Instructional Plan

Teacher Candidate: Whitney Ward

Cooperating Teacher: Mrs. Stone
School District: Pullman School District
University Supervisor: Lori White
Unit/Subject: Summary and Synthesis in Reading
Instructional Plan Title/Focus: Sticky Note-Taking

Date: April 11, 2014

Grade: 5th
School: Jefferson Elementary

Learning Targets/Purpose/Previous Learning

a.

b.
c.
d.
e.

Instructional Plan Purpose:

The purpose of this instructional plan is for students to think about what ideas are important in an informational text. In this
plan, students are introduced to writing down important information with sticky notes. This has proved to be an effective
strategy students can use after reading a section of text to determine important ideas using supporting details. This
instructional plan is designed to give students opportunities to practice ways to capture the essence of an informational piece.
State Learning Standards:
CCSS 5.RI.2. Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the
text.
Content Objectives:
SWBAT summarize informational text by writing on sticky notes in the margins.
Language Objectives:
SWBAT orally describe what they thought was important about a text.
Previous Learning Experiences:
The students have been working on comprehension strategies and have just finished a unit on visualizing and inferring. They
have spent considerable time learning how visualizing strengthens our inferential thinking, and how they are both good
comprehension strategies. I have just started this new unit on summarizing and synthesizing main ideas so students are
working to find ways in which summarizing and synthesizing information will help them better understand the main ideas
and purpose of a text.

Assessment Strategies

Formative: measures process/progress toward mastery of target(s)

Summative: measures outcomes/achievement of target(s)
Content/Language Objectives

Assessment Strategies

SWBAT summarize informational text using sticky

notes in the margins.

SWBAT orally describe what they thought was

important about a text

Formative: Students silent reading books or articles, with sticky

notes inside, will be collected for the teacher to measure progress
towards mastery of this specific learning target.
Summative: There is no summative assessment of this objective
planned for this lesson.
Formative: Anecdotal notes will be taken while students are
discussing the text in their table groups.
Summative: There is no summative assessment of this objective
planned for this lesson.

Student Voice: Select two components of student voice and identify how students will reflect and/or communicate on their
learning or progress toward meeting the goals. You may eliminate the components not being addressed.

K-12 students will:

1.

Communicate the learning targets and

their progress toward them.

Student-based evidence to be collected

(things produced by students: journals,
work samples, projects, papers, etc.)
Exit slip

Description of how students will

reflect on their learning
Students will be asked the following
questions about the learning targets
and their progress towards them:
-What reading strategies did we focus
on today?
-What do you think about what we
learned today? Like/dislike, Get

2.

Articulate the thinking strategies used

to achieve the learning targets.(5.1)

Journal

it!/Confused Why?
Students will be asked to list their
thinking process in their journal after
the days activity.
-Did this thinking process help you
with todays activity? Why or why
not?

Grouping of Students for Instruction

We start out as a whole class, so I am able to model for them my thinking process, then students go back to their table groups
for discussion. After that, we all come back to discuss as a class so ideas can be shared and bounced back and forth between
peers and myself. Finally, students are to practice on their own so I will be able to assess their understanding of the learning
targets.

Learning/Teaching Experiences
1.

2.

3.

Introduction: Weve started talking about ways that might help us determine the main ideas and overall purpose of what we
read. Today, we will get to use a fun magazine to help us with a new strategy. I had so many requests to use Kids Discover
magazine again in class, and I thought this would be the perfect time to use it.
The Kids Discover issue well be using today is Blood. Why might this be useful for all of us to read? Open up for
short discussion, but what I hope they discover isWe all have blood! So we can all relate to parts in this magazine
because blood is a part of us all.
Talk about what the learning targets are for this lesson, and have students write them down in their journal.
Questions:
If I were to give each of you some sticky notes and told you to read the first three pages, what would you think to do?
Just by looking at the cover, what can we infer about the issue?
Are things we find interesting when we read mean that they are always important? Why or why not?
Why is it important to respond to the text in our own words?
I noticed that Student 1 wrote down some different notes than Student 2. Is that ok? Why or why not?
The questions I ask students throughout the lesson are meant to get students thinking about the learning they will do
in the lesson. Take the first question for example: I want students to try and come up with the strategy on their own
so its not just something I tell them to do. With the second question, Im activating their prior knowledge about
inferring to have them guess what they will be reading about. Before I send them off to have a hand at it, I want to
make sure they know that what they write down needs to come from their own brains and not just a copy of what the
magazine says. Also I think it is important that number 4 is addressed before guided and independent practice
because if find something that is interesting in the text, it doesnt mean it is always important to the whole of the
text. Finally, I want them to think about how everyone is different, and therefore their response will be different
from each other. So it is ok if other people pull different ideas from the text.
Learning Activities:
1. Using a section of the article on blood and health on page 12 from Blood, my goal is to show you how I might summarize
information. I will read a paragraph and write about the purpose of the text in my own words. I will emphasize that it is
important to use our own words to describe what was read, because we will be able to understand the text better. To
summarize what I will be reading, I will try to write the most important information and keep it brief.
2. I will then read the first paragraph aloud, stopping at the end.
3. As I read that paragraph, I was asking myself what the purpose of these first few sentence was. The fact about blood being
able to fly through your bloodstream in a minute was pretty awesome, but was that important, or was it just interesting? Yeah
thats what I think too. So another important thing to remember is to read all the way through before deciding what is
important and what is interesting. Well, the last sentence in the paragraph seemed pretty important to me, what do you guys
think? This is the part when I take my trusty sticky note, place it in the margin by the text, and summarize what I thought was
important. Write example of summary on sticky note.
4. Repeat thinking process for second paragraph, making sure to highlight the points of important information vs. interesting
information, summarizing in own words, and keeping the notes brief and to the point.
5. After showing students my thinking, I will hand each student a copy of Blood, and encourage them in their table groups to
do the same on page 17 of the article. Alright, now that youve seen me think and summarize, Id like your table groups to
read each paragraph, pausing after each one to discuss what is the best way to summarize what youve read. Thumb up if
you are ready and thumb down if you are still a little confused. If need be, I can model more of my thinking process, and
write the process on the board so they have something to refer to.
6. Monitor student discussion, making anecdotal notes on individuals who may need more guidance or even on those who are
really picking the process up. Also note how well students are working in their groups and if there are any individuals who
arent participating. Then help them to be a part of their groups conversation if you can.
7. Call students back together when it looks like discussion is winding down. Howd we do? Can one person from each
group share the notes they took for this particular piece? This time is for sharing and discussing why or why not people in
the class think information is important or not. We need to keep in mind too, that not everyone will have the same notes.

4.

5.

6.

Important information to Student 6 may not be as important to Student 8. However, there are things in this article that are
clearly interesting rather than important. Who can give me an example? Continue discussing students group notes.
8. Ok, I need a thumb up if you are feeling pretty confident about this summarizing process and a thumb to the side if you still
need a little more time to practice. Depending on how the class is doing, they can either, summarize another article in the
Blood issue, or get out their silent reading books and, using the sticky note method, summarize at least 2 pages. This time
though has to be spent independently so I will be able to collect their books/articles and assess their performance.
Instructional Considerations:
a) Instructional procedures:
1. The first part of the lesson requires me to use the Kids Discover magazine Blood. I will be using the
document camera to display the article I will be reading and summarizing.
2. The rest of the lesson I will be using the document camera for students to refer to as they are discussing in
their table groups.
3. The last part of the lesson requires whole class discussion, leading into individual practice with either the
same article, or their silent reading books.
b) Multiple means of access
The article is presented in front of the class through the document camera. Each student is also given a copy
they can use for their sticky note summaries. I read the first article to the students, and students read the second
article aloud to their peers. Students are then able to discuss in groups and in whole class discussion. In these
ways, students are hearing, reading, writing, and discussing the information in different ways.
c) Multiple means of engagement
Students are able to participate in group and whole class discussion with ideas bouncing back and forth between
peers and the teacher.
d) Multiple means of expression
Students will show their overall learning through their sticky note summaries. Throughout the lesson, they are
able to express their learning through reading and speaking. The formative assessment of students written summaries on
sticky notes however, is what will be looked at the closest.
e) Methods of differentiation,
Some students may not understand how to distinguish important details from interesting ones. In this case, I
would introduce the student to a little different method: the two-column note taking form. A two-column form helps kids
focus on the difference between the essence and the rich details. Sometimes they are one in the same, sometimes they
arent. Sharing this response form with those who are struggling allows them to physically categorize information into
one column or the other, or maybe in the middle in some cases.
f) Language learning objectives:
The language objective in this lesson states that students will be able to orally describe what they thought was
interesting or important about a text. They will be doing this when they are in their table groups and when the whole
class is talking about how to summarize the text.
g) Cultural responsive pedagogy:
The independent reading books students have access to during this lesson will all be multicultural literature. At
this point in the year particularly, we are covering the history of African Americans in the United States. So while they
are searching for meaning in the text, they are also learning about a specific culture and people.
h) Extension activities: (What will students who finish early do?)
If students finish early, they will keep on reading and summarizing more of their silent reading book.
Closure:
Alright, were running out of time, so lets stop and talk a little bit about what we learned. Thumb up if you like this
strategy, thumb down if it just isnt working for you. Could somebody give us a summary of how we summarize a
text using sticky notes? Great. Okay one more question, why do you think its important we learn how to summarize
what were reading? Have short discussion about reasons why we summarized our reading. End on this note of
whats the big picture by saying that learning strategies to help us read will help us start to understand the purpose
of different texts better, and the more we practice, the better well get at summarizing.
After students complete their exit slip, they will have time to list their thinking process in their journal. They will
also answer this student voice question: Did this thinking process help you with todays activity? Why or why not?
Independent Practice:
Students could find reading material (newspaper, magazine, book, instruction manual, etc.) at home to practice summarizing
its information and how that is important to the purpose of the text.

Instructional Materials, Resources, and Technology

*See attached

Additional Requirements

Integration with Other Content Areas:

This lesson plan could integrate nicely with a science introduction on the subject of the circulatory system and how blood is a
major part of our body systems.
Acknowledgements:

Instructional Plan adapted from:

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement. Portland, Me:
Stenhouse Publishers.

Name:_______________________________

Meeting Learning Targets

1. Write our two learning targets for today in your own words. (Use the back if you need to!)

2. Circle one of the following options and explain your choice. (Use the back if you need to!)
I liked what we learned today!
I didnt like what we learned today.

I understand what we learned today.

I am still confused about what we learned today.

Name:_______________________________

Meeting Learning Targets

1. Write our two learning targets for today in your own words. (Use the back if you need to!)

2. Circle one of the following options and explain your choice. (Use the back if you need to!)
I liked what we learned today!
I didnt like what we learned today.

I understand what we learned today.

I am still confused about what we learned today.

Anecdotal Records Sheet

4/18/14: Guided Practice Observation
Carson:
Daniel:
Gavin:
Gabriella:
Elsina:
Reece:
Sanah:
Justin:
Stephen:
Steven:
Maile:
Tate:
Nathan:
Derrick:
Savannah:
Julie:
Tracy:
Brian:
Brendan:
Noelle:
Gina:
Paige:
Logan:
KJ: