About This Lesson

DESCRIPTION
My lesson focuses on the different types of nouns, common and proper, which is a language
topic. I will read the story, My First Easter, written by Tomie dePaola aloud to the class. Since
Easter is a holiday coming up soon, it is a relative topic that could make the students excited and
relate to other topics within the week. Reading the story aloud will enable my slower readers to
stay on track with the rest of the class and benefit my auditory or visual learners as well by
listening to the story and looking at the pictures. Each student will also have an individual copy
of the book, for those who prefer to read along or read silently. After the story is complete, I will
give the students five minutes to talk in small groups about what the common and proper nouns
were in the story. They can write notes or take mental notes. Then we will come together as a
class and review what common and proper nouns are, and make a T-Chart with the common and
proper nouns from the story. After the students have a complete understanding of common and
proper nouns, they will break up into partners or work individually to create two projects, one
with a common noun and one with a proper noun. The students can choose any creative way to
express their knowledge such as writing, drawing, audio recording, and more.
PREREQUISITES
The prerequisites for this lesson include the ability to read, the ability to write and/or draw, the
ability to comprehend information and answer questions on a second grade level, and a brief
understanding of what verbs, nouns and adjectives are and why they are different. I will preassess my students by having an open conversation about what nouns, verbs and adjectives are
and why they are different from one another. By having an open conversation, I can assess who
is confident enough to raise their hand and answer the questions and who is unsure or does not
know the answer. I will also pre-assess my learners by having the students participate in a white
board activity. I will show sentences on the projector with a word in bold print and the students
will have to write on their boards whether the bolded word is a noun, verb, or adjective. This
requires every student to respond so I can see who fully understands the concepts and who is
struggling. At the end, I will ask the students to write a number 1-5 on their white board
regarding their understanding of nouns, verbs and adjectives. 1 meaning they do not understand
at all and 5 meaning they are experts. This will allow the students to assess their own knowledge
as well and communicate with me if they need help. Then, I will show a video about nouns,
verbs, and adjectives to refresh the students memories before beginning the lesson. The video is
exciting and catchy to help students remember the parts of speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiK3NSENjA8
ESTIMATED TIME
1.5 hours
Potential Use

PURPOSE:
Other, Classroom Instruction, Professional Development, Small Group
GRADES:
2
CONTENT AREAS:
English/Language Arts
COMMON CORE:

English Language Arts

Goals
INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS
The lessons goal is to express an understanding of the book, My First Easter and be able to
identify the common and proper nouns and understand what common and proper nouns are. The
end goal for this part of the lesson is restricted in one sense but unrestricted in the continuation of
the lesson. In order to make sure the students understand what common and proper nouns are,
the class will work together to create a T-Chart with the common and proper nouns from the
story after reviewing what makes a noun common or proper. After this group activity, the
students will be able to create two independent projects, one involving a common noun and
another involving a proper noun. The students are unrestricted because they can choose to draw
and label a picture, write a sentence, take a picture and label it or any other creative form. This
end goal is unrestricted because I did not want to restrict the students to expressing their
knowledge in a certain form. The students also have the ability to choose whether they would
like to work with a partner or independently. However, I will model different examples to give
students ideas of which way may be best for them to express their knowledge. As long as they
can express their understanding of common and proper nouns, the instructional goal is met.

OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to distinguish proper nouns and common nouns in a given story.

Social Skill Objective : Students will learn how to compliment another person's hard
work and/or provide constructive criticism.

VARIABILITY
My class description includes 1 Teacher, 1 Instructional Assistant, 1 interpreter; 21 students; 8
boys and 13 girls. 10 students are from low socio-economic backgrounds. 4 students have IEPS
(see below). There are several students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds,
two are native English speakers and three are English Language Learners (ELL). Three students
are in the gifted & talented program. The remaining students perform on grade level. A class
learning inventory indicated that the majority of students are visual learners and/or tactile
learners. They like board games, playing with friends, and the Ravens.
In regards to the variability among the students in my classroom, this lesson allows the students
to work together to grasp the concepts before working independently to express their
knowledge. Since my students have different strengths and weaknesses, I did not restrict their
independent projects to a single form such as writing or drawing. I also did not force the
students to work completely independently. They are encouraged to work in partners to learn
from one another. I also provided different ways for them to read the story, silently, follow
along, or only listen. I understand that my students will be more successful learners if the
information and the assignments are presented in multiple ways and flexible and creative
ways. By keeping the assignment open needed and not restricted, the students are able to be
creative and think of the most successful way for them to express their content knowledge.
"Kim has a learning disability in reading; specifically, she has a visual processing disorder. She
is reading two grades below her grade level. She performs on grade level in mathematics and
science." In order to accommodate her needs, I provided multiple ways of receiving the
information from the book. I am reading the book aloud so that struggling readers such as Kim
can listen but also have their own copy to try and follow along. I will also provide Kim with a
text highlighter so it is easier for her to follow from line to line. I also chose a book that is a little
bit below the second grade level because I am focusing on understanding common and proper
nouns, which is a new topic to the class.
Accommodations for Kim from the manual:
1F: Human Reader or Audio Recording for Verbatim Reading of Entire Test - This will allow
Kim to focus on the common and proper nouns rather than attempting to comprehend the story
on her own.
1J: Audio Materials - Since Kim is behind on her reading level, audio materials could help her
stay on track in other areas while still working on her reading separately.
"Alex has Autism and has difficulty in social situations and interacting with his peers. He
performs on grade level in math but is one grade below in reading. He requires structure and
routine. He is very interested in cars." In order to accommodate his needs, I provided multiple
ways of reading the book. The students are given a copy but I also read the book aloud so the

students can choose to just listen. This prevents struggling readers from falling behind in the
lesson. Alex is bright but has difficulty working and interacting with peers, therefore there is an
option to work independently so he does not feel overwhelmed or pressured. He is also allowed
to create a creative project for both the common and proper nouns. Since he is interested in cars,
I could suggest he does a car for the common noun, and Lightening McQueen for the proper
noun and make drawing of both, label them, and cut them out. This could make learning about
common and proper nouns more interesting and easier for Alex.
Accommodations for Alex from the manual:
1L: Text to Speech Software for Verbatim Reading of Entire Test - Alex could use this device to
have the story read to him at his own pace while he tries to pick out the common and proper
nouns.
1O: Visual Cues - Visual Cues would be extremely helpful for Alex during the transitions in the
lesson from reading to working together as a class to independent or partner work.

Assessments
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
The formative assessments will start before the projects are created. I will mark on my clipboard
who is raising their hand to answer questions and who answers correctly. I mark who is
answering the questions before the concepts are introduced to assess their prior knowledge of the
concept. When the students are working on their projects, I will be observing the students and
marking on my clipboard who is really trying and understands what they are doing. I will also
be walking around the class and asking questions about their project. My questions will enable
myself to mark down whether the student or students understand what common and proper nouns
are and how to apply them into their language. I will also hold a review at the end of the
lesson. There is also a quiz at the end of the lesson that allows the students to see where they
need to improve and allow myself to see where I need to re-teach.
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
Instructional Methods
OPENING
The video about nouns, verbs and adjectives that I will show the students to refresh their memory
about what we previously learned before digging deeper into common and proper nouns will act
as an attention grabber because it is a fun, upbeat, and catchy video.
This video and the open discussion about nouns, verbs, and adjectives is the connection to a
previous lesson because in a previous lesson the students learned about nouns, verbs, and

adjectives. Now, we are reviewing and extending that lesson into a more in depth lesson about
different types of nouns such as common and proper nouns.
The objective for this lesson is for the students to be able to distinguish between common and
proper nouns. I will tell the students in the beginning of the lesson, "Now that we are all experts
on nouns, verbs, and adjectives, we are going to work extra hard to become experts on different
types of nouns. The two types of nouns that we will be learning about are common and proper
nouns. They are super important for writing sentences correctly which you will all have to do
and for recognizing important things such as holidays. It is super exciting and we are going to
have a lot of fun becoming common and proper noun experts."
This lesson connects to future lessons because the students are going to be required to
incorporate common and proper nouns into their writing. Common and proper nouns also relate
to life events because students need to know what to capitalize and when, such as referring to
holidays or people's names.
DURING
(Direct Instruction) The beginning of the lesson starts off with a review related to a previous
lesson on nouns, verbs and adjectives. The review includes an open discussion, white board
activity and an interactive and catchy video regarding nouns, verbs, and adjectives. After the
review, I will explain the objective in kid friendly terms so that the students can understand the
purpose for reading and know what to look for when we read the story. Then, the story, My First
Easter is read aloud to the class with various methods for the students to read as well. After the
book is read, I will introduce new knowledge to the class by explaining what common and
proper nouns are. After the common and proper nouns are explained, I will model the new
knowledge by giving an example of a common and proper noun not from the story to allow the
students to refer to when trying to figure out what the common and proper nouns in the story
are. (Guided Practice) After the story is complete, I will give the students five minutes to talk in
small groups about what the common and proper nouns were in the story. They can write notes
or take mental notes. Then we will come together as a class and review what common and proper
nouns are, and make a T-Chart with the common and proper nouns from the story. (Independent
Practice) After the T-Chart is filled out, the students will either work independently or with
partners, to create two projects, one involving a common noun and one involving a proper
noun. This independent practice can be done in any creative manner such as writing, drawing,
audio recordings, ect. The projects encourage students to be very creative therefore there are
very few guidelines and no rubric. The students must create either a sentence or a creative
project about a common noun and another about a proper noun. For example, a picture of a car
would be a common noun and a picture of Lightening McQueen would be a proper noun.
CLOSING
To close the lesson, the students will quickly share their creative projects with the
class. This can also act as a review since the students are sharing common and proper
nouns with one another.
(Direct Instruction) After each student has shared their project, we will review the
importance of criticism and compliments. I will explain to the class that "I like your
project" is not a well-constructed compliment. I will give an example by saying "I like how

you used Lightening McQueen in your project because it was a character I know, which
made Proper Nouns easier to understand for myself." That is an example of a wellconstructed compliment because you must explain why by using the word
because. (Guided Instruction) I will ask for three volunteers to give me examples of a
criticism statement or a compliment. (Independent Practice) After three students give me
well-constructed examples of critiques or compliments, I will hand each student a post it
note. Then, the students will be able to choose a partner and each partner will write a
critique or a compliment without being negative on the post it note and give it to their
partner. Compliments make a person feel good about their work and critiques can help a
person improve their work. Both are important to know how to do so that we can all help
each other learn.
As a main review, the students will all be given a tablet and take a short quiz at the end of the
class. The short quiz will be counted for participation and for my own knowledge to see what I
need to re-teach rather than for accuracy since this will be the first day that common and proper
nouns are introduced to the class. The quizzes give direct feed back to the students so that the
students can see how they did on the quiz and what they need to work on.
The quiz questions will be:
Click the correct answer regarding the bolded word, A for common noun or B for proper noun:
1. Christmas is my favorite holiday because Santa visits my house at night with presents.
A. common noun B. proper noun
2. I saw a bus stuck in traffic behind a big truck.
A. common noun B. proper noun
3. That girl over there is really tall.
A. common noun B. proper noun
4. My best friend's name is Christopher.
A. common noun B. proper noun
5. Cynthia is the name of my mother.
A. common noun B. proper noun
To end the class, I would like to receive some feedback on how it felt to receive a critique or
a compliment from a peer. In order to do this, I will give each student a short opinion quiz
for their feedback so that I know if we should continue to give feedback to our peers in a
free manner or if I need to structure it some more.
The quiz questions will be:
Next to each statement, circle 1 2 3 4 5 based on how strongly you agree or disagree with
the statement. 1 meaning you strongly disagree, and 5 meaning you strongly agree.

1. It felt good to receive a critique or compliment from my peer.

1
2
3
4
5
2. I felt comfortable giving my peer a critique or compliment.
1
2
3
4
5
3. I would like to receive feed back from my peers more often.
1
2
3
4
5
4. I would like to receive feed back from my peers and then revise my work before handing
it in for a grade.
1
2
3
4
5
5. Receiving feed back from a peer made me feel bad about my work.
1
2
3
4
5
Author's Reflection
I selected these various methods to address the variability of all the learners in my classroom. I
understand that all of the students in my classroom have different strengths and weaknesses and
it is important to meet every students needs. By having open discussions, group activities,
independent activities and partner activities, each student is able to perform in at least one of
their strong activities. By providing each child a book and also reading aloud, all the learners
in the class have access to the knowledge regardless of their reading level. Also, by allowing the
students to use creative methods to express their knowledge for their independent or partner
projects, the students are able to express their understandings and skills in any way that is best
suitable for them.
By using direct instruction, modeling, guided practice and independent practice, all of the
students in my classroom are able to access the learning goals if the proper effort is put
forth. The main reason I encourage independent practice is so that I can help those that I
realized might be struggling a little bit and hopefully enable them to catch up to the pace of the
rest of their class.
Materials
MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES
Class copy of My First Easter (25 copies)
Audio Recorders
Papers
Markers
Class copy of tablets (25 tablets)
T-Chart
Examples of projects involving a common noun (3 or more)
Examples of projects involving a proper noun (3 or more)

Text highlighter strips

Text to Speech Device
Projector for video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiK3NSENjA8
Class copy of white boards (25 whiteboards)
Class copy of white board markers (25-30 markers)
Post it notes