Teacher Candidate: Olivia Pannek Lesson: Learning Experience One

Grade: 3rd Unit: Character Unit

Standard: RL 3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and
explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Objectives: I can use my observations to form ideas about my character.

Key Vocabulary: Observation, motivation, character, character traits

Materials:
1. Writing utensil
2. Two different colored post it notes
3. Police Officer Observations poster
4. Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 of Charlotte’s Web
5. SMART Board Digital Table
6. SMART Board Interactive Pens
7. Numbered popsicle sticks
8. Character Observation Worksheet

Launch: Teacher begins lesson by telling students to watch her and her body language for
clues on how she is feeling today. Teacher will discuss and show her symptoms to the students
about how she was feeling the past two days. Students will have the opportunity to turn and talk
to their neighbor about how they believe the teacher is feeling and why they think she is feeling
that way. When sharing with the class about how the teacher is feeling, the students will be
asked to provide reasoning for their belief. The teacher will then explain to the students that
what they were making was an observation about how their teacher was feeling, because their
teacher did not specifically tell them how she was feeling. The teacher will go on to explain that
“Observation is a big third grade word for things that we notice about other people, places, or
things. Making observations can help us really understand someone, their feelings, and their
character traits.”

Mini Lesson: Teacher talks to the class and says “Earlier this week, we went on a field trip and
got to meet many people from our local government and see their vehicles. One of those people
was Officer Shaffer, someone who we see all around school.” Referencing the chart on the wall,
the Police Officer Observations, the teacher and students will work to write on pink post-it-notes
what things have we observed about our local police officer, Officer Shaffer. They will have the
opportunity to turn and talk to their neighbors about this in addition to sharing with the class.
After writing about six different examples, we will utilize a different colored post-it-note to explain
what each of those traits tells us about Officer Shaffer as a person. We will discuss the
importance of talking about what our observations tell us about a person, or else it is just stating
facts. When talking about what those traits tell us, the teacher will introduce the term motivation
to the students.

Modeling: Teacher will start reading Charlotte’s Web Chapter 7 and talking about observations
that she is making while reading. She will pause throughout the chapter and use two examples
to fill out a chart with two columns on the SMART Board. The columns are “Observations” and
“What does this tell us”. The teacher will have the students turn and talk about to their neighbors
about why their characters did what they did.
Guided Practice: Teacher will read Chapter 8 to the class, while pausing while reading to have
the students come up with examples of observations and motivations on the SMART Board.
After reading the chapter, the teacher will talk to the class about this quote on page 48 and
Charlotte’s motivation for doing this.

“Wilbur admired the way Charlotte managed. He was particularly glad that she always put her
victim to sleep before eating it.
“It’s real thoughtful of you to do that, Charlotte,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied in her sweet, musical voice, ‘I always give them an anaesthetic so they won’t
feel pain. It’s a little service I thrown in.’”

This can serve as a jumping off point to discuss more character motivations throughout the
story.

Independent Work: Students will be dismissed back to their tables and instructed to get out
their laptops. Students will log on to Read Works and read and answer questions about the
story “The Big Hike”. This activity will also serve as a formative assessment about how well the
students understand the concepts of observation and motivation.

Assessment: Once their online independent work is completed, students will be given a paper
that they will complete throughout the week. Each day, they will read part of their independent
reading book and complete a row explaining an observation that occurred while they were
reading and what that observation told them about the character.

Closure: Thank students for their hard work on the lesson, review what the terms observation
and motivation mean. Transition into the next academic subject.

Differentiation: During Independent Work, the teacher will receive immediate results over how
the students performed on reading the text and answering the questions. For the students who
are struggling with the concept of identifying motivation and observation, the teacher will pull the
students in a small group and pull other texts read in class to use as examples for observations
and motivations. For students who are struggling, we will alter their vocabulary words to have
them utilize the word reason instead of motivation. These students will also be introduced to the
vocabulary word notice instead of observation.

For the students who have mastered the concept, they will be given the additional challenge to
state how the choices their character makes affects the other characters in the story. These
students will be introduced to the synonyms incentive and inspiration to utilize as more
advanced vocabulary terms instead of motivation.
Teacher Candidate: Olivia Pannek Lesson: Learning Experience Two

Grade: 3rd Unit: Character Unit

Standard: RL 3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and
explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Objectives: I can notice patterns about the things that the character does throughout the story.

Key Vocabulary: Patterns, observation, motivation, character, character traits

Materials:
1. Writing utensil
2. Chapter 9 of Charlotte’s Web
3. SMART Board
4. SMART Board Interactive Pens
5. Numbered popsicle sticks
6. Character Observation Worksheet
7. Twitter Exit Ticket
8. White board
9. White board marker
Launch: Teacher talks to the class about how she has observed things throughout the past few
weeks being with the class. Teacher will use examples such as: “I know who likes football”, “I
know whose lunchbox was left in the middle of the room because I saw the key chain on it”, “I
can tell who you all are by the sound of your voice”, “I can tell who ran up to me and hugged me
from behind yesterday.” Teacher will then say, “For me to know all of these things, I didn’t just
see it happen once, I had to observe it over time and notice these patterns. You can do the
same thing with your characters.”

Mini Lesson: The teacher will have the students talk about what days their garbage man
comes to pick up their garbage and recycling. The teacher will call approximately five students
at random to share what day their garbage man comes to pick up their trash. When they share
with the class, the teacher will have the students fill out a chart on the SMART Board to
document their days. We will discuss how there is a pattern of when their trash will get picked
up, and how we can count on the garbage man being at our house the same day each week.
The teacher will have the students turn and talk to a partner about what would happen if their
garbage man broke the pattern, and what consequences would happen. We will then begin
talking about what would happen if a character suddenly broke a pattern, does it have to be a
negative thing, or could it be a positive thing?

Modeling: Teacher will read Charlotte’s Web Chapter 9 aloud to the class and pause
throughout to discuss the patterns that have occurred throughout the chapter.

Guided Practice: Have the students return to their seats and get out one white board per table.
The tables will be assigned either Fern, Wilbur, or Charlotte, and collaborate with one another to
write down a list of patterns that they have observed so far in the story about their character.
The students will then share their findings with the class.
Independent Work: Students will complete the Twitter Exit Ticket, answering the prompt Why
might an author decide to break a pattern in the book? This will also be used as a formative
assessment to see what students need to be pulled for intervention or enrichment.

Assessment: After the exit ticket, students will also return to their Character Observation and
Motivation paper to fill out the second row.

Closure: Tell the students they did an excellent job with analyzing patterns in a story. Review
what a pattern is and discuss whether an author has to stick with the patterns throughout the
story. Transition into independent reading.

Differentiation: For the students who have mastered the content, they will be provided with the
enrichment activity to apply their knowledge to a book other than Charlotte’s Web. These
students will have to write an example of when an author broke a pattern of a character and
what were the effects of that pattern being broken. These students will also be introduced to the
vocabulary word repetition.

For the students who are struggling identifying patterns, they will be pulled to work with the
teacher in a small group. The teacher will provide more guided practice of them analyzing
patterns of a character in texts. They will be able to use one another as resources, as well as
ask additional questions to the teacher.
Teacher Candidate: Olivia Pannek Lesson: Learning Experience Three Small Group

Grade: 3rd Unit: Character Unit

Standard: RL 3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and
explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Objectives: I can get to know my character as a friend.

Key Vocabulary: Observation, motivation, character, character traits, patterns

Materials:
1. Writing utensil
2. Copies of Charlotte’s Web
3. Spider web worksheet
4. Scissors
5. Construction paper
6. Glue
7. Teacher example
8. Character worksheet
Small Group: Isaiah and Jennifer (focus students), Jacob, Indie, Mal

Launch: Referencing the story, talk about how and why Charlotte weaves words into her spider
web. Explain how Charlotte weaves important things into the web and talk about how we will be
weaving important things in our web.

Mini Lesson: Work with the students to fill out the worksheet about firefighters, specifically the
firefighters we met on our field trip. We will be filling out feelings, traits, patterns, how does the
character act and talk, and what does this tell me categories on the worksheet.
Modeling: The teacher will model what she wants the students to do during the lesson, showing
the students how to answer the questions on the character worksheet about the character Fern.

Guided Practice: After viewing the initial teacher modeling, the teacher work with the students
to fill out her chart about the character Fern. She will encourage them to look through their texts
and to find exact examples of what the question is asking.

Independent Work: The students will then work on filling out their own charts about either
Charlotte or Wilbur. Once their charts are approved by the teacher, the students will move on
the next step of cutting and gluing their questions onto their spiderweb.

Closure: The teacher will have the students share their work with the others in the small group
and answer any questions that they may have. The teacher can also use this time to go over
concepts, such as patterns in stories or character traits.

Assessment: The completed activity will serve as a formative assessment.

Differentiation: For the lower-level students, we will analyze the character of Wilbur. These
students will be provided with additional teacher support, as we will be doing that together. They
will also have to provide fewer examples on their worksheets. The lower-level students will be
provided with the teacher example about Fern, so they have something to reference as they
complete their work.

The higher-level students will be analyzing Charlotte independently. They will be providing more
examples on their worksheets, as well as direct quotes. These students will also be expected to
implement the advanced vocabulary they had been taught throughout the unit.
Teacher Candidate: Olivia Pannek Lesson: Learning Experience Four
Grade: 3rd Unit: Character Unit

Standard: RL 3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and
explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Objectives: I can use deeper thinking and ask, “Why is the character this way?”

Key Vocabulary: Observation, motivation, character, character traits, patterns

Materials:
1. Writing utensil
2. Chapter 10 of Charlotte’s Web
3. SMART Board
4. SMART Board Interactive Pens
5. Numbered popsicle sticks
6. Character Observation Worksheet
7. Character Favorites Worksheet
8. Post-assessment

Launch: Tell the students, “My friends at Miami are so excited that I am spending the semester
with all of you and Mrs. Brunsman. They couldn’t believe when I told them all about Officer
Shaffer as well! They have asked me so many questions about him! So, with your help, I want to
make a quick list about Officer Shaffer so I can share it with my friends and teachers at college.”

Mini Lesson: Teacher will write that Officer Shaffer is tall and bald. She will then say, “okay,
does that describe Officer Shaffer well enough?” Students will say “No.” Teacher will elaborate
and say “Why isn’t that good? They wanted to know all about Officer Shaffer and I told them that
he is bald and tall. Is that not enough? Why not?” Teacher will then call on students to answer
the question. Teacher will then say, “Okay, so if you were describing Officer Shaffer to someone
who has never met him before, what should we tell them about him?” Students and teacher will
complete a chart about what Officer Shaffer is like, including all his characteristics.

Modeling: Teacher will say “Earlier, we said that someone would not get the full picture of
Officer Shaffer if I only told them that he is tall and bald. Everyone knows that just by looking at
him! But he also has a lot of traits and characteristics that do not show. Just like Officer Shaffer,
there is more to your characters than what you see on the surface.” Teacher will then pull up the
SMART Board and ask the class “is Charlotte just a spider with eight legs? Is that enough to
describe Charlotte?” Together we will make a chart on the SMART Board and fill out additional
characteristics of Charlotte. Together, we will read Charlotte’s Web Chapter 10.

Guided Practice: Using Charlotte’s Web, the teacher will fill out the worksheet about Character
Favorites using a character from the book. She will go through examples by modeling how to
answer them, then call on some students to help answer the other boxes and provide
appropriate justification for their answer.

Assessment: Students will complete the post-unit assessment independently.

Independent Work: After they take the post-unit assessment, the students will utilize their
independent reading book to fill out their worksheet about Character Favorites.

Closure: Have some of the students share the examples they wrote on their paper with the
class. Once three-five students have shared, the class will then transition into the silent reading
where they will fill out the next row on their Character Observation sheet.

Differentiation: For students who have mastered the content and show a deep understanding
of their character, they will be asked to complete more questions on the Character Favorites
sheet, instead of answering just three questions.

For students who are having difficulty demonstrating an understanding of their character, they
will be pulled to work with the teacher in a small group. Instead of using their independent
reading books, the students will work with the teacher and use a book that was read to the class
previously.