Responding to Literature

Reading and Writing

Second Grade

Lesson Example Using Dr. DeSoto by William Steig (there are multiple copies of this in the book room- maybe about 15 copies).

Day / Focus / Lesson
1 / Whole group
Modeling fluency/ Context clues / Read aloud the story Dr DeSoto by Steig. Use this as an opportunity to model fluency. Students follow along as you read aloud. Use context clues to understand vocabulary ( flannel, timid, bicuspid, extractor, etc)
2-3 / Whole group Inferring character traits / Introduced the Inferential Character Graphics Organizer. Have this on a large sheet of chart paper and be ready to fill in a children discover things about the character. Ask students to be detectives and “hunt” for examples of what is on the chart.
This chart may take 2-3 lessons to complete. Encourage children to synthesize the information- not just that Dr. DeSoto managed to make a plan, but Dr. DeSoto was clever.
4 / Whole group shared writing / Tell students now we will be taking all the hard detective work we did and will be writing a report about what we know about Dr. DeSoto. Ask students to brainstorm words that describe Dr. DeSoto (clever, smart, kind, and helpful). After students have time to brainstorm a list, ask student to look carefully at the list. What two words MOST describe Dr. DeSoto? Circle these two words.
Ask students to turn this into a sentence. This sentence is now the topic sentence for your paragraph.
5 / Whole group shared writing / Return to the topic sentence. Ask students to brainstorm a list of ways or things that SHOW Dr. DeSoto was ______and ______(the two words the class chose). Create a list.
6 / Whole group shared writing / Now it is time to put all the hard work together. These sentences are now called SUPPORTING DETAILS. Write the topic sentence at the top of chart paper, modeling indention. Ask student to look at our list of ways that show the character is ______and ______and turn it into a paragraph. This is a descriptive paragraph about the character using interferential thinking while synthesizing the story.
7-8 / Guided Practice / Divide students in pairs. Ask students to complete the character inferential graphic organizer. This time instead of focusing on Dr. DeSoto, ask them to focus on the FOX as the character.
9 / Guided Practice / Ask students to complete the response to literature graphic organizers with their partners. Ask students to then to recopy this into a paragraph.
10 / Guided Practice / At this point students should be able to do this independently with a book of their choice. Eventually they will be able to move away form the graphics organizers and internalize the s model.

Written by Mandy Gregory 2007