Lesson Title: The Stranger - Noting Details Lesson Number: 2 Grade/Age Level: 4 Time: 10:45am Total Minutes: 90 STANDARD: Common Core State Standard (CCSS) 4.RL.10 By the end of the year, read and

comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 4-5 text

complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Common Curriculum Goal (CCG) Listen to and Read Informational and Narrative

Text: Listen to, read, and understand a wide variety of informational and narrative text

across the subject areas at school and on own, applying comprehension strategies as

needed.

Benchmark (BMK) EL.04.RE.07 Understand and draw upon a variety of

comprehension strategies as needed – re-reading, self-correcting, summarizing, class

and group discussions, generating and responding to essential questions, making

predictions, and comparing information from several sources.

Literacy Focus: Building student’s comprehension skills through noting details, as

well as monitoring and clarifying. Previous Assessment used to inform Lesson Objective: This lesson is drawn

from the Houghton Mifflin (HM) reading curriculum adopted by the school district.

Students have listened to a recording of “The Stranger” focusing on decoding the

meaning of the key vocabulary. This lesson focuses on comprehending the story. LESSON OBJECTIVE: Given a discussion about noting details and guided practice with extracting important

details, the student will be able to prioritize details from the story, as evidenced by a

completed practice page 212 in their student reading practice book to be scored as

follows:

Exceeded: The student has 9-10 out of 10 significant details noted

Met: The student has 6-8 out of 10 significant details noted

Not Met: The student has 5 or less significant details noted

Blooms Level: Evaluation/Evaluate

ADAPTATIONS: Addressing Learning Styles:

• Auditory - Instruction is given orally

• Visual - Teacher models how to fill out the practice page with students first

• Sociological - Students participate in whole group discussion as well as with

partners Structure of Lessons - At the carpet, students participate in a whole group discussion

about noting details as you read. The teacher models how to fill out the practice page

prior to sending students back to their seats to complete the graphic organizer in pairs.

Students return to the carpet to demonstrate their learning together as closure of the

lesson. Prerequisite Skills:

• Students have been introduced to the concept of noting details in previous

themes during the HM curriculum.

• Students know the routine of re-reading the anthologies with their reading partner

ESOL:

• All independent work is modeled by the teacher

• Students can work in pairs

TAG:

• This group has no TAG students

• If a TAG student were present, they would be expected to complete the practice

book page 212 independently

• Once finished with the practice page, they could apply that comprehension

strategy to a passage from the Ghosthunters book we are reading together

Special Needs:

• The comprehension skills practice packet is a guided activity involving the

teacher reading aloud the passage so struggling readers can focus on the

comprehension strategy rather than decoding the text.

• Students may work with partners to fill out the student practice book page 212

• MS & EC will work with Nana S. during independent work time

• Frequent check-ins with MS, AK, TM, & JR

Extension Activities:

• Students may work on student practice book page 213 to continue practicing

noting details.

Cultural Considerations:

• What some cultures consider to be real is different than what other cultures may

believe. Be aware of your student’s backgrounds and beliefs when it comes to

students making inferences in regards to who the stranger is.

MATERIALS: Teacher:

• HM Practice book pages 212 & 213

• Pen

• Anthology book for reference

• Student comprehension skills practice packet

• Highlighter

Use of Technology:

• Document camera (doc cam)

Student:

• HM anthology books

• HM Practice book pages 212 & 213

• Pencil

• Student comprehension skills practice packet

• Highlighter

ANTICIPATORY SET:

• Have students come to the carpet, and a copy of the anthology book open to

“The Stranger” under the doc cam.

• Select a student to read aloud the comprehension skill we started working on

yesterday.

• “How do writers add details to help us understand the story?”

• Discuss as a whole group the question; reference The Stranger as needed.

o Details can help the reader see, hear, and feel events in the story

o Details give the readers clues

o Determining which details are important helps the reader better

understand the story INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES: Input:

• Send students back to their seats, have a few students help to pass out the

comprehension skills packets, while a couple others hand out highlighters. Place

page of the packet under the doc camera.

• “What do you need to do before you read?”

o Read the title

o Read the questions and highlight important words in the questions

• Read the question aloud give students private think time to select a word to

highlight

o Have students share the words they highlighted

o Discuss why those words are important

• Read the passage aloud and highlight words that stand out to you or you are not

sure about their meaning

• Go through the questions discussing possible answers

o Dots next to possible answers

o X through wrong answers

o Circle correct answer

• Have a couple of students collect the packets, while a few others pass out the

anthology books. The rest of the students are getting out their practice books.

• “Open your anthology book to “The Stranger” and your practice book to page

212.

• Display the page 212 from the practice book on the doc cam. “What do you

notice about this page?”

o This type of graphic organizer is called a web map

o It focuses on the stranger and the weather because this is where you get

the most clues during the story

o It tells us what pages to find details on

o Each bubble is a different detail, some details are found on the same page

• “Notice that on the weather details web there is an important detail to be found

on the first page. Lets chorally read the first page of the story together and see if

we can find that detail.” page 302

• “What detail on this page is important about the weather?”

Output:

• I want you to re-read the entire story with your partner, and work on filling this

detail map out as you read. When you are finished, turn your practice book into

me.”

• Multiple intelligence(s) Addressed through Activity:

X Linguistic X Logical/Mathematical Intrapersonal

X Spatial Bodily Kinesthetic Naturalist

Musical X Interpersonal Existentialist

CLOSURE: Ask:

• Have students come to the carpet

• “What are some examples of some of the important details that you found today?

Were there any important details that you did not have to include on the practice

book page that you felt maybe should have been put on there?”

Tell:

• “Sometimes it is difficult to tell what is important and what is not, but that is part

of monitoring yourself while you read. This is an important skill to help you better

comprehend anything that you are reading.”

Celebrate:

• “Today you all did a wonderful job of analyzing what details were important to the

story you were reading!”

Record: See student work and score according to lesson objective.

REFLECTION: This lesson was more challenging for the students than I had anticipated. The

students were right there with me when it came to working on the comprehension

packets, but once I set them to work on the practice book page, they found picking out

the important details to be a challenge. In retrospect, modeling a detail for the stranger

may have been more helpful to the students than modeling a weather detail. I think

when it came to the stranger, the students weren’t sure what kind of details would be

important in regards to understanding the story as a whole.

At the beginning of this lesson I had a boy who announced rather proudly that he

believed the stranger was Father Nature. I asked him what brought him to this

conclusion, and he stated that it was because of the rabbits liking the stranger. Other

students helped to support his argument giving other details like the leaves changing

colors and the stranger’s inability to talk. Based on this conversation and the way that

the students performed on the comprehension packets I figured the practice book page

would be a breeze for them.

I feel like the struggle came from the fact that they knew what page to look at for

each expected detail, but there were no other obvious clues about what details were the

most important to understanding who the stranger was. With the comprehension

packets, the questions were multiple choice, so the students had answers to select

from. Without the obvious choices, the students were unsure of what was significant. I

found myself having several discussions about what kinds of details would be important

about the stranger.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I would model filling out a detail about the

stranger, making sure to employ “teacher talk” to let the students know I was selecting

that detail because it showed something odd or unusual about the stranger that might

help me figure out who he is. I feel that this little change would go far in helping the

students to select what details from the story are important.

Beyond the struggle with the practice book page, the lesson went very well. I made

sure to have the students turn and talk to a partner more so that everyone was

participating, as well as doing some dry calls after the partner talks to show the students

that I would hold them accountable.

I believe that my biggest learning was that simply because students can discuss an

idea does not mean they will be successful in putting their thoughts into a graphic

organizer. At least I know they were thinking about the story and making inferences

based on details from the conversation we had at the rug. This shows me that they have

the comprehension skill; they just need help organizing their thoughts on paper.

 

Image 3.2 Student Work Sample of Detail Map for “The Stranger”