Bianca Johnson Avery Finch Term III Literacy Lesson On Retelling and Sequencing Core Decisions What?

Both of our classroom mentors have mentioned that retelling is something that many of their students struggle with. Based on our observations, it seems that many students are able to recall main characters and settings, but are often so preoccupied reading the words on each page that the context of the story is lost. Retelling is not only a useful way for readers to summarize what happened in a text, but it can also demonstrate a students understanding and comprehension. We believe that one of the key aspects of retelling is recalling the sequence in which events take place. As such, our lesson asks students to employ various strategies to retell a story in order to improve their understanding, including retelling from pictures, using transition words, and writing short captions for pictures from the book. Avery: My focus for these Term III lessons is the role of effective questioning in facilitating valuable discussion that both deepens student understanding and hopefully inspires further inquiry and thinking. This literacy lesson provides several opportunities for discussion with students, regarding both the content of the book and the strategies that we use to retell the events therein. Students will be asked to discuss their beliefs about the order of the story and the best way to retell it, defend their statements, and ask about and comment on their peers ideas. They will also be asked several times to work with their peers to come to a consensus about a plan of action, which will once again call on their ability to think about and articulate their own ideas and consider the ideas of others. In leading this lesson I hope to put into practice the type of effective, open-ended questioning that allows students to work through their thoughts and then share their ideas. Bianca: My focusing questions stems from my summer placement in a pre-k class. My classroom mentor at the Parent Infant Center had very strong opinions on praise. She did not believe in saying things like, good job or nice work or I like the way you did that. The praise that she did give was very explicit and specific. Following this experience, I became interested in the various types of praise and how a teachers use of praise can affect a class environment as well as student work. In short, my focusing question is, how can effective praise be incorporated into my teaching practices? How? Using Arthurs Thanksgiving by Marc Brown as a guiding text, the teacher will stress the importance of paying attention to the order of events in a story. Throughout the lesson, the teacher will emphasize and focus on the ability to retell what happened. Additionally, the teacher will focus on the importance of using sequence words when retelling or telling a story. In order to informally to assess student learning, we plan to conduct an interactive group activity in which students must demonstrate their understanding of the storys sequence by placing illustrations from the text into the correct order. As each student clips their picture onto the clothesline, the teacher will facilitate a conversation about the corresponding sequencing word (first, next,
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then). After this, the group will pair and share their own retelling of the book based on the correctly ordered picture. Finally, students will write a caption for the image that they were given to put into order using the sequencing word on their picture. Why? As students and teachers, we believe that teaching literacy should be both a personal and interactive process, which is why we wanted to incorporate a read aloud, group discussion, activity, and writing portion. We believe that retelling and the ability to place key events into sequential order is a core reading strategy, not only at the elementary school level, but into and throughout adulthood. To that end, this lesson provides students with an opportunity to practice this key skill step-by-step. This lesson gives students practice in a strategy that they will hopefully be able to use when they read independently.

Lesson Plan

Date/Time to be Implemented: Wednesday 11/20 and Thursday 11/21 Students: First and Second Grade at the Penn Alexander School Anticipated Time: 40 minutes Goals/Objectives Students will be able to: ! put pictures representing events from a story into chronological order in order to demonstrate understanding of story sequence. ! use sequencing words to retell a story orally. ! write a caption (that starts with an appropriate sequencing word) for a photo/story event in order to create a collaborative written retelling. In addition, second grade students will be able to: ! identify a storys problem and its solution in order to help them map the storys sequence. Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts Pennsylvania State Standards ! Grade 1: " CC.1.3.1.A: Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson. " CC.1.3.1.B: Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. " CC.1.4.1.P: Recount two or more appropriately sequenced events using temporal words to signal event order and provide some sense of closure. " CC.1.5.1.A: Participate in collaborative conversations with peers and adults in small and larger groups. ! Grade 2: " CC.1.3.2.A: Recount stories and determine their central message, lesson, or moral. " CC.1.3.2.E: Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action. " CC.1.4.2.P: Organize a short sequence of events, using temporal words to signal event order; provide a sense of closure. " CC.1.5.2.A: Participate in collaborative conversations with peers and adults in small and larger groups. Materials and Preparation ! a copy of Arthurs Thanksgiving by Marc Brown ! one color photocopy (and protective sheath for each) of each of the following six pages from Arthurs Thanksgiving with the text removed: pages 4, 12, 16, 24, 28, and 32 ! string, tape and clothespins to make a clothesline " in advance of the lesson, teacher will hang clothesline with six clothespins on one wall of the room ! sticky-notes ! sharpie marker for writing sequencing words on sticky-notes
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! one piece of paper and pencil for each students to write captions, which will later be attached to images Classroom Arrangement and Management ! Six students will partake in this lesson seated around a circular table. ! For time and noise purposes, this lesson will take place in a small room located on the main floor of the building. ! Clothesline will be hung in front of students in a highly visible area. ! Potential concerns include the fact that the room has large windows which could lead to possible distractions. To address this concern, we plan to seat students facing away from the windows. Plan The Hook Introduction (about 5 min.) ! To introduce the topic of sequence and putting events in order, the teacher will start with a quick and fun activity that involves ordering pictures. This activity will not only align with the topic of the text that will be read aloud to the students, but will also provide a brief introduction to ordering events while using key sequencing words (first, next, then, last). ! Teacher introduces the topic: Im about to show you three pictures and I want you to think about the order in which they go. ! Teacher then shows an image of people seated around a dinner table eating a Thanksgiving turkey, a picture of a wild turkey, and a picture of a cooked turkey ready to be served. Teacher will call on various students to share what order they think the pictures go in. Teacher will then call on one student to hang the three pictures on the clothesline in the decided order. Read-aloud (8 min.) ! Teacher introduces the book Arthurs Thanksgiving and solicits predictions about what will happen based on the cover, the title, what the students know about Arthur, etc. ! Teacher reminds students to listen carefully to the story, paying particular attention to the order of events as they happen. ! Teacher reads Arthurs Thanksgiving aloud. Body of the Lesson Picture Ordering Activity (10 min.) ! Each of the six students will be handed a copy of an illustration from the book. As each picture is given to each student, the teacher will be sure to show the picture to the entire group so that they can begin to think about their pictures context. ! Once all students have a picture, teacher will ask, Who thinks their picture comes first? When a student thinks they have the first picture in the sequence, they will be asked to pin their picture on the first clip of the clothes line. As each picture is hung, teacher will ask the group if they agree or disagree. If some students dont agree, teacher will ask students why and encourage the group to discuss until they come to a decision . If a decision isnt reached, teacher will step in to help. To help, teacher will ask questions such as, What clues from the picture can we use to help us?, What do you remember happening before this picture in the book?, Do you think looking back through the
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Comment: How will you help? Think about the scaffolding questions you can ask to guide students to understanding the correct sequence.

book could help us?, What are we really sure about? We have the beginning, do you think this picture comes closer to the parts we are sure about or closer to the end?. ! As each picture is hung on the clothesline, teacher will discuss with the class the sequencing word that should accompany the picture. Teacher will then write that word and stick it to the top left corner of the picture. For example, as the first picture is being hung on the clothesline, the teacher will say, This picture comes first, so first is how we would start a sentence if we were talking about this part of the story. Teacher will stop several times throughout this activity to ask the group if they all agree. " For second grade lesson only, teacher talks about the problem of the story. Thinking about the problem is a great way to help us map the events of the story, because it often comes around the same place in most stories. Turn and talk with your neighbor about what you think the problem was. Teacher lets partners talk for about a minute, listening in on each conversation for 20 seconds. Teacher calls students back to attention and takes a couple of answers and justifications. Teacher checks for agreement. Turn and Talk (2 minutes) ! Students will be asked to turn to the person sitting next to them to briefly retell their partner the story. This will serve as a way to have them verbally retell the events of the story. This will also prepare them for the next part of the lesson. " For second grade lesson, teacher reminds the students that the problem and the solution are good guides for thinking about the story. Caption Writing (10 minutes) ! Following the Picture Ordering Activity and brief Turn and Talk, all of the illustrations will have been placed in the correct order and each picture will have been assigned a sticky-notes with a sequencing word. ! Students will then be asked to write a caption about the picture they hung using the sequencing word on that picture. For example, the child who hung the last picture will start his/her caption with the word Finally or whatever word has been written on the sticky-note on that picture. Once all students have completed their captions, they will then hang their caption from the bottom of their image on the clothesline. ! If students finish their caption early, they will be asked to quietly look through the book together to find the ordering words the author used. Closing Final Discussion (3-5 min.) ! Each student will read his or her caption, providing reasoning for what he or she wrote. Teacher will ask students to provide feedback to their peers about their sentences and the collaborative retelling as a whole: Do these captions tell us the important parts of the story? Do they go with the pictures? Is this a concise way to retell the story? Are there extra details? Did we leave anything out? " For second grade lesson only, teacher will ask how identifying the problem and solution in the story helped them decide how to retell it. ! Teacher will ask students, How did these sequence words help us? and, See how the sequence words we used made it easy to understand the whole story in just six sentences? Teacher will also ask students

Comment: fave: We added particular questions and strategies that we will use in order to support and guide students' thinking about the task at hand.

Comment: fave: We added this discussion of problem and solution to the second grade lesson in order to address the additional secondgrade goal of using problem and solution as a frame for retelling.

Comment: What does it mean to have the other students weigh in? What discussion will they have about the captions in story order? Comment: fave: We added some specific discussion points here. Comment: fave: Here is how we incorporated the idea of problem and solution into this lesson. Comment: Where does the additional second grade goal fit into the scope of your lesson plan?

! Teacher will conclude by asking students how they can use sequence words in retelling and in their own writing, and emphasizing the importance of using said words to organize a retelling. Assessment of Goals and Objectives ! Teacher will observe, ask questions of, and invite discussion from the students as they work on ordering the pictures. This is in order to assess their understanding of both the story and the concept of sequencing. ! Teacher will also assess students on their ability to retell the story using sequence words in their story retelling. Teacher will listen in when students retell the story in partners. Teacher will also be able to assess each students comprehension when they share their captions for the pictures. Anticipating Students Responses ! Some of the students, particularly those in second grade, may say that they have read the book before, in which case the teacher will remind them that books are even better the second time. ! If students disagree about the order of the pictures or about the captions produced (as discussed above), the teacher will help facilitate discussion until a consensus can be reached. Accomodations ! Most of the activities in this lesson require working as a group or alongside a peer, so any student who has difficulty recalling the details or order of the story will have student and teacher support. ! If any student finds the task of writing the sentence alone too difficult, whether it be coming up with a sentence or writing it down, he or she may enlist the help of a classmate. ! Because the class size is so small, the teacher will be available to address students individual difficulties.