Michelle Nguyen

Differentiated Lesson: Reading & Writing

1. Rationale: The students are continuing a unit about matter. The previous class, we talked about what matter is and its different states. This
will be our final lesson for this section of the unit about matter, specifically talking about how materials change into different states of matter.
a. Context: This will be for a second grade classroom and is part of their science curriculum of a unit on matter, specifically about
changing into different states of matter.
b. Content Standard: S.K2.PS.2-Essential Concept and/or Skill: Understand and apply knowledge of characteristics of liquids and
solids. Materials can exist in different states solid, liquid, and gas. Some common materials, such as water, can be changed from one
state to another by heating or cooling.
2. Relevant Student Factors:
a. Educational Background This lesson will take into account educational background. At the beginning of the year, the teacher should
have clearly discussed with the child and parent the classroom systems in place and what is expected from the student. For this lesson,
students prior knowledge will be gauged to see what is unknown and should be made aware to the student.
b. Immigrant and Refugee Status The lesson will take into account immigrant and refugee status as it does already take into account
educational background, cultural background, prior difficult experiences, etc. This is a point to have already gotten to know the
student and be aware of what things/
c. Cultural Background An example of when this may come up during the lesson is if a student gives an example of melting or freezing
about something that is specific to their culture and not mainstream American culture, to which I will try to create a climate of
understanding by showing students a video or picture of what that student is describing. The point is to not treat new things like they
are weird they are just new, or different. But once we learn to understand them, we can appreciate the difference.
d. Prior Difficult Experiences As mentioned for other relevant students factors, knowing the students backgrounds is crucial so that
you can be sensitive to them during the lesson. This lesson is a science lesson and the main examples are those examples that most
students should be familiar with and shouldnt find offensive, but even if they are not, there will be pictures and videos to provide the
experience. If it is the case that a student is not comfortable sharing answers, then that is alright as the student will not be called on
during this lesson if they are not comfortable sharing.
e. Age Taking into account their younger age and how I am not really able to draw upon as many life experiences as I could with older
children, the key for this lesson is to give them that prior experience. This is crucial to do before giving them academic vocabulary so
that they are probably less likely to mix up vocabulary as they will have a real-life context to place with it. This is what I have done
with the previous lesson as I had the students organize real objects. For this lesson, I will provide pictures of the objects that the
students describe and for most of the lesson, we will work with water as a main example.
f. Language Distance Knowing the students background languages is important because you can know to choose words that can be
similar to their native language (cognates) or at the very least, you can learn those words and translate it for the student so they can
understand. Knowing the language distance of a students native language to English allows you to create better scaffolding. For the
graphic organizers and presentations, I will allow for students to use their native language or will explicitly write the translation of a
word if the student does not understand what I am trying to teach.
g. Social Distance I will have taken into account social distance at the beginning of the year by discussing with the student and the
parents how the classroom environment would be, and how to make the student most comfortable in the classroom. For this specific

Michelle Nguyen
lesson, I will not call out the student if they are not comfortable answering and I will not have them do things that they are not capable
of (such as writing a definition of melting if they are a Level 1 student).
h. Psychological Distance This harks back to previous explanations I made to not make the student uncomfortable and make them
anxious by calling on them if they are not ready. I will ease anxieties by offering appropriate scaffolding and increasing their
motivation by offering enough scaffolding so that they can understand the meaning/intent of the lesson through the modeling within
the lesson and the hands-on activities.
3. Content Objectives: I will be able to explain or show how objects change their states of matter.
4. Language Objectives: I will be able to write my own story about an object changing its state of matter. I will be able to read-aloud my own
story using descriptive words.
5. Sequential Lesson Delivery & Descriptions:
a. Prior Knowledge: Start by reviewing what we had done in the previous class. What were some of the things we played with in the last
class? How did we group them? What are some other things that you know is a solid or a liquid? Why is something a solid? Why is
something a liquid?
i. Scaffolding: For ELL students, especially Level 1 and Level 2 students, allow them to use visuals/realia to help describe what
was done in the last class. The ELL students should feel comfortable as a system has been followed where the teacher will not
call upon the ELL student if he/she is not comfortable, but if the student wants to participate then the teacher will always
provide the proper supports for the student to explain himself/herself. For example, ask, Last class, which one was a solid?,
and show some of the items from the last class. The student can identify it and then ask, How? or Show me, to which the
student can knock on the object to show that its hard or if they choose not to answer, they can pass it to another student to
answer.
b. Read the content and language objectives. Ask the students, We talked about how some things are solids, and some things are liquids.
Can a solid turn into a liquid? Can a liquid turn into a solid? The classroom is organized into pods so have the students talk at their
tables. Go around and ask more higher-ordered questions such as, What do you need to do to turn [object name] into a liquid? Could
I do the same thing to [another object]?
c. After students have finished discussing, reconvene and ask students to share their answers. There will be a variety of answers given
and the following suggestions do not have to be done in the order theyre given, but when prompted do as suggested:
i. If a student gives an example of a solid becoming a liquid or vice versa, write them on the board in two columns.
ii. When students have given multiple examples, make sure that the examples written on the board are in two columns and that
one column has melting examples and the other has freezing examples. Then go back and add the vocabulary melting and
freezing above the columns of examples. Then in bold and big letters, write this state in both columns and have students
come up with a rule: A/An ____ becomes a _____ when it is _____. Have the students fill it in with their own words. Note
when to use a or an by explicitly saying that a is used with words that start with a consonant and an is used with words
that start with a vowel. This is also an opportunity for more explicit grammar instruction with ELL students, Level 1 to Level
3, about choosing appropriate articles.
iii. Hopefully students will come up with the rules A solid becomes a liquid when it is hot/warm and A liquid becomes a solid
when it is cold. Ask students to follow along reading the statements in their head as you read it aloud.
d. Move onto the interactive read-aloud where you will read a story to the students. As you are reading the story, tell the kids that they
need to pretend like they are the character in the story. The story is about an ice cube so using what we know about solids and liquids,

Michelle Nguyen
and melting and freezing, show with your bodies what ice cube does throughout the story. The parts where the students act it out are
highlighted.
e. Now for the last part of the lesson, students will write a story about how something changes from one state to another state of matter.
If they so choose, they can free-write it and add drawings if they wish. Highlight that it is important to add descriptions (adjectives),
words to explain whats happening like in the ice cube story. They can work with a partner to write their stories, but the stories must be
different. Afterwards, they will read and present their story to the class.
i. You can use the realia for this part of the lesson. Go to each table and bring an ice cube or some coconut oil or some butter and
have the students play with it. Ask them to describe how it changes. As they are doing that, they can write down those
descriptive words they used. If they cannot come up with the words, tell them some words like slick or slimy as they are
playing with the materials.
ii. If an ELL student wants to write a story with a partner, not using the template provided, they can do so. There will need to be
monitoring of their work to make sure that both students are doing their fair share.
iii. Different students will need different kinds of prompting. When going around and helping students with their stories, Level 1
or Level 2 students will need help finding specific words to which you can ask higher-ordered questions like, What else is like
[name of object]? Whats the feeling? Can you show me? whereas higher-ordered questions for a Level 3 or 4 which most
likely focus on story structure, like finding descriptive sentences so you could ask something like, Describe in words what
that would look like. How is that similar to the ice cube? How could you say it like how it is was said in our read-aloud?
Different leveled students need different higher-ordered questions.
iv. When the students share their stories, you can have the students choose to write down more descriptive words to their graphic
organizer as they hear their peers read the stories. You can end the lesson by asking for more words that were learned to
described the changes and different states of matter.
6. Supplementary Materials:
a. Realia: Ice cubes, butter, coconut oil.
b. Pictures: Printed off Google images of examples that the students might come up with like water, ice, snow, ice cream, butter, etc.
c. Writing materials: paper, pencil, coloring utensils.
d. Graphic organizers & templates (documents at the end)
7. Scaffolding for Levels 1-4 Throughout:
a. Level 1- All previous supports for Levels 2, 3 & 4 plus additional supports like acting how the changes of matter (like in the readaloud), bilingual dictionary, present to only teacher, use native language, and working with a partner.
b. Level 2- All previous supports for Levels 3 & 4, plus additional supports like phrasing in simple sentences, extensive visual support,
concentrating on meaning, draw instead of write, repetition of directions, and paraphrasing.
c. Level 3- All previous supports for Level 4, plus additional supports like the story-like sentence frames, books (like encyclopedias or
dictionaries) to find more words relative to an object), and internet to also research more information.
d. Level 4- Modeling with the read-aloud, sufficient wait time, rubrics, graphic organizer with descriptive words.

Michelle Nguyen

Story for Interactive Read-Aloud:

Once upon a time, there was an ice cube. This ice cube loved to be different. It liked
to change itself all of the time. How did it change itself? Well, he would sometimes
lie out in the hot, hot sun. And guess what happened to him? He melted. Yes, thats
right! He wasnt a solid anymore. He became a liquid. He did not have a shape
anymore. He flowed here and flowed there. He fit in all the cracks, no matter how
big or how small. He could really go anywhere as a liquid! But then, he wanted to go
back to his normal self. What did he do, you ask? What does a liquid need to do to
become solid again? He froze himself. He needed to find someplace that was not hot
but someplace that was cold. He needed to be stiff like ice again! So he waited till it
was winter, and found a nice hole that was square and waited. And soon, he was back
to his normal self! Now he couldnt fit in the small cracks anymore but at least he
had a shape now. As he was floating and relaxing in a cup of tea, he thought about
other things that could change like he could. Can you think of what other things melt
and freeze?
* Additional materials like pictures of ice, water, something to represent heat, and
something to represent cold will be used during the story to show what is happening for
Level 1 and 2 students.

Michelle Nguyen

Story Templates for Individual Stories

Sentence Frames for Level 1 & 2
My object is a ________.
When its hot, it (melts/freezes).
It feels _________.
It looks __________.
When its cold, it (melts/freezes).
It feels _________.
It looks __________.
It changes all of the time.
Sentence Frames for Level 3 (follows more of a story format)
Once upon a time, there was a ___________. Just like his friend, the ice cube,
this ________ liked to be different all of the time. Sometimes it would lie out in the
hot sun. When it did that, it would look _________. It would feel _______. It would
look _______. Sometimes, it would get very cold and __________. It would look
________. It would feel ________. Back and forth, it would change between being a
________ and a _________. *Student can add more to the story to make it
interesting.)

Michelle Nguyen

Words to Describe Solids

Words to Describe Liquids

Michelle Nguyen

Differentiated Assignment/Assessment (Listening & Speaking)

Level 1

Level 2

(Fairbairn & Jones-Vo, 2010, p. 116)

Level 3

Level 4

Language-based
Expectations:

Language-based
Expectations:

Language-based
Expectations:

Language-based
Expectations:

Reading:
Students will show how an
object changes it state of
matter by acting it out.

Reading:
Students will readaloud descriptions
about their object
and its states of
matter.

Reading:
Students will read-aloud
their story that they
created with sentence
frames.

Reading:
Students will read-aloud a
story about objects and
their states of matter.

Writing:
Students will describe the
changing states of matter
using sentence frames.

Writing:
Students will write
about an object an its
states of matter using
sentence frames.

Writing:
Students will write a
story about an object
using sentence frames.

Writing:
Students will write a story
about an object using
descriptive sentences, with
the help of a graphic
organizer.

Fully English Proficient

(Level 5 in Iowa)
Language-based
Expectations:
Reading:
Students will readaloud a story about
objects and their
states of matter.
Writing:
Students will write a
story about an object
using descriptive
sentences.

Standards-based Content/Topic (from the curriculum):

W.2.3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and
feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Scaffolding/Support:
All previous supports for
Levels 2, 3 & 4 plus
additional supports like
acting how the changes of
matter (like in the readaloud), bilingual dictionary,
present to only teacher, use
native language, and
working with a partner.

Scaffolding/Support:
All previous supports for
Levels 3 & 4, plus
additional supports like
phrasing in simple
sentences, extensive visual
support, concentrating on
meaning, draw instead of
write, repetition of
directions, and
paraphrasing.

Scaffolding/Support:
All previous supports
for Level 4, plus
additional supports like
the story-like sentence
frames, books (like
encyclopedias or
dictionaries) to find
more words relative to
an object), and internet
to also research more
information.

Scaffolding/Support:
All previous supports for
Level 5, plus additional
supports like graphic
organizer with descriptive
words and the realia.

Scaffolding/Support:
Rubrics/assignment sheets,
wait time, modeling

Source: Fairbairn, S., & Jones-Vo, S. (2010). Differentiating instruction and assessment for English language learners: A guide for K-12 teachers. Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing.