Grade: 3
Subject: English Language Arts
Topic: Adjectives
Duration: 40 minutes
Demographics:
· Students total: 18
· Females: 10
· Males: 10
· White: 5
· Hispanic or Latino/a: 3
· Asian: 3
· Filipino: 1
· African American: 2
· Two or more races: 4
· ELL: 1
· IEP: 0
· SN (504) : 1
· GATE: 0
· Socioeconomically disadvantaged: 1
Standards:
CA3.Writen and Oral English Language Conventions.1.2 Identify subjects and verbs that are in agreement and identify and use pronouns, adjectives, compound words, and articles correctly in writing and speaking.
CA3.Writing Applications.2.2 Write descriptions that use concrete sensory details to present and support unified impressions of people, places, things, or experiences.
ELD objectives:
Use correct parts of speech, including correct subject/verb agreement.
Use more complex vocabulary and sentences appropriate for language arts and other content areas.
TPE:
TPE 4: Making content accessible
TPE 5: Engaging students
TPE 9: Instructional planning
Unit Goal: Students will develop understanding of parts of speech and demonstrate an ability to apply this knowledge by writing more complex and detailed sentences.
Essential Questions:
What is an adjective?
How can we use our understanding of what an adjective is to make our writing more exciting?
Focus Question:
How do our senses help us think of descriptive adjectives?
Lesson Objective:
Given the previous lessons on what adjectives are and following this lesson on using the five senses to help think of a variety of adjectives, the student will demonstrate their ability to write descriptive sentences using concrete sensory details by writing a five-sentence paragraph that describes the given object.
Assessment:
Entry level ✓
Formative ✓
Summative ✓
I will perform brief and informal assessments at the beginning and throughout the unit of study. A more formal assessment will be made at the end of the lesson, when they turn in their completed paragraphs for grading. The entry-level, diagnostic assessment will help me determine what type of background understanding students have about the material prior to the lesson. I will ask the students to raise their hands if they can tell me the answers to the following questions:
· Who can remind us, what is an adjective? (A: Adjectives describe a noun. For example they can compare, tell what kind, and how many)
· Who can tell me what the five senses are? (A: Sight, touch/feel, smell, hear, taste)
· Why would the five senses matter when we are talking about adjectives? (Our senses help us describe! When we use our senses, we are telling our audience more specifically what something is like. They can help us add detail to our statements.)
Throughout the lesson I will assess progress by asking formative questions and observing student behavior. If I feel that students are having a difficult time understanding the new vocabulary I may have to adjust my teaching and slow down the lesson to readdress concepts. I will also observe the students’ expressions and levels of engagement to judge comprehension.
A more formal assessment will be taken through their performance of the activity. I will use their finished five-sentence paragraphs to indicate if students have achieved academic learning goals. I will inform students about what I expect from their paragraph by giving them a copy of the rubric I will be grading them from prior to beginning the activity. The in class activity will also help students understand what is expected.
Materials:
· One mad lib worksheet for every four students
· Recommended: white board and marker (for teacher’s use)
· A “Senses Web” for each student and one for teacher to display overhead
· Overhead projection of “Senses Web” handout
· A tasty treat i.e. an apple slice (IMPORTANT: please consult principal and get approval parents prior! Be aware of food allergies.)
· Recommended: hand sanitizer and napkins
· Lined paper
· A pencil
Vocabulary:
Adjective- a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.
Instructional Plan:
The Teacher Actions/Student Actions will be divided into three sections: “Into”, “Through” and “Beyond”. You will choose from the “Into” and “Through” sections for your fifteen minute presentation.
Teacher Actions / Student ActionsDescribe how and why you will teach content including:
1. Motivation (INTO);
2. How you will preview, review, elaborate and present content in different ways (THROUGH);
3. How you will close the lesson (BEYOND)
Questions to consider: How will you make transitions between activities? How much time will you allot for different parts of the lesson? What procedures will students need to know to complete lesson activities? What questioning strategies will you use? How will you make sure that all students participate in the lesson.
INTO
Group students into groups of four.*
Review and recall students’ knowledge on parts of speech.
Hand each group a mad lib worksheet. Explain how to fill out a mad lib.
Have each group work together collaboratively to complete their mad lib.
Have each group share their completed mad lib story.
THROUGH
I will ask the students to raise their hands if they can tell me the answers to the following questions:
· Who can remind us, what is an adjective? (A: Adjectives describe a noun. For example they can compare, tell what kind, and how many)
· Who can tell me what the five senses are? (A: Sight, touch/feel, smell, hear, taste)- ---I will write the five senses on the board to provide a guide to where the lesson is headed and to provide a visual aid.
· Why would the five senses matter when we are talking about adjectives? (A: Our senses help us describe! When we use our senses, we are telling our audience more specifically what something is like. They can help us add detail to our statements.)
The entry-level, diagnostic assessment questions will help me determine what type of background understanding students have about the material prior to the lesson.
Provide an example of how senses help us to describe things. In this lesson, I will be using the ocean. State, “For example, I can say ‘I went to the ocean.’” Using senses can help students make this sentence more complex and provide much more detail.
*Accommodation: If you are living in an area where students have never been to the beach, either read a short story about the ocean/beach prior or choose a different sentence. An alternative sentence, for example, could be: I had a picnic.
As a class, ask students to come up with lists of words using each of the five senses to describe ‘the picnic.’ Write these words on the board under the appropriate sense.
Hand out “senses web” and describe how to fill it out. Explain objectives and learning goals.*
Pass out the tasty treat. Explain to students the explicit directions prior, so they do not gobble it up all at once.
*Adaptation: If one of your students is unable to use one or more of their senses, give them a handout with bubbles that are larger and only uses the senses they do have. If a student has an allergy, please choose a different object for the students to describe. If school does not permit eating, any object can be used. For example, a squishy ball.
Give students a moment to write their own words on their personal webs.
BEYOND
Have students write a paragraph describing the apple. It needs to have 5 sentences. Why five sentences? Because there are 5 senses, each sentence should use a different sense to describe the “tasty treat.” Explain expectations.
Provide rubric prior to having students start their paragraph.
*Accommodation: for students with learning disabilities and/or are English learners, consider going through the rubric with them one-on-one. Highlight important things.
Grade in timely manner and provide feedback. Reteach or review if necessary. / Describe what students will be doing and how this supports mastery of the standard(s)
Match student actions to teacher actions
Students assemble into their groups.
Sit in seats and recall knowledge about parts of speech.
Receive the mad lib handout. Listen to directions on how to fill out a mad lib. Ask questions for clarification if needed.
Work with your group and apply knowledge about parts-of-speech to complete the mad lib.
Have one person from your group share your creation with the class.
THROUGH
Students sit in their desks, listen to the teacher, and respond thoughtfully to the questions by raising their hands.
Contemplate the simplicity of the sentence.
Listen, reflect, and respond by raising hands.
Listen and follow directions. Take out a pencil so you can participate. Take a “senses web” and fill out along with the class. Ask questions if needed.
Use your senses to help you come up with words to describe the object the teacher has given you. Write the adjective in the appropriate bubble.
Reflect and add your own words to your personal web.
BEYOND
Using the web, follow the teacher’s directions to writing a paragraph. Ask questions if you need help or clarification.
Review rubric and be aware of objectives and expectations. Ask questions if needed.
When finished with paragraph, staple and turn in senses web, paragraph, and rubric into the “completed work bin.”
Planning Review:
1. Differentiation:
A. Differentiation strategies:
Flexible grouping/collaborative learning: Flexible grouping will help build a sense of community among students, as they will continually work with different students. They will be able to learn from one another and work together to complete the task.
Frequent checks for understanding: Asking the class formative questions throughout the lesson will help ensure that the students comprehend the newly introduced material. Checks for understanding will let me know if I am going too quickly or if I students need to review something.
Modeling: The teacher models how to use the “Sense Web.” This will help students visualize and better understand how the graphic organizer can help them with the writing process. During this lesson, students will help the teacher think of adjectives. Therefore, they are also practicing the skills that will be accessed prior to having to do so independently.
Thinking web/graphic organizer: This handout will help students through the thinking process. They can then use graphic organizer to help them construct their paragraph.
Tactile teaching: Students will be given a manipulative (the “tasty treat”) that they will use to help them come up with its characteristics. This will help them experience the five senses that we are discussing during the lesson.
Rubric: A rubric will be given to a student that has the lesson objective at the top of it. This will serve as a non-auditory reminder of the lesson objectives. It will also outline expectations.
B. ELD objectives:
· Use correct parts of speech, including correct subject/verb agreement.
· Use more complex vocabulary and sentences appropriate for language arts and other content areas.
C. Developing academic content language: ELs will be given a handout with a list of descriptive words. This will help them to participate in class discussion. They can use the handout and circle the words that they feel can be used to describe the object. They can then which words they circled with the class. ELs can also be given flashcards with the different parts of speech. The flashcards will have example sentences with the parts of speech labeled.
2. Explain two adaptations that meet the needs of your learners (refer to demographics), and explain why these
A. SN: This activity lends itself very well to the student in consideration. It is doubtful that they will need many accommodations or additional time in order to meet the learning goals/objectives. This language arts lesson will be held at the established daily time, so the student will not be thrown off by irregular scheduling. They will enjoy the small group work in the introduction of the lesson because it will allow him/her to socialize with their peers. The graphic organizer will help categorize the student’s thinking process. The student may interrupt during class discussion by not raising their hand to participate. To discourage this behavior, I will verbally reward the type of behavior that I am looking for. For example, if another classmate, “Amy,” is listening and raising their hand to contribute to the discussion I will say, “Thank you for raising your hand Amy. What adjective did you think of?” This will remind the student in consideration of expected behavior. The activity has variety and changes course of action frequently, which will help this student perform to their best abilities. Established classroom procedure on how to turn complete work into the teacher will be maintained for this lesson; this benefits the student because it maintains consistency.
B. ELL: The ELL will be given a handout with a list of descriptive words. This will help them to participate in class discussion. They can use the handout and circle the words that they feel can be used to describe the object. They can then which words they circled with the class. Their rubric will additionally include the two ELD objectives, listed above, that I have established for this lesson. The student in consideration can also be given flashcards with the different parts of speech. The flashcards will have example sentences with the parts of speech labeled.
3. Student(s) IEP goals or SST/504 accommodations have been reviewed and incorporated into instruction (identify within lesson by an asterisk/ examples)
Self-Reflection:
This is what worked:
• The use of a graphic organizer to help students categorize adjectives according to the senses they were using worked well in this lesson. This helped students to formulate their five sentence paragraphs because they were able to use each bubble to aid in the creation of a new sentence.
This is what did not work:
• The use of the “tasty treat” was too distracting for students. The students lost sight of the purpose of the manipulative and did not follow directions on how to use the manipulative to guide them in coming up with adjectives. The excitement became too overwhelming and therefore hindered the learning process.
This is what I will change:
• Next time, I would use a different manipulative to guide students through their sensory experience. The manipulative would not be so distracting and exciting for students. Perhaps I ask the students to describe an item that is typically found in the classroom, such as a pencil.