Lesson Plan – Final ProjectED 6050Laura Lloyd April 1, 20116th Grade Language Arts

Missouri Grade Level Expectations Show-Me Standards, Communication Arts

Essential Understanding

Today’s lesson is an introduction to a five-week Language Arts unit on the novel Grayson, written by Lynne Cox in 2006. This charming, heartfelt and highly visual 146-page novel was originally written with an adult audience in mind. As word of the book spread, however, teachers discovered that children in the primary grades enjoyed Grayson being read to them. The simple, yet descriptive, story of a baby gray whale’s separation from its mother off the coast of California resonated with young children. Middle-school students who could read independently were able to relate to both the scientific and environmental elements of Grayson, as well as identifying with the courageous and independent teenaged girl who helps the baby whale become reunited with its mother.

Because of the near universal-praise for the book and its ability to engage readers on different levels, I have chosen Grayson to be the focal point for a group of lessons that will use best-practice strategies to strengthen reading, writing and vocabulary skills of a hypothetical class of middle-schoolers. While I am not currently in the classroom and therefore cannot supply student work as illustrations of the results of my lesson plans, I hope they will be solid enough to offer reasonable assurance of their success.

Grayson captivated me as a reader. The lush, aquatic imagery stimulated a great deal of mental image-making on my part. I could imagine photographs, movies and paintings made from Cox’s sensory writing. The graceful way she wove in scientific facts about whales and other marine life into an exciting piece of fiction was masterful.

Grayson offers opportunities to use reading strategies for both fiction and non-fiction. There is rich general vocabulary as well as many scientific terms to be processed by young readers

Finally, writers will be inspired by Cox’s ability to paint vivid pictures in words and to develop sympathetic, three-dimensional characters that elicit emotions. She is a master at inspiring wonder and questions. Creative writing, in the form of biopoems and RAFTs, as well as other types of exercises, is a natural outgrowth of reading Grayson.

For these reasons, it suits the final project in ED 6050.

Let us begin, on the first day of April, the month when gray whales begin their annual trek to Alaska and the events of Grayson take place. By early May, students in the sixth grade will have made their own journey through reading, writing and vocabulary activities that should strengthen their own literacy, as well as their enjoyment of a good book. LESSON 1: Friday, April 1—50 minute class

Objectives The goals for this lesson are to get the students in an “aquatic mood”, .thinking about the ocean and marine life when they might not have for a long time, as well as activate their schema and prior knowledge about topics such as whales, California, swimming and ocean environments.

Assessments The formative assessments will be the teacher’s informal judgments about what the students generally know about the subjects dealt with in Grayson.She expects students to have some foundations of knowledge about the ocean and whales from previous science classes. A few students may have visited the ocean. There will probably be big gaps in their knowledge. For instance, do the students remember that whales are mammals that drink their mothers’ milk as babies?

Engagement

Passive and active engagement activities will be used in the introductory lesson. Books with color pictures about whales and the ocean can be passed around during some discussion time, in which the teacher will casually explore students’ prior knowledge, perhaps asking who has been to the ocean and what their experiences have been. A short discussion of whale watching would be appropriate, as well. If technology is available, students might see a short clip of “Whale Rider”, the movie, or a documentary about whales. The idea is to get students thinking about ocean life and whales. About halfway through the period, students will be asked to start brainstorming on paper cut out in the shape of a fish about everything they know about whales. Some of these will go up on a bulletin board and stay there throughout the Grayson unit.

Lesson Procedure

Students will be exposed to photos, paintings and other art works depicting whales. They will view clips of a movie or documentary about whales. They will engage in class discussion, in which the teacher calls on individual students, to share their prior knowledge and schema about whales and the ocean. Finally, they will brainstorm on the subject, writing what they know on gray sheets of construction paper.

Closure The teacher will hand out copies of Grayson and tell the students they will be reading an exciting story about a baby whale for the next few weeks. They will be assigned pp. 1-6

to read over the weekend. Their homework assignment is to come in with a question about what they read—an Admit Slip—for Monday.

Materials

DVD, television, photograph books from the library about the ocean, 20 copies of Grayson, no.2 pencils, 25 sheets of gray, fish-shaped construction paper.

Lesson One

New Reading strategies:

Activating prior knowledgeBrainstorming

LESSON 2 –Monday, April 4, pp. 1-6 –50 minute class

Missouri Grade Level Expectation

Essential Understanding: The first six pages deal mostly with Lynne, the author, who is in real-life a long-distance swimmer who has swum the 23-mile English Channel in her career. In this story, she is 17 and in the Pacific Ocean. She is using her detailed real-life experience to create a piece of believable fiction. She encounters exciting forms of fish life, but not yet the whale. Her prose blends beautiful writing and scientific terms related to the weather and to the ocean. Students will have to get comfortable with the vocabulary to get the most out of the story.

Objectives: In addition to collecting students’admit slips, the purpose of today’s lesson is to start appropriating some of the vocabulary in this book. There are both general vocabulary words and aquatic and meteorological terms to consider. The focus will be on the scientific words. Students will be asked to use a self-collection strategy to pick out words they would like to know more about. They are asked to pick, with a partner, 5 words they are not sure about and share with the class.

Assessment: Only formative assessments, in the form of teacher observation of engagement and understanding, will be undertaken in lesson 2.

EngagementThe teacher will engage in discussion about the admit slips.. The teacher will work with some of the words the students collected. She will start doing graphic organizers on the board with some of the scientific terms, such as a concept hierarchy about fish, starting with the animal kingdom and working down, noting that throughout the book students will encounter the names of lots of different fish that they can add to the hierarchy.

Lesson Procedure –50 minute class • Collect admit slips. Discuss a few of them. (10 minutes)• Self-collection activity (20 minutes)• Collaborative graphic organizer activity (15 minutes)• Exit slip question (5 minutes)

Closure

Exit Slips Name two types of fish Lynne Cox writes about .in the first five pages. How do the fish act?

Please read through p. 12 by the start of class tomorrow and have an admit question ready.

Materials

Copy of Grayson, sheets of notebook paper, pencils

Lesson 2

New writing strategy:

Admit/Exit slips

New vocabulary strategies:

Self-collection Graphic organizers

LESSON 3 – Tuesday, April 5, pp. 7-12—50 minute class

Missouri Grade Level Expectations:

Essential Understanding: Pages 6-12 of Grayson focus primarily on the narrator, the 17-year-old swimmer Lynne. Though the action of the ocean, and the marine life within, recede a bit, there are vivid passages in which the narrator explores her senses as she swims:--what she sees, smells, feels and does. This is a great opportunity to introduce the concept of creating mental images. That will be the focus of the class, through discussion, reading aloud in the text, talking about turning on the movie in your head, and doing some drawing and coloring to share mental images. .

Objectives: The class will be doing admit/exit slips every day to reinforce understanding and help the teacher know that the students are keeping up with their reading. Otherwise, the goal of the class is to reinforce the concept of creating mental images as you read.

Asessment: In the early going of this unit, all assessment will be formative. The admit/exit slips will clue the teacher into the level of understanding of the text. How the students respond to the concept of creating mental images will show the teacher if important reading strategies are being utilized.

Engagement: After about 10 minutes devoted to talking about different questions on the admit slips, the teacher will introduce the topic of creating mental images. She will say how important it is to see in your head what you are reading. She will read a couple of paragraphs from the book that lend themselves especially to becoming mental images. Then she will ask students to pick out a few sentences from Grayson , write them down at the top of a sheet of paper and then use crayons or colored pencils to draw what they see in their minds.

Lesson Procedure—50 minute class• Collect admit slips. Discuss a few of them (10 minutes)• Discuss process of creating mental images, using prior knowledge (5 minutes)

• Art/reading activity (30 minutes)• Exit slips (5 minutes)

Closure :Exit slips: Describe in words what you think the narrator looks like.

Please read through p. 18 before the start of class tomorrow and have an admit question ready.

Materials:

Grayson, notebook paper, pencils, drawing paper, crayons or colored pencils

Lesson 3:

New reading strategy:

Creating Mental Images

LESSON 4, Wednesday, April 6-pp. 13-18—50 minute class

Essential Understanding:

The beginning of Chapter two still centers on the activities of the narrator, who is swimming in the ocean. This section is rich in vocabulary—general vocabulary, words like “vortex”, “adrenaline”, “opaque”, “erratic” and “tremor”. Therefore, this lesson will focus on partners working on Knowledge Ratings, assembling groups of words they may know something—or nothing—about that they are curious about. The teacher would ask them to go back over pp. 1-12 as well, trolling for words they do not know or are not sure about that they would like to become more familiar with. After the pairs of students come up with a list, they would (think-pair-share) share their words with the class. If there is a lot of similarity in the lists, that woul be food for discussion. Different students might be asked to look up a word and share the definitions with the class. There would be further discussion about the words, but no formal assessment yet.

Objectives:

The purpose of today’s lesson is to use an innovative approach to becoming familiar with vocabulary, knowledge ratings. This technique allows students to have some ownership of their vocabulary lists. After all, they create them after assessing what, if anything, they know about a given word. Students, working in pairs, should be able to generate at least 12 words to assign knowledge ratings to, which they will turn in at the end of class for a grade..

Assessment:

The teacher will make notes about how well the pairs are working together, staying on task and putting energy into picking words and doing knowledge ratings. This is still formative assessment but it may have a written component for later reference.

Engagement:

The teacher engage in a short discussion of some of the admit slip questions. She will explain knowledge ratings. She will model how to do them, using a passage from Harry Potter and projecting it on an overhead. She will wonder out loud about certain words, whether she knows what they mean, making guesses out loud or admitting she hasn’t got a clue. When she feels students understand the process, she will allow students to pair up and start on their own lists from Grayson. She will tell them their lists will be handed in at the end of class and graded.

Lesson Procedure: • Discuss some admit slips (5 minutes)• Model and discuss knowledge ratings (15 minutes)• Knowledge rating activity (25 minutes)• Exit slip (5 minutea)

Closure:

Students will turn in knowledge ratings. They will be given an exit slip: “What word are you most curious about on your list?” Please read pp. 19-24 and bring in the definition of the word you picked for tomorrow.

Materials:

Grayson, notebook paper, pencils, overhead, Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets

.

Lesson 4:

New reading strategy:

Modeling

New vocabulary strategy:

Knowledge ratings

Closure:

Students will turn in knowledge ratings. They will be given an exit slip: “What word are you most curious about on your list?” Please read pp. 19-24 and bring in the definition of the word you picked for tomorrow.

Materials:

Grayson, notebook paper, pencils, overhead, Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets

.

Lesson 4:

New reading strategy:

Modeling

New vocabulary strategy:

Knowledge ratings