Grade 3

The Boy Who Harnessed

the Wind
by William KamKwamba & Bryan Mealer

Lesson Plan

Designed by:
Jeny Vasquez
 MELD Close Reading Responsive Literacy
(5+ Days)
Overview: This series of MELD Lessons are intended for 45 minutes – 1 hour, for multiple days. Please adjust the time and/or number of days according to the
needs of your students. You may also speed up or slow down per the needs of your students.

Title: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Lexile 910

California State Standards
At a Glance
Source 1: “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”
RL.3.1. Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the
text as the basis for the answers.
RL.3.3. Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their
actions contribute to the sequence of events.
RI.3.1 Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text
as the basis for the answers.
RI.3.2 Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the
main idea.
RI.3.4 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text
relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area. (See grade 3 Language standards 4-6 for additional
expectations.) CA
RI.3.8 Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text (e.g.,
comparison, cause/effect, first/second/third in a sequence).
RF.3.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
RF.3.4a Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.
RF.3.4c Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as
necessary.
L.3.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on
grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
L.3.4a Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
L.3.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-
specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After
dinner that night we went looking for them)
SL.3.1. Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about third grade topics and
texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g.,
listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion). Continue a
conversation through multiple exchanges.
W.3.1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.
L.3.4a Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
L.3.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-
specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After
dinner that night we went looking for them)
L.3.1.e Form and use the simple (e.g., I walked; I walk; I will walk) verb tenses.
Source 2: Video – “Moving Windmills”
SL.3.2. Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented
in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

MELD Students will be able to closely read and/or have read to them a complex text and
OBJECTIVES be able to accomplish the following objectives:
1. I can ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text
using text evidence.
2. I can describe the characters’ traits, motivations, or feelings and explain how
their actions impact the story using cause and effect relationships in
Standard English.
3. I can have constructive conversations with my classmates about the text
using Standard English words and phrases that support creating ideas,
 clarifying ideas, advancing questioning to support ideas and make them
stronger.
4. I can apply situational appropriateness when engaging in discussion with my
classmates.
5. I can form and use simple verb tenses (e.g. I walked; I walk; I will walk)and
show my understanding of the three sounds of –ed.
6. I can practice orally reading words ending with the suffix -ed.
7. I can write an opinion piece using evidence from both texts/sources.
Depth of Knowledge Level DOK 2 Reading- Use context to identify the meaning of words/phrases
DOK 2 Reading- Categorize/compare literary elements, terms, facts, details, events
DOK 3 Reading- Explain, generalize, or connect ideas using supporting evidence (quote,
example, text reference)
DOK 3 Reading- Identify/make inferences about explicit or implicit themes
DOK 3 Writing- Explain, generalize, or connect ideas using supporting evidence (quote,
example, text reference)
**DOK 4 –Analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources.

**If you use the video or Paired Text from the ReadWorks website.
Essential Question Which character traits do we see in our main character, William? How did those
character traits help him solve the problems in his community ?
Access Strategies Instructional Conversations, Advanced Graphic Organizer, Making Cultural
Connections, Cooperative and Communal Learning, Academic Language
Development
Protocols Silent Appointment, Pick-a-Stick, Raise a Righteous Hand, Give One-Get One, Think-
Pair-Share, Pair-Square, Roll ‘Em, Shout Out, Think-Pair-Share-Sketch
Materials *Book – The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
*Video – Moving Windmills http://bit.ly/1TkWQjA
*Chart paper *Personal Thesaurus *Close Reading Process Chart
*post-its *Chart-Paper
*Optional – Paired Text “Ryan’s Well” (readworks.org)
Key Vocabulary harness maize
rumbled bearings
bolts generator
heaved gusting gale
Personal Thesaurus –hard-working, creative, helpful (Chosen to support culminating task)
Contrastive Analysis (-ed) – scorched, arranged, gazed, heaved, dragged, shouted,
teased, dreamed, whispered, passed, wondered, sulked
Culminating Task Students will write an opinion piece on one of the following prompts:
Using what you learned from the story and video, what character traits does a person need
to help solve problems in their home, at school, or in their community? Cite evidence from
both sources. Or
Using what you learned from the story and video, what character traits do you believe
William used most to help solve the problems in his community? Cite evidence from both
sources.
 MELD Close Reading Responsive Literacy
(5+ Days)
Overview: This series of MELD Lessons are intended for 45 minutes – 1 hour. Please adjust the time and/or number of days according to the needs of your students
as each read does not necessarily equal 1 day. You may also speed up or slow down per the needs of your students.

Title: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Lexile 910
Lesson Plan
1st Read Focus: Read the story for flow and enjoyment!
The protocol Call and 1. HOOK: Display the two landscape pictures showing no electricity and
Response used throughout no water. Ask the students to Take a Stand and choose the place they
all reads. would rather live in if these were the only two choices in the world.
Once they have chosen, have the students sit on that side of the
*Note: If you have not room. Use Raise a Righteous Hand to choose a few students to share
taught the protocols used
why they chose that place. Turn off the lights and discuss what other
in this 5+ days lesson plan,
objects in the classroom are powered by electricity and how they
please teach them
would not be able to use those objects. Then, let the students know
individually before the first
read. that for the next 2 hours, no one will be able to use the bathroom or
drink water because that is what it would be like to be without water.
Chart the students’ names under the picture they chose. You will
come back to this at the end of the day and see if the students would
still choose the same picture. Also, at the end of the day, show them a
map of where Malawi is located.
*Character Traits chart
2. Go over the Close Reading learning objectives.
direct link:
3. Review the Close Reading Process chart with the students.
http://bit.ly/1OQhJXl
4. Read the story for flow today.
5. Introduce the Character Traits chart (see Resources) by reminding the
students that we can describe characters in 2 ways. One way is the
way a character looks like on the outside and the 2nd way is the way
the character is on the inside, the type of person they are. Display a
picture of yourself. Ask the students to take a Moment of Silence and
look through their list of character traits. Ask them to find traits that
Example: describe what kind of person they think you are. Ask the students to
Think-Pair-Share one of the character traits they chose for Steph
hard-working
active Curry. Then, use Pick-a-Stick to share whole group and chart. Now,
display the picture of Kobe Bryant and follow the same process.
Review any traits that are unfamiliar to the students.
6. Class Debrief —debrief the class’s use of the protocols (responsive
management) debrief the class’s progress in meeting the focus
standards for the day (objectives should be directly connected to CC
standards).
determined fearless
2nd Read Focus: Annotating Text and Vocabulary (Tier 2 & Character Traits)
Essential Question: What qualities and/or characteristics do we see in
William?
*Character Traits chart
direct link:
http://bit.ly/1OQhJXl
Example:
*Note*
Please keep these quick-
writes for the upcoming
Contrastive Analysis –
Past Tense Marker mini-
lesson.
3rd Read of Story Focus: Text-Dependent Questions
1. Go over today’s learning objectives.
a. I can ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text using text evidence.
b. I can describe the characters’ traits, motivations, or feelings and
explain how their actions impact the story using cause and effect
relationships in Standard English.
2. Vocabulary –Allow students to annotate for words they do not know
during this 2nd read and have them use the vocabulary strategy of
context clues to figure out the meaning.
3. Let the students know that they will be annotating for details about
William’s character (see Resources for Annotation Symbols chart or
use already established class symbols), details that describe the kind
of person he is. They can circle unknown words or put a question
mark next to confusing parts as they read as well.
4. Teacher will model with page 2.
“It says in the last sentence, that for William, the darkness was best
for dreaming. This tells me that he liked to sleep so he could
dream. I’m going to underline that and write dreamer next to it
because this is a detail describing what kind of person William is.
And I am going to circle nightfall because I haven’t heard of that
word before. Hmmm… nothing is confusing to me on this page. ”
5. Allow the students to annotate their text. Once everyone is done, have
them use Give One, Get One to share one detail they found that
describes William’s character. Use music to have them transition to
another partner to do one more Give One, Get One.
6. Use Call and Response to bring the students back to their seats and
use Pick a Stick or Roll ‘Em to share-out whole group. Chart (see
picture on the left) the traits the students share about William. As the
students share out the trait, ask them to give you evidence from the
text to support that trait.
7. Text-to-Self connection: Ask the students to do a quick-write on the
following prompt: If you were William, would you have made the
windmill? Why or why not? William harnessed the wind to bring
electricity to his village. What would you like to harness to help
others?
8. Close today’s lesson with a review of today’s learning objectives.
1. Go over today’s learning objectives.
a. I can ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text using text evidence.

1st & 2nd Viewing
*Video – Moving Windmills
http://bit.ly/1TkWQjA
*Note*
The video is about 6 minutes
long, but you only need to
show up to minute 3:23 for
the purposes of this lesson.
You can always show the
whole video after the 3rd
b. I can describe the characters’ traits, motivations, or feelings and
explain how their actions impact the story using cause and effect
relationships in Standard English.
c. I can have constructive conversations with my classmates about the
text using Standard English words and phrases that support creating
ideas, clarifying ideas, advancing questioning to support ideas and
make them stronger.
2. Let the students know that we will be working in pairs or groups as we
move through the different levels of text-dependent questions.
Remind them to look for evidence in the text. Have 1 student be the
recorder for their pairing or group. Give a post-it to each pair or
group for each question. After each question, debrief the question
and each pair or group will post their response under the question.
(see Resources for typed-out questions)
a. Question 1 (DOK 1): What is the name of the village that
William is from? Use the protocol Think-Pair-Share. Pages 2
b. Question 2 (DOK 2): What were the two problems in William’s
village? Pages 2 & 7 Have the students think and search
through pages 2-7. Use protocol Think-Pair-Share.
c. Question 3 (DOK 3): Which sentences from pages 2 and 3 best
support that William was a dreamer? Use protocol Think-Pair-
Square or Numbered Heads Together.
d. Question 4 (DOK 3): What conclusion can you draw about the
type of person William is from pages 10-12? Use protocol
Numbered Heads Together. If students are struggling, you may
provide 3 different character traits from which to choose from.
e. Question 5 (DOK 3): What can you infer about the effect that
William’s character had on his community? How do his
character traits help him solve his village’s problems? Use any
page that supports your answer. Use protocol Think-Pair-
Square or Numbered Heads Together. Remind the students to
create, clarify, fortify, and negotiate in their conversations.
3. Review the learning objectives for this 3rd read.
Focus: Personal Thesaurus and Character Traits
1. Go over today’s learning objectives.
a. I can ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text using text evidence.
b. I can describe the characters’ traits, motivations, or feelings and
explain how their actions impact the story.
c. I can use the new words and phrases I have learned in different ways
to show that I know what they mean.
2. Use the protocol Round Robin to have the students create Bubble
Maps for William. Give them about 5 minutes to fill in their bubble
map. They can use their character traits chart. Model for the students
viewing to allow the students
to see what William was able
to do after he built that first
windmill.
* Distribute a copy for
each student and make a
class bubble map also.
3rd Viewing
with your own bubble map and page 2, add “dreamer” to one bubble.
3. Let them know that they will be watching a video of William and they
will be adding more character traits to their bubble map based on the
video.
4. Show the video of William Kamkwamba, 1st Viewing, for flow and
enjoyment.
5. Show the video again, 2nd viewing, and ask the students to write down
any new character traits for William that they hear in the video in their
own bubble map (see resources). Model for the students by pausing
the video in the beginning and adding “brave” to the class bubble
map.
6. Personal Thesaurus: hard-working, creative, helpful (See Resources)
a. Use Roll’Em to call a table group to present their bubble map.
b. Have the students take out their Personal Thesaurus(PT) to add
some of the common character traits seen in the bubble maps.
If the students did not use the underlined traits above, ask
them to include these in their PT as it will help them with their
culminating task. Model for the students with a class PT.
7. Review the learning objectives.
Focus: Text-Dependent Questions and Contrastive Analysis
1. Go over today’s learning objectives.
a. I can ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text using text evidence.
b. I can describe the characters’ traits, motivations, or feelings and
explain how their actions impact the story using cause and effect
relationships in Standard English.
c. I can have constructive conversations with my classmates about the
text using Standard English words and phrases that support creating
ideas, clarifying ideas, advancing questioning to support ideas and
make them stronger. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher led) with diverse
partners on grade 3 topics and texts to produce complex oral output
using the constructive conversation skills.
d. I can apply situational appropriateness when engaging in discussion
with my classmates.
e. I can form and use simple verb tenses (e.g. I walked; I walk; I will
walk)and show my understanding of the three sounds of –ed.
f. I can practice orally reading words ending with the suffix -ed.
2. Begin today’s lesson by posing to the students the following text-
dependent question. The students may use a blank piece of paper to
record what they hear in order to answer the question. Play the video,
3rd viewing, up to minute 3:23. Use the protocol Bottoms Up, Heads
Together.
 a. Question 1 (DOK 4): The book and the video about William
Kamkwamba both discuss what he did to harness the wind.
What does the video discuss that the book does not tell us?
3. Use Roll “Em to call each table group to share what they found. Use a
T-Chart to list their responses. If possible, list what the book says vs.
the video (see Resources).
Tree Map: 4. Pose the following scenario to the students: “Ok, ladies and
gentlemen, if we were asked to convince our school leaders to
continue to have hands-on science and engineering at schools, we
could use William Kamkwamba’s story to support our reasons. In that
situation we will need to use Standard English/School language when
we address our school leaders. Because most of what he has done is
in the past, we are going to need to tell his story using the past tense
marker –ed. “ Give students a Moment of Silence to think about what
from William’s story they would share with our school leaders to
convince them to keep hands-on science and engineering at our
schools. Use Think-Pair-Share to have them share with their elbow
partner (walk around to listen to the use of the past tense marker –ed)
and then Roll ‘Em to share out whole group. Ask the class to be
listening for words with the past-tense marker –ed. Teacher can type
as the students speaks and project it on screen(optional) or chart
what the student says. After the student is done, the class can discuss
if the past tense marker home language feature was present in the
Extension: Example of a retell or not. The purpose of this is for a contrastive analysis of home
student created tree map: language and Standard English past tense marker as well as
situational appropriateness Guide the students to take out their story
and chorally read paragraph 4. Let them know that you will now
move into a Contrastive Analysis lesson on the past tense marker –ed.
5. Ask students to Raise a Righteous Hand to name some of the words
in paragraph 6 that contain the past tense marker –ed. (scanned,
wondered, rumbled, shouted) and write these on the board.
6. Introduce the tree map with the three sounds of –ed. (See Resources).
Explain to the students the –ed actually makes three different sounds.
Explain that the Past Tense Marker -ed is pronounced as the sound
/d/ at the end of verbs ending in voiced consonant sounds, /t/ at the
end of verbs voiceless sounds, and as /ed/ at the end of verbs ending
in /t/ and /d/ consonant sounds.
7. Have the students chorally read the words at the bottom of the page
that are from the story, exaggerating the sound of –ed. Model the
first word for them and where it would fall on the tree map.
8. Allow the students to work in pairs on this activity.
9. Call the students back together and use the protocol Pick a Stick to
have students share where they placed the words from the list.
10. Review today’s learning objectives.
Culminating Task –
Writing
Or
*Note*
You may use the district
assessment opinion
rubric and criteria or the
rubric and criteria you
have been using with
your students during this
instructional block.
Focus: Writing
1. Go over today’s learning objectives.
2. Let the students know that today they will get to demonstrate all that
they have learned throughout the close reading
Prompt: Using what you learned from the story and video, what character
traits does a person need to help solve problems in their home, at school, or
in their community? Cite evidence from both sources.
Prompt: Using what you learned from the story and video, what
character traits did William have to help solve the problems in his
community? Cite evidence from both sources.
3. Review Opinion criteria and rubric with the students and remind them
that they can use their advanced graphic organizers, annotations,
personal thesaurus, and other resources used during this close read.
4. Have select students share out their opinion piece by having an
author’s chair.
5. As you listen to the reading, mark the use of the past tense marker to
the classroom. Use of the Standard English past tense markers should be
a part of the criteria and rubric.