Name: Program:
Carson Hope Early Childhood Special Education (K-3)
Lesson Topic/Title:
Writing Conclusions to Informational Text Pieces
Lesson Date: Lesson Length:
March 11, 2020 30 minutes
Learning Objective
Students will attempt writing a conclusion to Students have already learned how to
their animal all about book.
Content Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.2 Write
informative/explanatory texts in which they
name a topic, supply some facts about the
topic, and provide some sense of closure.
Learning Goal #1: The students will be able to
write “all about” informational text pieces
with at least three facts about a chosen or
assigned topic.
Assessment
Assessment will be included in the full
assessment of animal all about books.
Observation formative assessment will be
used in determining students’ understanding
for writing conclusions to informational text
during discussion and workshop times.
Materials, Resources, and/or Technology
• Writing folders
• Whiteboard space
• Dry erase markers
Teaching and Learning Sequence
Introduction
1. Miss Hope will remind students about the
day they learned about introducing their
Course:
ECH 460
Grade:
1st Grade
Instructional Decisions/Reasoning
introduce text, so now they will practice
conclusions.
Instructional Decisions/Reasoning
• Students will be writing the conclusion
to their all about book and learning
how to conclude informational pieces.
• Students will write the conclusion to
their all about book.
Instructional Decisions/Reasoning
Students are almost done with their all
about books at this point, so assessing
conclusions will be part of the book
assessment process.
I will be assessing for understanding
during the writing block so I can provide
additional support to students in need.
Instructional Decisions/Reasoning
• Students will take their how to books
out of their writing folders, where they
also have resources they use when
writing.
• Examples will be written on the board.
• Examples will be written on the board.
Instructional Decisions/Reasoning
1. Miss Hope will connect this lesson to a
previous lesson.
writing. She will ask students what the word
“introduction” means and how they use one
in their writing.
(2 minutes)
2. Miss Hope will ask if anyone has ever heard
the word conclusion. She will explain that it
is kind of the opposite to an introduction,
because we use them to end our books. She
will state that today we’re going to learn how
to write a conclusion.
(2 minutes)
Mini-Lesson
3. Miss Hope will read Flutter, Butterfly and
ask students to think about how the author
concluded this book.
2. Miss Hope will introduce vocabulary
and state the objective.
3. Miss Hope will provide an example of a
conclusion.
4. This book has the same introduction
and conclusion, which use a strategy
the students have learned during the
introduction mini-lesson: using a
relevant sound.
5. Miss Hope will teach students 3 ways
to conclude text.
6. Miss Hope will model writing a
conclusion.
7. Miss Hope will give students to put
their new knowledge to action by
having time to write their all about
books and write a strong conclusion to
it. She will make herself available for
supporting students.
8. Miss Hope will model a strong
conclusion and remind students of the
purpose of this activity.

(5 minutes)
4. Miss Hope will ask students how the
author concluded the story. She will prompt
them to think about how the story began, and
what strategy the author used.
(2 minutes)
5. Miss Hope will explain that, just like for
introductions, there are a few ways to
conclude text:
- Using a sound
- Asking a reflective question
- Following the animal’s life cycle and ending
the book with the animal being fully grown
(meaning they probably started their book
with the animal being a baby…i.e. caterpillars
hatch into eggs and then grow into
butterflies)
(3 minutes)
6. Miss Hope will write an example of each of
these strategies (with student input) on the
board.
(3 minutes)
Writing Workshop
7. Miss Hope will send students off to work
on their all about books, prompting them to
make sure their book ends with a conclusion
using one of these three strategies. She will
remind students this is the end so to keep
working to get to that point and then write
the conclusion. She will circulate the room to
support students.
(12 minutes)
Conclusion
8. Miss Hope will ask students to finish what
they are writing, and to put their books away
into their writing folders.
(1 minute)
9. Miss Hope will explain that it is important
to end your book on a note that doesn’t leave
your reading without information, but that
also engages them to want to read more of
your books. She will explain that students
who have not yet written a conclusion will
work on this during tomorrow’s writing
workshop.
(1 minute)
Meeting Students’ Needs Instructional Decisions/Reasoning
• Miss Hope will circulate the room during • Having been observing and assessing
writing workshop and be sure to check in student participation and work all unit
with students who she expects may be long and having conferenced with every
needing more support. student, Miss Hope knows who to
• Student #5 will need reminders to stay on check in with.
task and Miss Hope will monitor his • Student #5 has trouble focusing and
progress. will need reminders to stay on task.
Reflection
This is the lesson, that I did a video self-analysis on, so I have reflected on this lesson deeply
both after implementing it and after watching the video of my instruction. Ironically enough,
I didn’t have a strong conclusion to this lesson like I planned to. I have noticed throughout
my time teaching this unit, I get lost in supporting students during workshop time and
conferencing, that I realize it’s already time to get ready for recess and I try to sum up the
lesson quickly. I am working on concluding my lessons while students transition, such as
summing up what we did and connecting it to tomorrow’s writing mini-lesson and/or
workshop time while they put their folders away and get ready for recess. Just like they are
in writing, conclusions to lessons are extremely important. This reminds students of the
purpose, and also gives lessons relevancy to the unit as a whole and/or lessons that are
coming up soon.
Teaching Standards and Rationale
Standard 9 addresses reflection and continuous growth. The standard states: “the teacher is a
reflective practitioner who uses evidence to continually evaluate his/her practice, particularly
the effects of his/her choices and actions on others (students, families, and other
professionals in the learning community), and adapts practice to meet the needs of each
learner” (CCTS). In other words, the teacher is using evidence from student assessments and
progress monitoring to make instruction choices. Teachers also use this information to fill in
gaps in their competence and learn new strategies for areas in which they are lacking. As
mentioned above in my reflection, I noticed an area for growth that I have: concluding my
lessons. After doing my video analysis and reflecting on other lessons/feedback I’ve received,
I made a plan for strengthening my practice specifically in the area of concluding my lessons.
Indicator 9(d) states the reflective educator “actively seeks professional, community, and
technological resources, within and outside the school, as supports for analysis, reflection,
and problem-solving” (CCTS). I made the initiative after this to discuss concluding my
lessons with my mentor teacher, and we had a great discussion of how this is difficult but
also important. She confided that this is also a challenge for her, so we made a plan to work
on becoming stronger at concluding together. Which leads me to standard 10.
Standard 10 addresses collaboration. The standard states: “the teacher seeks appropriate
leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate
with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members to
ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession” (CCTS). In other words, it is crucial
to student success for educators to collaborate with everyone involved in learners’ education.
Collaboration also allows professionals to grow, and to problem solve with colleagues. Like I
said, my mentor and I took this reflection and discussion as an opportunity to help each
other grow, which I believe is the key to strong collaboration. We also made sure our goal
was centered around student learning: concluding lessons adds relevancy and purpose to the
work students do. Working together to become better at this helped us ensure not only we
ourselves were paying attention to our conclusions, but that we were giving each other
reciprocal feedback. This relates to indicator 10(r) which states the collaborative educator
“takes initiative to grow and develop with colleagues through interactions that enhance
practice and support student learning” (CCTS). I believe I took initiative by starting a
discussion about the area I knew I needed growth in, and this led to an opportunity for us to
help each other grow, which embodies the exact language of this indicator. This led me to
reflect on student teaching as an opportunity that not only prepares us pre-service teachers
to teach in our own classrooms, but allows us to remember that everyone is still learning,
and that we can all learn from one another and support each other’s professional
development goals.