Lesson Plan # 6

Title: Compare common topics, structures, and themes within medieval tales
Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students will synthesize work from the previous four
lessons as they work to compare prevalent topics, structures, and themes in two medieval
tales. This is the primary summative assessment for the unit.
Resources or Materials Needed:
Favorite Medieval Tales by Mary Pope Osborne,pencils,readingjournals,plotdiagrams,
compare/contrastsentenceframes,themesentenceframe,workfrompreviouslessons,
internetaccess,Coggleaccounts
Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and
when drawing inferences from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the
text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.9
Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics and patterns of events in
stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures.

Lesson Objectives: Given two medieval tales, students will compare and contrast
common topics, structures, and themes, providing specific textual evidence to support
their claims, as they write a five paragraph essay, scoring at least three out of four on the
rubric.
Time: Approximately one and a half hours
Step 1: Pre-Instructional Activities:
Students will respond to an image of a complicated layer cake (appendix L)attempting
to make connections between the image and the unit of study.
Step 2: Content Presentation
The teacher will introduce the summative assessment for the unit (appendix M). The
teacher will lead a discussion about how a summative writing piece is similar to a cake.
There are many necessary ingredients in order to bake a delicious layered cake. The
teacher will review topic, structure, and theme with the students. Posting all of the
previously used sentence frames on display for the students and calling on students to
provide examples of each from their previous work. The teacher will prompt students to
identify their two favorite tales from the unit.
Step 3: Learner Participation
Students will respond to the cake image and participate in a discussion in which they
compare the cake to a summative assessment. Students will share previously recorded
sentence frames about topic, structure, and theme in medieval tales. Students will share
what their two favorite tales are from the unit.
Step 4: Assessment and Evaluation Method

Students will read and analyze two medieval tales, noting the topics, structures, and
themes represented in each tale. Students will utilize Coggle, a digital graphic organizer
program, and sentence frames as they write to compare and contrast the topics, structures,
and themes of two medieval tales. Using their notes and previous assessments, students
will write a five paragraph essay that details the similarities of topic, structure, and theme
in medieval tales. The assessment directions, and rubric, appear in appendix N.

Step 5: Follow-Through Activities

Students will use their work from lesson six as they write a new medieval tale in
which characters from separate stories meet. Their writing will need to represent common
topics, structures, and themes of medieval tales. Furthermore, their intensive work with
topic, structure, and theme will prove useful in their literature studies throughout their
school career.