Emily Sniegowski CI 402 Lesson Plan 3 Miracles Boys at R.E.A.D.Y. (7th grade) Standards and Objectives: 1. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.7.

2 Analyze the main ideas and supporting details presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how the ideas clarify a topic, text, or issue under study. 2. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.1 Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Procedure: Opening: Daily Oral Language (15 min) 2 incorrect sentences are put on the Smartboard. Students copy the incorrect sentences into their journals (sentences based on the novel Miracles Boys): when newcharlie come back from rahway he was meen to lafayette tyree got into collage at mit but couldnt go because he had too take care off his brothers Volunteers go up to the Smartboard to correct the errors. Help out the students if they need help or miss something. After the sentences are corrected on the board, explain the corrections. Students copy corrections into their journals.

Reading Miracles Boys (20 min) Read aloud one chapter of the book while students follow along in their novels. As you read aloud, have the PPT up on the screen. The PPT shows photographs of key images throughout the chapter, such as settings, symbols, and details. Read slowly and with expression, pausing at the appropriate times to advance the PPT slides to the next photo, as they go along with the text. When the reading is complete, go back through the PPT slides one by one, and ask the students what the significance of each image was in the chapter just read, to check for listening and comprehension.

Writing activity on characterization (15 min) Put up dice application on the Smartboard along with directions for the activity. Have students one by one come up and roll the die. The number they get determines the character they write about: 1 = Lafayette; 2 = Charlie; 3 = Tyree; 4 = Mama; 5 = Papa; 6 = You choose!

Students write a description for their character that includes: a physical trait, a personality trait, one thing you have in common with that character, one thing you dont have in common When they are done writing, students share aloud their character descriptions

Assessment and Evaluation: 1. The first standard is addressed through the multi-media reading of the book chapter. Students will be listening, following along in their novels, and looking at the slideshow that accompanies the chapter. They will afterward be asked to explain the photos they saw after the chapter is read and how they go along with the novel. This promotes greater comprehension of the chapter and lets them connect different forms of media to text. Assessment is based off this class review discussion of the slides. 2. The second standard is addressed in the writing of the character descriptions. Students are asked to write descriptions of their characters for which they have to go back into the text to find details. They must form conclusions about the characters based on the text. Assessment is based on the completion of the writing and sharing with the class.

Emily Sniegowski CI 402 Lesson Plan 3 Miracles Boys at R.E.A.D.Y (7th grade) If theres anything I learned from being at R.E.A.D.Y. this semester, its that theory and practice are two very different things. This is why my lesson plan is very light and simple, gives ample time to complete each task, and doesnt over-plan or micromanage anything. In order to stay sane at a place like R.E.A.D.Y., you cant plan too much or feel the need to stick to any plan too tightly. I found that this lesson plan for Miracles Boys worked really well in action, though there are some principle problems. I tried to stick with the normal structure of the class with the opening, because every day the students are asked to write in their journals at the beginning of class, usually either a Daily Oral Language exercise (like the one I used), or a brief journal prompt (i.e. what is something that scares you and why). The D.O.L. sentences are typically pulled from a general stock, but I wrote mine based off the novel, for more continuity and connectivity. This exercise usually goes pretty well with the students, because they are used to it as part of their routine. For reading the novel, my cooperating teacher suggested to always read to students aloud, because that is the only way the reading will get done. In this plan, I tried something a bit different than the DRTA I had used previously on the students, which was only mildly successful. In projecting images along with reading the text, I thought I could capture their attention more than just having them listen and follow along. This worked splendidly. It was a spur-of-the-moment we-have-more-time-to-kill decision to review the images back with the students after I read, and the students were able to identify and talk intelligently about each image in connection with the text. This was a great success for me, because in my previous observations and teaching with these students, they would often not answer oral post-reading

questions. But they were more inclined and able to talk about the images than on just straight text. If I could do this over, I would prepare more questions along with each image to ask in the post-read review; deeper inference questions, rather than simple comprehension. Now that I know that the images increased comprehension, Id like to try to use them for more critical thought. The one problem I see with this is a matter of long-term reading ability improvement. While this exercise allowed the students to understand the text better, there was a lot of handholding and not much focus on the students autonomous ability to read the text. This is a much larger issue than the scope of my lesson plan, but it definitely got me thinking about how the program could be better structured. The dice activity was fun because it was individualized for each student, and the students responded well because of this. I would definitely use the dice again. They resisted the writing a bit at first, but not any more than they usually resist doing any sort of activity (especially writing). The trouble I had with composing this lesson plan was finding standards that were grade-appropriate, as the biggest challenge in my classroom is always to simply get the students to comply with directions, so it sometimes seems the academic work is secondary to behavioral work. The work that they do is usually comprehension-based and below grade-level, simply because it is very difficult to get them to do anything more due to behavior. But this lesson as a whole went very well for me. The class was calm and receptive, relative to other days Ive experienced at R.E.A.D.Y., and I was proud of myself at the end. But of course there is always room for improvement, as especially with R.E.A.D.Y. students, experience is much more valuable than theory.