Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Name: Anna Parks Central Focus/Big Idea of the Lesson:

Students are discussing the structure of the
Grade Level/Subject: Fourth grade Social Studies NC government.

Essential Standard/Common Core Objective: 4.C&G.1.2 Date taught: 3/22/2018

Compare the roles and responsibilities of state elected
leaders.

Daily Lesson Objective: Students will be able to independently compare the roles of state elected leaders
within the legislative, executive and judicial branch with 90% accuracy.

21st Century Skills: (Go to this link for more info about Academic Language Demand
these skills:
http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Framework_ Language Function: Compare
Definitions.pdf)
Vocabulary: Compare, judicial, executive,
legislative

Discourse: Creating a foldable

Syntax: Independent and dependent

clause. Misplaced modifiers.

Prior Knowledge: A small amount of information about the NC government.

Activity Description of Activities and Setting

Time

1. Focus and The teacher will have students gather on the carpet. They 5 minutes
Review will ask students if they know anything about the executive,
judicial and legislative branches. They will allow for students
 to raise their hands and say what they know about the
branches. Then the teacher will pull out the anchor chart that
has the three branches on it. The teacher will tell the
students that they will be learning about the judicial,
executive and legislative branch.

2. Statement of “Today we will be learning about the different branches of

Objective government, the executive, the legislative and the judicial
for Student branch”

3. Teacher Input The teacher will have a piece of poster board with the 8 minutes
different branches of government listen on it. The anchor
chart will have the legislative, the executive and the judicial
branch and what they are. The teacher will talk about each
branch and explain to the students what they do. The
teacher will also give examples of what each branch does.
For the judicial branch, the anchor chart will say “the state
supreme court decides if a law has been broken or goes
against the NC constitution. The court system consists
local, state and federal”. For executive, the anchor chart
will say “includes the governor and departments that
enforce the laws, it makes sure that laws are carried out,
and the president is part of this branch”. For legislative, it
will say “makes laws and is called the general assembly,
divided into 2 parts: senate and the house of
representatives, senate has 100 members” After the
teacher goes over the anchor chart, they will ask students
to tell them what they know about the branches, so they
can add it to the anchor chart.

4. Guided Practice The teacher will divide the class up into three parts. There 10 Minutes
will be three posters around the classroom. Group 1 will go
to poster 1, group 2 will go to poster 2 and group 3 will go
to poster 3. The poster will have description of the branch.
The students will read the description and figure out what
branch they have. When all the groups are finished, each
group will tell the class what branch they thought they were
and why they thought that. Poster 1 will describe the
legislative branch, poster 2 will describe the executive
branch and poster 3 will describe the judicial branch. The
posters are attached below. Students will only go to one
poster due to the fact that other students will be at the other
posters and will be discussing them.
5. Independent The teacher will handout a piece of printer paper to every 20 minutes
Practice student. The students will have to make a foldable, (fold the
paper into thirds) and will have to write about each of the
branches of government. These will have to be colorful but
should not take too much time. They can be simple but
must demonstrate the students understanding of the topic.
After students are finished, they will hand them in for a
participation grade for that day. The teacher will walk
around and ask students questions like the following: “I see
you are writing about______ branch, can you describe it to
me?” “Can you tell me who is in the executive branch?” and
questions that are like that.

6. Assessment The teacher will handout index cards. The teacher will ask students to name
Methods of the three branches of government and write a small description about what
all they are and what they do. Students will be scored out of 10 points.
objectives/skills:

O points 2 points 5 points 10 points

Students did Students listed Students listed Students listed
not do any work the branches of what the what the
or did not turn government, branches of branches of
in their work. but they did not government government
explain what and either what are, what they
they are of what they are of what do and what
they do. they do, but not they are.
both.

7. Closure The teacher will have the students look at the front of the 5 minutes
classroom again, The teacher will ask students to tell them
what the executive branch does, what the legislative
branch does and what the judicial branch does as a review
before the lesson ends. The teacher will ask if there are
any questions.

8. Assessment
Results of 0 Points 2 Points 5 Points 10 Points
all How many How many How many How many
objectives/skills: students: 2 students:4 students: 4 students: 6
 Overall, students did well on the assessment. For the students who got 0’s
they were either goofing off, or were not here for the lesson, and never got
to do the exit ticket. For students who got 2 points, they were goofing off and
only wrote the three branches. Students who scored 5 points wrote either
what the branch or, or what it does and not both, so I am wondering if that is
failure on my part to explain the instructions properly. Students who got all
10 points followed all the direction and I could tell were paying attention
during my lesson.

Targeted Students Student/Small Group Modifications/Accommodations:

Modifications/Accommodations: For Students who need more time will be able to complete
students with hearing impairments, I will it for homework or during reading and warm up time the
give them a written copy of the next morning.
directions, so they can visually read Students who finish early can read a book of their
them. choice quietly at their seats.
For ELL students, I will give them a
copy of the directions in their native
language, and a copy in English so they
can compare them.

Materials/Technology: Anchor chart, 8 ½ x 11 white paper, assorted colored marker.

References:

Reflection on lesson: (Write several paragraphs about what you learned from this lesson. What
were the strengths? What were the weaknesses? What did you learn about teaching and student
learning? How would you teach this lesson differently in the future?

I learned several things from this lesson. One thing that I learned was how much I enjoyed teaching
social studies. I found that this lesson was very enjoyable to teach. This was my first semester
having to teach whole group lessons, so I have learned a lot about myself. I learned that I enjoy
teaching direct lessons better than indirect. I feel like they are easier for me to teach and they are
shorter than indirect lessons. While this is good, I need to work on my indirect lessons and learn how
to make them stronger, to make me a better educator.

I have discovered a few strength and weaknesses about myself also. A strength of mine is being well
prepared. I feel like me spending the night before preparing everything and organizing everything
made it easier for me and it made my transitions smoother. Another strength I believe I have is giving
students praise for their work and answers. I would try to give students praise if they would get an
answer correct, or if they were grasping onto a concept. I would also offer encouragement to
students who did not get the answer correct or were not quite grasping the concept. A weakness of
mine is classroom management. While I feel like being organized did help, some transitions were
rough. I believe that this will have to come with practice and having my own classroom. Another
weakness was making sure that I made myself clear in instructions. A few times, I thought what I
said made sense, but it did not to the students.

In the future, I would teach this a little differently. One thing that I would change was having students
sit at their desks while discussing the branches in the beginning. I noticed when they were on the
rug, they were easily distracted by one another and they were more likely to lose attention. Another
thing that I would do differently is the group game. I would give each student in each group a
matching sticker to they knew what group they belonged to, because that transition was rough.
Another thing that I would change was the anchor chart. I would have it where the students would
write it out with me. I did not know that they have already discussed the three branches of
government, so if I could redo it with what I know, I would have a group discussion and fill it out as
we talked.
 1

I am divided into the senate and the

house of representatives.
I make the laws and I am called the
general assembly.
There are 100 members.
 2
The governor is part of this branch.
This includes departments that enforce
laws.
We are responsible for making sure that
laws are enforced.
The president is part of this branch.
 3
I decide whether laws have been
broken.
I decide if laws go against the NC
constitution.
The court system consists of the local.
State and federal courts.