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Part B: Lesson Plans

Lesson 1

TOPIC: Science

Year Level: 4

Time: 60 minutes approximately

This assessment task addresses the broad AC English: Content Descriptor from the Literacy Sub Strand: Interpreting, analysing, and evaluating. Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts (ACELY1692).

Relevant Elaborations: Finding the main idea of the text.

During this lesson students will: Students will extend their ability in finding the main idea of a piece of text to deepen their reading comprehension awareness. They will learn to use the clues within a text and text organization as an aid to comprehension and to value the use of this particular strategy.

LESSON INTRODUCTION:

The Hook: Using the class set of iPads, in pairs, students will visit the website Sheppard Softwares Life Cycles (http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/scienceforkids/life_cycle/games.htm) to explore three animal life cycles; dragging and dropping animations to complete them.

Literacy learning intentions

We are learning to understand and use the comprehension strategy finding the main idea of a piece of text to capture the most important information.

Learning behaviours

I need to refer to the poster to recognize and value it as a scaffold to tracking down the main idea.

Success criteria for whole class

I am doing well if I can capture the most important aspect of the text into my headline.

Success criteria for focus teaching group

I am doing well if I can determine important ideas to condense the information within the paragraph.!!

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Shared Text for whole class: Classifying Animals, Mammals Sarah Wilkes.

Consider your role for whole class and focus group instruction: The whole class instruction is the visible thinking strategy Headlines and the focus group will be participating in the reciprocal teaching strategy.

BEFORE: Finding the main idea involves the reader being able to determine and recall important information. Finding significant details helps the reader understand the points the writer is attempting to express. Ask students:

! Why is it important to find the main idea/s?

! Is it easy to find the main idea when you read?

Concede that the class has been learning about life cycles and making observations about living things. Refer to The Hook and discuss what each life cycle showed us.

Introduce the text, Mammals.

DURING: The purpose of informational text is to convey information about the natural or social world, with language features including headings and technical vocabulary to help accomplish that purpose.

Show the students the monotreme page. Discuss, what do the headings and subheadings tell us. Read a section of the text and clarify unfamiliar vocabulary. E.g. monotremata, mammals, species and cloaca. Re-read the text and discuss how we improved our understanding after learning the unfamiliar words.

Introduce the detective poster and use it as a platform for the Headlines activity. As a class create a headline for the first paragraph of the text, first identifying key words.

AFTER:

1. Whole class activity/thinking routine to explore the text using the reading comprehension strategy:

Headlines encourages students to capture the essence of the idea and concept about monotremes. The routine asks one core question: if you were to write a headline for this topic after what we have read and discussed that captured the most important aspect that should be remembered, what would it be? Students will work individually creating 3 headlines and share with a partner.

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2. Focussed teaching group: 17028542, 17643042, 82392273, and 89996161.

The focus group will be participating in the reciprocal teaching strategy that asks students and teachers to share the role of leading discussion. Each student will have a paragraph each focusing on Marsupials. The activity involves four strategies that guide the discussion: predicting, question generating, summarizing and clarifying.

While students discuss they will be assessed through observations if they have recalled the most relevant information.

LESSON CONCLUSION:

Students will share their headlines to create a class poster on the topic. A member of the focus group will share what they did and tell the class the main idea of one of the paragraphs read.

Lesson 2

TOPIC: Science

Year Level: 4

Time: 60 minutes approximately

This assessment task addresses the broad AC English: Content Descriptor from the Literacy Sub Strand: Interpreting, analysing, and evaluating. Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts (ACELY1692).

Relevant Elaborations: Making connections.

During this lesson students will: Students will learn and apply the comprehension strategy of making connections through defining and understanding the three types of connections. In addition, they will discover meaning within the digital environment.

LESSON INTRODUCTION:

The Hook: Using the class set of iPads, in pairs, students will visit the WWF website and calculate their ecological footprint (http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/people_and_the_environment/human_footprint/footprint_calculator/).

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Literacy learning intentions

We are learning to enhance the comprehension strategy making connections; in order for us to better understand the text we are reading. Whilst, exploring the connection between words, images and sounds in digital texts.

Learning behaviours

I need to refer back to the poster if I have trouble remembering what it means to make connections with the text.

Success criteria for whole class

I am doing well if I can connect a new idea to prior knowledge and reflect on what I have just learnt.

Success criteria for focus teaching group

I am doing well if I can make 3 clear connections (text to text, text to self, text to world) between ideas from the video.

Shared Text for whole class: Food Eco-Footprint (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAybZOfCN6g)

Consider your role for whole class and focus group instruction: The whole class instruction is the visible thinking strategy Connect, Extend, Challenge and the focus group will be completing a Double Entry Journal.

BEFORE: Making connections involve the reader drawing on their prior knowledge and experiences to connect with the text. Making connections while reading helps the reader better understand the text that they are reading. Ask students:

! What are three different kinds of connections?

! Is it difficult to make connections with text? If so, why and how?

Animal life cycles and eco footprints are similar as they both represent a progression and have a beginning and end. What else do they both have in common? Referring back to the topic and The Hook, discuss the students food eco footprint with a screen shot of the video in the background. Discuss how meaning is conveyed through digital text.

DURING: The purpose of this informational video is for us to discover the consequences of the food we eat, how it is produced and the connection between food and the environment. It will also allow us to explore the text using the semiotic system. Ask students, what are the five semiotic systems. Give examples

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for each. Emphasize that this lesson will focus on visual and audio systems. Watch to 0.52. What unfamiliar words do we need to clarify? E.g. proportion, consumption and reabsorb. What did you notice about the sound effects and visual movement?

Introduce Connect, Extend, Challenge table on the whiteboard. Watch the rest of the video and list questions in appendix 2 to prompt students.

AFTER:

1. Whole class activity/thinking routine to explore the text using the reading comprehension strategy:

Connect, Extend and Challenge supports students to make connections between new ideas and prior knowledge. In groups of 3 students will use sticky notes to write ideas addressing the video under the headings in the Connect, Extend and Challenge table explored in the during phase.

2. Focussed teaching group: 10906789, 31249379, 61100916, and 50582413. The Double Entry Journal will help learners struggling with phrase and sentence level meaning. Students will choose a quote or idea from the video in one column and in the other write a response to that idea.

The journal will be used as a brief assessment to reflect the students connection to the text. After, teachers will pile sort the journal into three groups.

LESSON CONCLUSION: Each group of 3 will share to the rest of the class highlighting a connection they made within the three headings. The students from the focus group will share their journals. The class will further discuss which types of connections were the easiest and the hardest to make.

WORD COUNT Part B: 348

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APPENDICES:

APPENDIX 1: Text for whole class

Author: Sarah Wilkes

Title: Classifying Animals, Mammals

Date of Publication: 2006

Publisher: Hodder Wayland

Place of Publication: Great Britain

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Text for focus group

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Whole class instruction: Headlines is a visible thinking strategy where students grasp on the idea of newspaper-type headlines as a vehicle for summing up and capturing the essence of an event, idea, concept and topic encouraging them to only accentuate the important ideas of the text.

Focus group instruction: The focus group will be participating in the reciprocal teaching strategy that asks students and teachers to share the role of teacher by allowing both to lead the discussion about a given reading. It involves four strategies that guide the discussion: predicting, question generating, summarizing and clarifying. The strategy supports students to determine important ideas while discussing vocabulary, developing ideas and question whilst summarizing information.

Tips and Questions During the Three Phases

Before:

! Emphasise that being able to identify the main idea is a good check on ones own comprehension, a good way to study and remember information, and

an excellent way to summarise information quickly.

When discussing The Hook:

! What did we learn about in the life cycle of the bird?

! Was it difficult to understand the cycle fully without supportive text?

During:

When introducing Mammals, ask the students:

! To predict what we will expect to read about.

! What genre does this book fit in?

! What key vocabulary do you think we will find?

The poster used in this lesson is a valuable visual tool to prompt students and allow the time they need to practice what is being asked. It encourages learning and independence plus advantageous for students with disabilities (Visual

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Aids for Learning, 2014).

After

Whole class: Critical to restate the success criteria of, I am doing well if I can capture the most important aspect of the text into my headline.

Focus group: Critical to restate the success criteria of, I am doing well if I can determine important ideas to condense the information within the paragraph.

The reciprocal teaching strategy will extend interpretive reading elements specifically for these students. This includes: identifying the main idea, summarising, linking new information to prior knowledge, recognising/using print features and questioning. The strategy supports students to determine important ideas while discussing vocabulary, developing ideas and question whilst summarizing information.

This link shows a video recording of the strategy in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXgMJVyCdeY

Questions and prompts:

! Predict: I think this (paragraph/section of text) will tell us aboutbecause

! Clarify: Well, there is a few words that Im not sure aboutwhat does X mean? (E.g. nocturnal, dusk, subclass, dependent).

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Lets reread the sentences again now that we know what those words mean.

! Question: I wonder ifI wonder whywhat questions and wonderings do others have?

! Summarise: In this paragraph of text we read about(who, where, what, when, why and how).

Teachers can also use the rubric below as a guide to assessing through observation.

Lesson conclusion: Teacher should strengthen the questions from the before reading phase.

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APPENDIX 2: Text for whole class

Food Eco-Footprint (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAybZOfCN6g)

Text for focus group (important for students to have watched the complete video, no particular shots will precisely trigger connections).

Whole class instruction: Connect, Extend, Challenge is a visible thinking strategy where students will make connections between new ideas and prior knowledge, reflecting on what they are learning. They will display their ideas in a table with the appropriate headings.

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Focus group instruction: The focus group will be completing a Double Entry Journal where students will choose an idea from the text in one column and in another record their response. This reinforces the fact these responses should make a connection between the text and themselves, another text, or the world. The activity also supports vocabulary and locating key words from the text.

Tips and Questions During the Three Phases

Before:

! Discuss each connection, brainstorming on the whiteboard.

! Encourage students to give examples.

Discussion in regards to the topic focused in the digital text:

! What is it?

! What ways do we leave our footprint on the planet?

! What do you think this video will be about?

! What key vocabulary do you think we will hear?

Because this text is not a book, how will the words, images and sounds be effective?

During:

As a class discuss these questions to address each heading in the visible thinking strategy (Connect, Extend, Challenge).

! How are the ideas and information presented connected to what you already knew?

! What new ideas did you get that extended or pushed your thinking in new directions?

! What is still challenging or confusing for you to get your mind around? What questions, wonderings or puzzles do you now have?

After watching the rest of the video. Ask students:

! What does this story remind you of?

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! Does anything in this story remind you of anything in your own life?

! How is this text similar or different from other things you have read?

! What does this remind you of in the real world?

! How are events in this story similar or different to things that happen in the real world?

In relation to the semiotic system:

! What was the movement of the objects like? Fast? Slow?

! What sound effects did you notice?

! How about the colour?

! Discuss the symbolism of the footprint.

After

Whole class: Critical to restate the success criteria of, I am doing well if I can connect a new idea to prior knowledge and reflect on what I have just learnt.

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Focus group: Critical to restate the success criteria of, I am doing well if I can make 3 clear connections (text to text, text to self, text to world) between ideas from the video.

The double-entry journal encourages students to gather ongoing questions, puzzles and difficulties as they reflect on what they are learning and connecting with.

Students in the focus group will be assessed through pile sorting. The journal will be used as a brief assessment to reflect the students connection to the text. This helps teachers assess construction of meaning. Teacher then reads and sort their responses in three groups: those who got it, those who sort have got it, and those who didnt get it. Identifying three groups of students with whom the teacher can meet and do the following: provide deeper examples for the group who got it, give opportunities to review and move into deeper examples for the group who sort of got it, reteach and provide intervention for the group who didnt get it.