Courtney Downing & McKenzie Adams 10-11-18

Teaching Reading: Mini Lesson Format (Calkins, 2001)

Targeted Literacy Strategy or Skill: comparing & contrasting, synthesizing, inferring, determining
importance

Grade Level: 3rd

Objective: The students will be able to compare and contrast the differences in the two books. They will
infer why the author says things the way he/she does.

Oklahoma Academic Standard(s):

Standard 2:
3.2.R.1 Students will locate the main idea and key supporting details of a text or section of text.
3.2.R.2b Students will compare and contrast details ( e.g., plots or events, settings, and characters) to
discriminate genres.

Prior reading process knowledge: (Before lesson) What reading strategy or skill do the students
already know? What evidence supports this?

The students are familiar with identifying the main idea and are able to compare and contrast details.

Observations/Rationale: (Before lesson) What are the students ready to learn now? (This will be an
approximation this semester.)

I have noticed the students identifying the main ideas and are able to compare and contrast details in
stories, I feel like they are now ready to move on to nonfiction. They will use a chart to compare and
contrast the details provided by both authors.

Materials Needed

Lesson from (source, lesson title, pg. number): The Reading Strategies Book “What does the author
say? What do I say?” p. 231
Mentor Text: Sharkabet by Ray Troll and Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies illustrated by James
Croft
Materials: Notebook paper and pencil
Student Groups (whole/small group/partners): Whole group then partners
Mini Lesson Format: The words I will speak to students are in italics; I write as if I’m teaching them

 Connect (AKA~ Anticipatory Set, Engagement/Pre-reading): Yesterday we read the books

Suprising Sharks and A Sea of Sharks from A to Z Sharkabet. In these books different types of
sharks are described. We’ve been working on main idea and supporting details and also
comparing and contrasting in other books we’ve read. Today we will learn how to compare and
contrast two different books about sharks.

 Teach (Model/Explain) I just read these two books- Sharkabet by Ray Troll (2002)and
Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies (2003). From the two covers you are probably thinking,
“Yikes! Sharks are scary!” I thought the same thing at first. But then when I read, I noticed the
authors had slightly different ideas on how to get across the information. Davies starts out by
telling the reader that most sharks aren’t what we would expect. Not all sharks, are giant an
eating killers. They come in all shapes and sizes. They should probably be more afraid of humans
than we are of them. Davies makes you question if you should really be terrified of all sharks.
Troll’s book begins with some interesting facts about sharks. He describes each shark using the
alphabet and has few details. Some of his facts makes you think you should be scared of sharks.
For example, “Queensland Sawfish slash at their victims with saw-like snouts.” Troll does not
seem to care whether you are scared of them or not. If I look at these two different books on the
same topic, I can reflect on my own thinking about sharks. What do I think? From all the
information I learned about the books, I am more likely to agree with Davies book because his
words do not come across as harsh as the other book. I think he did a better job because we get
the information about the different sharks but we are not scared about how they can harm us. In
the end Davies does mention that sharks can kill us but they only kill about six people a years,
while people kill 100 million sharks a year! That is a major difference, they should be more
scared of us than we are of them.

Have students get out notebook paper and a pencil. We are going to make a chart with three
columns, one for the similarities of sharks, one for the differences of sharks and one column will
be our opinion on sharks. We will make the chart on the board together. Let me show you what I
mean.
We will need to identify the similarities and differences of both books that are important. I can
see from the cover of the books that Sharkabet looks scarier than Surprising Sharks. What are
some similarities you noticed while we read these books? Remember how both books gave
interesting shark facts. We can write that down in our first column. Now what is an important
difference in the books? Surprising Sharks gives a ratio at the end of the book telling us how
many people die each year from these attacks compared to how many sharks die from humans a
year. In my opinion sharks should be more scared of us than we are of them. We kill a lot more
of them than they kill of us. Have books out if students need a refresher.

 Active Engagement (AKA~ Check for Understanding: students try it out, teacher observes):
Now it’s time for you to practice what I just modeled on the board. Think about what we learned
about sharks from these two books. Write down three similarities and differences you noticed in
the first two columns. Form three of your own opinions of sharks in the third column as well.
 When you finish with your chart, discuss what you wrote down and compare it to your neighbors.
Walk around the classroom and make sure all the students are doing it correctly.

 Link (AKA~ Closing the Lesson [with accountability for the skill/process]) Today we’ve
learned how to compare and contrast two different books over the same topic. We also learned
how to form our own opinions on those topics. The compare and contrast chart is one tool that
can help you find similarities and differences that are important in books that you have read. In
the future you might use this as a way to be sure you understood what you are reading and how
the authors differ in giving you certain information.