Teacher Candidate: Kyley Matusz

Subject: English Language Arts

Grade: Ninth

Lesson Title: Reader’s Response

Mini-Unit: Letters About Literature, Letter to Melba Pattillo – Author of Warriors Don’t Cry

1. Context/Objective:
a. Classroom Context:
i. Public charter preparatory school serving East San Diego in partner with
UCSD, grades 6th through 12th at school, 96% qualify for free & reduced
lunch
ii. Classroom is set up in six groups of four students, one group of two
students that move to a group when they need to. The groups are
heterogeneously designed based on data from testing: one high student,
one ELL or IEP, two middle.
b. Content Learning Objective:
i. Students will create a brainstorm map or list or their reader’s response to
Warriors Don’t Cry in order to reflect on what they want to write to the
author
ii. Students will read and analyze mentor letters through compare / contrast
in order to revise their reader’s response brainstorm
iii. Standard: CCSS.ELA.LITERACY.W.9-10.5 Develop and strengthen writing
as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific
purpose and audience.
c. Assessed Needs:
i. Students have finished the novel Warriors Don’t Cry (WDC) and
responded to short answer questions about the content of the book;
however, the students have not had the opportunity to reflect on their
experience from reading and analyze how it has affected their world
view. Also, a letter to the author (also the character in the book because
it was a memoir) allows the students to practice writing for authentic
purposes and discipline specific writing. This lesson builds upon two
lessons. The first, they analyzed mentor letters and discussed what
influence books can have on the reader; at the end of the first lesson,
students created a T-Chart to reflect on what thoughts or emotions they
experienced when reading WDC. The second lesson discussed the
relationship between the author and reader, how each reader
experiences a book differently and it is a personal connection to write to
the author – something no one else will write. The academic language
this will build on is: annotate and emotion words (given as a support on a
chart). This lesson teaches students academic language pertaining to

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 writing a letter to an author: corresponding, complimenting, synthesizing,
summarizing, and reader’s response.
ii. This will lesson will extend in further lessons of similar build – mentor
texts, writing strategies, and drafting their letters to finally send to the
author.
2. Academic Language:
a. Academic language demands: Text(s) – the demands of the text include certain
figurative language that could confuse some students such as “dove into your
book”; the emotion words such as “humbled” or “inspired”; the meaning of
“compliment” in this lesson goes beyond its definition of ‘saying something nice’
b. Academic language demands: Productive language – the demands of what the
students need to write include using “correspond” and explaining what that
means as shown in the mentor text. Also, they will need to understand the
definition of “annotate” past its surface understanding of just underlining. They
will also need to know how to suggest a way to make the letter correspond,
meaning they will have to speak within their groups and to the whole class on
what that means and why it is their suggestion.
c. Students’ academic language strengths and needs – The academic language
strengths of the higher-level students are their ability to understand abstract
concepts and definitions of a term that extend past the literal representation.
For example, they will be able to understand that the term ‘compliment’ in this
lesson extends past just saying nice things and is a term to refer to a piece of
writing that doesn’t have personal connections or examples of the book. ELLs
and students with IEPs will require examples of the emotion responses they are
reading in the text. For this, I will support them with an emotion word chart that
gives synonyms for common emotions such as: happy, mad, sad, scared,
surprised (cheerful, bitter, devastated, anxious, and shocked – respectively). This
subgroup of students will also have a t-chart with examples of the terms
‘correspond’ and ‘compliment’ so they can expand their frame of reference
when applying this language to the text. With these supports, the heterogenous
groups will be able to have a discussion on what the mentor text is trying to say
and all contribute suggestions to improve the reader response.
3. Instruction (Supporting/Engaging/Deepening Student Learning):
a. Introduction—
i. I will engage student curiosity by asking the students to write about the
phrase “Reader’s Response” – what does it mean to them in regard to
books? The phrase will be on the board with instructions, prior to me
speaking to them about anything.
ii. I will discuss the importance of following your thoughts and emotions
when reading a book in order to explore the connection between the
author and the reader – and how both view the world or influence their
view. The way to do this is through writing down your thoughts and
emotions, and to physically connect it through a concept map / web / list

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 iii. I will draw on students’ background knowledge from previous lessons
that discussed how books can affect a reader: they can give you a new
perspective of the world, they can make you think about your life or
compare to the book, and they can make you feel or react to the story as
it is happening. I will also draw on their prior knowledge of a concept
map; this was explored in a lesson with main idea + supporting details
with an informational text
iv. I will scaffold understanding by modeling the brainstorm reader’s
response for the book “The Giver”. I will start with a feeling I had when
reading, then expand to a detail from the book to support that feeling. I
will then show how you can start from a part in the book, and explore
how you felt about it, and perhaps even connected to it in your own life. I
will think out loud while ‘brainstorming’ my response, checking for
understanding that the students see how I started and continued forward
to explore my response to a book.
b. Instructional input: After the students have brainstormed their reader’s response
to WDC, I will pass out a worksheet that is designed to give students information
on how to write to an author.
i. I will ask students to read the sample letter and discuss in their groups –
what did the writer do well? What could be improved on?
ii. Whole group share out – I will chart their responses to guide them to the
answer that is to be filled out in the notes section (Correspond Don’t
Compliment) (5 min)
iii. I will model the first sample passage to determine if it is complimenting
or corresponding; if it is the former, I will provide a suggestion for the
writer to weave in reader-responses (personal details, you + book)
iv. I will check for understanding by a thumbs up/down and release the
students to work in groups. (3 min)
(Repeat b through d for strategy: Synthesize Don’t Summarize)
c. Provide opportunity for student application - They will read and discuss sample
passages 2 through 4 – determining if it is corresponding or complimenting,
suggesting a way to make it correspond.

d. Application task - One student will be the writer, one will be the presenter (if
called on) – there are eleven students that are responsible for participating as
writer/speaker from a continuation of previous class period participation points
(8 min)
i. All members of the four-student group are responsible for annotating
(underling/highlighting + notes to categorize the marks)
ii. This application applies to the larger context in that it allows them to
practice judgement on what makes an effective letter to an author which
they will be writing in a few short lessons. They will also practice their
annotation / revising skills for a peer editing lesson that is scheduled for a
week later.

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 iii. Whole class share out of suggestions for the three samples. (10 min)
iv. Students will then revisit their brainstorm and check for compliments to
convert into correspondence – by adding personal details, connections,
examples (3 min)
e. Instructional Support- The following supports are in place for Ells, students w/
IEPs, and general ed students to guide them while they are crafting a reader
response to the book WDC. These supports for help them access the content
immediately with organizers, word charts, and modeling; however, it will also
provide long term strategies to effectively respond to a piece they have –
through speaking, listening, and writing.
i. Graphic organizer for brainstorm map for Ells
ii. Emotion word chart for Ells, students with IEPs, General ed students
iii. Model of brainstorm map: how to choose a response and explain its
importance
iv. Guided notes: fill in the blank format
v. Modeled annotation of sample letter under doc cam
4. Assessment:
a. Modes of assessment - I will assess student learning by the answers for each
sample passage, the quality of their discussion while walking around and when
presenting, along with the annotations and reasoning for their answer. For
example, if a student chooses “compliment” or “summarize” I will check to see
they have annotated the correct wording in the passage that reflects the term. I
will assess their development by the revisions to their brainstormed reader’s
response after each lesson; I will do this at the end with an informal assessment
of their conversations: students will share with their neighbor one item from
their brainstorm map and explain if it is a corresponding or synthesizing detail.
b. Assessment analysis – Student work showed a 70% mastery of the material; the
30% struggled with going deeper on the definition of “compliment” to
encompass writing that didn’t have details. Based on the standard; however, the
student work reflected a 85% mastery of the content objective – revising work in
order to try a new approach or focus on one aspect of the brainstorm. I think a
large part of the misunderstanding lies in the ability of students to analyze their
own work as opposed to mentor work. The articulation is stronger when it
comes to annotating / reviewing than when it is producing an example in their
own writing that reflects their reasoning from the annotations.
5. Reflection:
a. Connection to theory and research – The design behind this lesson was to focus
in on one aspect of the larger project that makes it the most authentic – the
reader response. This response is individually unique and requires students to
learn and apply tools to express their thinking in reference to a book and direct it
towards the author of that book. To do this, the lessons needed to be chunked –
as per Lattimer in Reading for Learning – “Readers don’t have to read, analyze,
apply, and respond to a whole text all at once” (p. xxiii, 2010). The focus was on
one part of a whole that is the students’ response; this lesson gives them the

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 tools to articulate that. Also, the opportunity to brainstorm, analyze mentor
texts, and then revisit their brainstorm has proven to be the most successful with
these groups of students – they need to see it and work with it before they can
produce their own.
b. Lesson revision – If I could go back and teach this to students differently I would
give them more examples of compliment and correspond, with modeled
analysis, instead of one sample that they annotated for what it did well or not
well before even knowing how to apply compliment / correspond. The students
were unable to expand their definition of ‘compliment’; this problem did not
exist so much with synthesize / summarize; however, it would have been
beneficial to provide them with multiple examples of both in order for them to
go deeper once they were released. Also, I would have assigned questions to
groups to increase accountability and enrich the whole class share out of student
work.
c. Reflection on teaching and learning – While teaching this lesson, I learned my
students can read content they are unfamiliar with as long as the vocabulary is at
a lower level (as were these examples). I learned that modeling is a necessity
with this group of students – they have to see something worked out before they
are able to move forward, and in the end produce their own work. I learned my
students are capable of having effective discussion with their group members
and work towards an answer together. Moving forward, I will see myself as a
teacher of building block skills necessary to master content and broader skills
because without effectively equipping your students with the skills required to
break something down, you cannot expect them to build anything.