Differentiation Sample Lesson

Unit Title or Big Idea/Concept/Skill: Research/Persuasion

This lesson takes place in the first week of a three-week intensive research unit. Students in an 8th
grade Standards English Language Arts class will research a topic, read three articles, and write a
5-paragraph research/persuasive paper. Students chose between four topics and had to take a
stance for each topic, arguing yes or no. Students will be guided through each topic in small
groups directed by a teacher.
The topics include:
Should Cell Phones be allowed in schools?
Do video games negatively impact kids behavior?
Should students be assigned homework?
Are anti-bulling campaigns effects in schools?
Last class, students did a Graffiti Gallery Walk answering each question, explaining yes or
no. This gave students an opportunity to activate their background and experiment with each
question. Students also got to see other students responses and decide which topics they most
agree with or have the most persuasive reasons.
Lesson Title or focusing skill and/or concept:
Annotating Newspaper Articles/ Summary
Critical Learning Objectives being taught in this lesson:
Please number each of the objectives.
SWBAT:
Cognitive (know/understand):
1. Students will know how to carefully read and annotate an article for the main idea and
details.
2. Students will know that summarizing means to combine the main idea and details.
Affective (feel/value) and/or Non-Cognitive:
3. Students will understand that not everything in an article is important for your paper.
4. Students understand that close-reading takes time.
Performance (do):
5. Students will be able to summarize an article.
6. Students will be able to identify important words and ideas related to their research paper.
SOLs: [List with numbers portrayed in the SOL document]
8.6 The student will read, comprehend, and analyze a variety of nonfiction texts.
g) Identify the main idea.
h) Summarize the text identifying supporting details.
8.9 The student will apply knowledge of appropriate reference materials to produce a
research product.

a) Collect and synthesize information from multiple sources including online,

print and media.
CCSs: [List with numbers portrayed in the CCS document]
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.2

Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the
text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the
text.
Methods of Assessment:
[How will you know if the intended learning occurred?] List all methods of assessment used in
this lesson or which are related to this lesson and come in a future lesson. After each assessment,
indicate in brackets the number(s) of the related lesson objectives that the assessment is
evaluating.
Summary Activity - Students will write a summary based on key words we have found as
a class. This formative assessment will gauge how comfortable students are with
summaries to see if it needs to be revisited throughout the week.
o KUD 2, KUD 5
Newspaper Annotation - Over this lesson and the next day, teachers will work with small
groups of students to practice annotating an article and writing a summary. On
Wednesday, students will annotate their own article and write a summary on their own.
This will be assessed to check student development of the skill. It will go towards their
final assessment grade on their research paper.
o KUD 1, KUD 3, KUD 4, KUD 6
Procedures/Instructional Strategies
[Note: Any words that represent what I would say directly to students appear in italics.]
Beginning Room Arrangement:
[Changes in this arrangement that become necessary later will be noted in the plan]
Class will begin in a double u shape. For small group, students will move and desks and chairs to
form clusters around the teachers.
1. [_5__mins.] Do Now: Vocabulary Review
i. Students will choose two words from their vocabulary list. They can either
draw a picture that represents the words, or write a quick story that (2-3
sentences) that uses the words.
2. [_5_mins.] Summary Mini Lesson
i. Using a Presentation I made on Google Slides, I will quickly give students
an introduction to summary. The focus will be that Summary = Main Idea
+ Details, since last week we worked on Main Ideas.
ii. Students will have notes to use as resources and will fill in one or two
blanks on their scaffolded notes.
3. [_ 15_mins.] Summary Practice

i. Students will return to an article we started last week on Cell Phones in

Schools. Students will read the passage individually, looking for 5 key
words. I will write on the board that key words are things that are,
repeated often, related to the topic, explain an idea, a definition, or bolded.
Students will circle 5 key words as they read.
ii. When students finish reading, I will have a few students come up and
write their key words on the board. Then, students will have 5 minutes to
write a summary that uses those key words, as well as facts we found from
the article. Teachers will walk around assisting students.
4. [__3_mins.] Transition
i. Students will move desks and chairs to get into their research groups.
Students are in groups based on their research topics. One member of each
group will get the Research Folders for the rest of the group. Each students
needs to have their folders, a highlighter, and a pencil.
5. [_30_mins.] Read Article 1 - Small Groups
i. The teacher will read aloud the article to the small groups based on their
chosen topic. They will read the first time without taking any notes to get a
full picture of the article.
ii. The teacher will read aloud a second time, stopping to highlight and add
notes for important lines or key words.
1. Students will underline the authors opinion and circle or highlight
key words/facts.
2. Students are following along, having a dialogue with students,
asking questions, and taking information from research topic.
Because of the small group instructions, students will have a
chance to ask more questions.
iii. After reading, students will work on an article cover sheet which will
summarize the article, as well as note any evidence or details the
student could use in their research paper. Teacher will guide students
through this first cover sheet. The cover sheet will be stapled to the article
and kept in the research folders. One student will collect the research
folders and place them in the back of the room on the shelf.
Differentiated Instruction to accommodate one or more of my students:
Small Groups so students can receive more individualized instruction.
Summary guides can be blank or have sentences starters.
Students were grouped based on choice, so student could have power to choose a topic
and ownership over that topic throughout the process.
Materials List
List all the materials you will need to conduct this lesson. Please indicate how many of each you
will need if it is more than one.
Summary Handouts
Summary Notes
Highlighters

Newspaper Articles for Each Group - Homework, Cell Phones, Video Games, Bullying
(Block 2 Only)
Article Cover Sheets
Materials Appendix: (e.g., supplementary texts, Ppts, overheads, graphic organizers,
handouts, etc.)
Include all materials or links to those materials here.
Summary Presentation
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19k4-VNl08kIk8NuCDUMY8NbC1oaC5J5LvRtts4866M/edit?usp=sharing
Cell Phone Article for Full Class Instruction
o http://www.readworks.org/get/9475/passages-news-debate-tough-cell_files.pdf
Summary Activity
o https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxPdXblxMQxER0lXSTM1NmJweHM/view?
usp=sharing
SIRS DISCOVERER
o We are using this database as the source for the articles and research topics.
o The Sign-in is acps and schools
Homework Article 1:
http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com/discoweb/disco/do/article?
urn=urn:sirs:US;ARTICLE;ART;0000360764
Video Games Article 1:
http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com/discoweb/disco/do/article?
urn=urn:sirs:US;ARTICLE;ART;0000317918
Anti-Bullying Campaigns Article 1:
http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com/discoweb/disco/do/article?
urn=urn:sirs:US;ARTICLE;ART;0000360786
Cell Phones Article 1:
http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com/discoweb/disco/do/article?
urn=urn:sirs:US;ARTICLE;ART;0000368730