what is going on in real pictures and how we can turn to pictures to be
investigators about our topics. Now, boys and girls sometimes authors use real life
photographs in nonfiction texts. I will then hold up the Bobcat book and show them this.
Other times authors use diagrams ( what Mrs. Korpal talked about last week) to
represent what is going on in the book to help us understand.
- * I may add in captions help us capture what is going on in the picture. I will have the
students hold up a pretend camera to their face and say captions capture what is going
on in the picture.
- I will then hold up the Book, Bobcats again, to show that I know I will be learning about
Bobcats from the title and that there will probably be some real life photographs in this
book of Bobcats.
I will then place the book, Bobcats under the ACTIVE Board camera and use it to project
page 16. I will say , wow, I see a real photograph of a Bobcat running. I will talk about
how this page in the book gives us a description for what the animal is doing. I will read
the caption and talk about how I was able to then understand why the Bobcat was
running, he was hunting for food.
- I will then turn back to the anchor chart I created. I will ask the students What does this
caption do on this page? (What does it tell the reader?) I see a lot of clues on this page
as to what the Bobcat is doing looks like he has something in his mouth. Also, the
Bobcat is not just sitting in one place, his legs are sprawled and it looks like he is moving
quickly. It looks like he is in the woods. As you can see, captions give us DETAILS
of what is going on in the photo.
- If I didnt know what this caption said, and I was just looking at the photo for clues I
could make a prediction The Bobcat is running fast in the woods.
- I will then turn back to the anchor chart and look at the question where do we find
captions and discuss that captions are near the real life photograph to help us discover
something about the photograph.
- I will then ask the students to turn and talk about how captions help us to become a better
reader. By reading the captions we are able to see if what we were thinking about the
photograph is right. We can find out lots of information and understand what were
reading even more.
- Photographs are found throughout a nonfiction book so its likely that we will have lots
of information from the author about what is going on in these photographs. As readers
we should always be thinking about what is happening in these photographs.
- I will reinforce that captions help us to become better readers because it means we are
observing the book and noticing the small details to guide us. We are learning about the
world and real life experiences so its important to notice how photographs and
illustrations help us investigate and read captions to gain a better understanding.
- I will then put the book Piranhas under the camera. I will turn to page 17 and cover up
the caption. I will tell the class to ask themselves what the author might want us to know
about the photograph. I will encourage them to be thinking about where the fish is and
what it is doing and where it is.
- I will call upon a couple students that can create a caption for the picture
- I will reveal the caption, Clownfish live in the ocean.
- We will have a discussion about this page in the book and how we used the caption to
further our knowledge about clownfish ( AKA finding Nemo)

I will then discuss that when the children are with their book boxes they are going to be
looking for a photo in their books to create THEIR OWN caption. I will model I could
write down on my post-it note, fish needs gills to be able to breath underwater. If I
were with my book box, I would put the sticky note right on the page by the photo. I
will encourage the children that when they are creating their post it notes they should be
using real information about the photograph.
I will restate like we created captions for the clownfish, youre going to be creating a
caption for a picture you find in your books. Remember, captions tell us realistic
information about the photographs.
I will briefly go over a book that isnt so specific with captions. The book is the
Veterinarians Help Animals. This is a nonfiction book; however it doesnt have captions
like the kind I used in my demonstration. Many students (especially the lower level
students) will have books without specific captions. I will use this book to model that the
author shows the photograph and then explains what is happening in the text below. I will
instruct students that they may have this in their just right book boxes, and that this could
be used as a form of a caption. I will say as readers it is good to notice what books are
saying about photos because it helps us to understand. I will specifically place the last
page under the camera and model this.
I will then instruct the students about what they will be doing in workshop. I will tell the
students that once they get their book boxes, they will use a just-right nonfiction book to
start investigating captions. I will tell them to notice other text features they have been
learning about, but to really be looking at how the photos tell us what is going on.
I will tell the children that I will be giving them each a sticky note on their desk. I will
encourage them not to play with the sticky notes, just to use them to write one caption
that they created from a photo. I will tell them that once they are done with the sticky
they should put it on the page that they found the photo and continue reading. I will tell
them they will be sharing these later with their partners. (Like I did with the clown fish
example.)
I will call the students off by their book box colors.
While they are getting settled in I while place a post it note on each desk.

Practice/Performance: 30 minutes

After students are with their just right book boxes I will be conferencing one on one with
them. Students will be using their just right book boxes to read nonfiction texts. They will
first have to find real life photographs in their books, and investigate to find out what is
happening in that picture (find the captions.) The students will continue to read and
practice paying attention to captions to help them figure out more about the photograph in
relation to the book.
While the students are getting settled in I will place one sticky on each desk, again
encouraging them to use it for one caption, and then continuing to read.
After the students have read in their book boxes for about 15 minutes I will say
everybody listen Then I will tell the students that those who have not yet completed
their own caption only have 5 minutes left.
I will then say Simon says.. I will instruct the students that they will now be getting
with their partners to talk about what they wrote on their sticky note. I will encourage
them to tell their partner what they wrote and why. How did this help them understand
their picture better? I will encourage them to show one another the actual photo in the
book.
I will the call the children off to meet with their partners.

When the students are with their partners I will be watching to see who is performing the
objective/skill. The students will be able to share with their partner a caption they wrote
and how it helped them to understand the real life photograph.

Closure/Recap: 2 minutes
I will say Simon says I will briefly discuss the good things I saw the students doing. I may
even ask some students to share their captions. I will encourage students to pay attention to
captions to help them discover meaning of a picture or even what the book is telling us. I will
encourage the students to use the text feature captions to discover what the real life photograph
is teaching us. I will tell the students that good readers make observations and predictions just by
looking at photos, and that captions help us to focus our thinking. I will thank the students for
their time. I will call students off by book box color and ask them to hand me their sticky notes
before putting their boxes away.