Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level/Subject:
Central Focus:
rd
3 Grade
Students will be using context clues and prior knowledge to
make inferences.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.1
Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the
answers.
Date submitted:
Date taught:
3/17/16
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.3
Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations,
or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the
sequence of events
Daily Lesson Objective:
Students should be able to make at least 3 out of 5 inferences about why they think a character
acted the way they did, or what they think might be coming up next in the book they are
reading, The Green Book.
21st Century Skills:
Academic Language Demand (Language Function and
Learning and Innovation SkillsVocabulary):
critical thinking
Inference
Students will use critical thinking
Predict
skills throughout the guided
Context
practice and the independent
practice.
Life and Career Skills- social skills
Throughout the lesson, students
will be collaborating together to
make inferences. This collaboration
will help build their social skills
they will need.
Prior Knowledge:
Prior to this lesson, students will need to understand the context of the book that they are
reading. They will also need to have some understanding about making inferences and
predictions.
Activity
1. Focus and Review

Description of Activities and Setting

Warm-up Activity (Act it out):
Gather students on the carpet.
Choose one or two students to act out an action randomly.
Have the remaining students to explain what they think that
they were acting the way they were. On the board, list out the

Time
10 mins

reasons the students come up with.

Have student(s) that was acting out explain why they chose
the action that they did. Explain to students that sometimes
we do not understand why a person acts in a certain way, a
lot like how we are not always sure why a character in a story
acts in a certain way. This is why, as readers, we need to be
able to use the skill called inference.

2. Statement of
Objective
for Student
3. Teacher Input

Now, we have been reading The Green Book, and up to this

point, we are half-way through Chapter 3. Turn and talk to
your neighbor about the last part of the book we read about.
Have a couple of students share their thinking. Today we are
going to be working on making inferences about why a
character in the story is acting the way that they are.
Today I am going to teach you how to make inferences, at
the end of the lesson, you will be making inferences about
The Green Book.
Turn and talk to your neighbor about what you think it means
to make an inference or to infer about something. Have a
couple students share their thinking.
Earlier, when you were trying to figure out why our friend
was acting out the way that they were, you were making
inferences. Raise your hand if you have ever heard the saying,
Reading between the lines. Well, that is exactly what we do
as readers when we make inferences. Since we cannot
directly ask a character why they did something, we have to
use what we know from the text and our prior knowledge to
make an inference. Sometimes, authors do not tell us directly
why a character is acting a certain way, however, we can find
this in the story, when we dig deeper and go beyond the
surface to find out what the author is implying.
Explain to students that we make inferences on a daily basis,
and often times, without thinking about it. Sometimes when
we make inferences about an event, we do not see, hear,
smell, feel or taste the actual event. Share the example
below:
Imagine you are sitting in your car stopped at a red light. You
hear screeching tires, then a loud crash and breaking glass.
You see nothing, but you infer that there has been a car
accident. We all know the sounds of screeching tires and a
crash. We know that these sounds almost always mean a car
accident. But there could be some other reason, and therefore
another explanation, for the sounds. Perhaps it was not an

2 mins

15 mins

4. Guided Practice

5. Independent
Practice

6. Assessment
Methods of
all
objectives/skills:

7. Closure

accident involving two moving vehicles. Maybe an angry

driver rammed a parked car. Or maybe someone played the
sound of a car crash from a recording. Making
inferences means choosing the most likely explanation from
the facts at hand.
Have students go back to their seats.
We are going to what we did earlier with the Act it Out
activity, except now, we are going to make inferences using
The Green Book. Listen carefully as I read aloud a previous
part of our story and get ready to make some inferences.
Read pg. 14-15 of The Green Book.
15 mins
Create a T-Chart. On one side write action, and on the other
side write inference.
On the action side, write arriving on Shine. Have students turn
and talk about how our characters in the story might have felt
when arriving on shine. Write students answers on the T-Chart
and have a discussion about their answers.
Independently students will use the T-Chart worksheet to
make at least 3 inferences about what they have read so far.
Just like the guided practice, students will write action one
side and inferences on the other side. Students can make
20 mins
inferences about what they think a character felt at a certain
point in the story, about why they think a character acted a
certain way, or what they think might happen next in the
story based on what has happened already.
The worksheet used in the Independent Practice will be used as the
assessment for the students. Students are to make at least three
inferences and write them in the T-Chart worksheet.
Gather students back on the carpet.
Have several students share some of the inferences they
made on their T-Chart. You can write these on the T-Chart that
was started in the Guided Practice. Have a couple of students
share one new thing they learned about making inferences
today.

8. Assessment
Results of
all
objectives/skills:
Targeted Students
Modifications/Accommodations:
Students that are hard of hearing and
visually impaired will be seated at the front
of the classroom so they can have a closer

5 mins

Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations:
If students are having a hard time during the
guided practice the teacher can add more
examples for practice. If multiple students are

view and have a closer range of sound.

Students that are English language learners
can have an English to their native
language (Spanish, Portuguese) dictionary
that will allow them to look up any unknown
words that they are not familiar with yet.
Gifted learners could be given the chance to
create another T-Chart on a book that they
are reading independently.

having a hard time, then the teacher may need to

revisit the teacher input section and find another
way to teach the strategy.
Also before the assessment the teacher can see if
students are struggling and if there are only a few,
the teacher can have small group instruction
before the assessment and if its more than seven
the teacher can conduct a mini lesson. If the
students are still struggling allow them to take the
assessment but use it as a way to see where
students are getting confused and revisit the way
the lesson was taught and conduct small groups
depending on the level each student is on with
understanding the strategy.

Materials/Technology:
The Green Book
T-Chart Worksheet
Smart Board
Smart Board PowerPoint (Attached below)

References:
https://betterlesson.com/community/lesson/20118/connecting-inferences-with-characters-actions
Reflection on lesson: