Alyssa Johnson

Reading Lesson Design

EDUC 426.3
Reading Lesson Design
Context: ​This lesson is being used with 23 third graders during the second trimester of the
academic school year. The students come from a middle-class suburban neighborhood that is
predominantly Asian, Hispanic, and White. My third-grade class is made up of 9 boys and 14
girls. There are 11 students with IEP’s: 4 for speech, 4 for learning disabilities, and 3 for
emotional disturbance. There are two students with 504’s, which are both for anxiety and
depression. There are 8 students who are classified as English Language Learners, however
none of them receive pull out or push in services to support their language development.
School Students Grade Level(s) Content Area Other
SR Elementary 23 3​rd​ grade Writing: Fairy
Tales
Theme:
Lucy Calkin’s Writer’s Workshop Unit 3 “Once Upon a Time…”
The unit engages students in writing adaptations of various fairy tales with the purpose of
improving their narrative writing skills. Prior to this unit, students will have had experience
with narrative writing in third grade.
Standards:
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.

SL.3.4​ Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts
and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.

ELD.PI.3.9.Ex ​Expressing information and ideas in formal oral presentations on academic

topics.
Content Objective(s): Language Objective(s):
Students will be able to record a summary of Students will be able to work with a partner to
their selected fairy tale using the “Somebody, orally retell a classic fairy tale using the
Wanted, But So, Then” story map. “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then” story
map.

Instructional Sequence:
Materials/ Set-up:
Students will need to be paired up prior to the start of the lesson. These may be heterogeneous
groupings.

The teacher will need to have gathered 7-8 copies of Little Red Riding Hood and 7-8 copies of
Three Billy Goats Gruff. All students will be adapting one of these fairy tales for their first
writing piece in this unit. It is essential that you have enough fairy tale books so that each
partnership can have their own.

Story map anchor chart

Writer’s notebooks
Computers and access to GetEpic

A set of post-its for each partnership.

Teacher’s copy of Cinderella

Access to google classroom

Access to ​Storyboard That​- Set up an assignment with a comic strip maker that has five
sections.

Provide an example of a Storyboard That using Cinderella

Mini lesson/ Learning Activity:

Connection:
Motivate student interest and build upon what children remember about fairy tale adaptations.

Writers, we have read the classic Cinderella fairy tale, but we also found out that there are
LOTS of different adaptations or versions of Cinderella.

Can anyone share about a different version of Cinderella that we read? ​(Assessing background
knowledge)

-Prince Cinders and how he ran into trouble when he lost his pants.
- Cindy Ellen and how she wanted to go to a rodeo!

Teaching point: ​Today I want to teach you that when authors go to write a fairy tale
adaptation, they first have to know the classic tale well and tell it often. (setting the purpose)

Teaching:
I do:
Writers, I have our classic tale of Cinderella here. Since I need to know this classic tale well, I
started to reread it another time. As I read, I started to think about these questions: Who is the
main character? What does the character want? What is the problem? What is the resolution
of the story?

You can see here that I have left some post-its in my book. These post-its are my quick jots
about those questions. For example, here I jotted because Cinderella just saw the invitation to
the ball and she is very excited. So my jot says, “wants to go to the ball.”

Will you read the rest of this story with me? As I read, let’s think, “What is Cinderella’s
problem? and How does Cinderella’s problem get solved?” If you hear something that might
give us an answer to one of those questions, I want you to put up a hand to signal me to stop.

Read the rest of the story. Let students partner talk and share out their thoughts about what to
jot. (Checking for understanding)

Writers, I have our familiar story map anchor chart here. Remember how we story mapped
Goldilocks and The Three Little Pigs. ​Watch how I ​use our story map anchor chart​ `to help
remind myself of the classic tale of Cinderella.

Model using the post-its and the text to think aloud.

Well, Cinderella is my main character, but what did she want? Hmmm…Oh yeah! She wanted
to go to the ball and meet her prince but her step-mother was being evil and wouldn’t let her
go. How did she try to solve that problem? Did she give up? No! (Modeling using the book to
look back). Her fairy god mother magically appeared and made her a fancy dress and a
carriage to ride to the ball in. Then, she solved her problem by leaving behind a glass slipper
at the ball so the prince could find her even after the magic wore off.

Writers, did you see how I tracked my story by recording jots. Then, I used my jots to fill out
my story map and get to know my story well. (Stops and checks for understanding/ restates the
process).

We do/ You do: ​Call on students to help record our story map on a shared anchor chart. Then,
explain to students that they will be working with a partner to story map ​Billy Goats Gruff ​or
Little Red Riding Hood​.

Writers, yesterday you chose whether you would like to adapt Billy Goats Gruff or Little Red
Riding Hood. Your job right now is to r​ eread the classic fairy tale, and then work with your
partner to create a story map of the classic fairy tale using the “Somebody, Wanted, But, So,
Then” frame. You will be given a stack of post-its to use as you read. Remember to think
about: Who is the main character? What does the character want? What is the problem? What
is the resolution of the story?

At the end, you will r​ ecord your story map in your writer’s notebook.​ Make sure to use your
book, jots, and the anchor charts to help you complete this assignment (Students will need
15-20 minutes to do this. ​This is a very supportive process. If students do not know the classic
tale, they cannot make adaptations. The teacher will be walking around the room,
conferencing with partners, and clarifying any misconceptions.​)

Students that finish early may log into GetEpic, an online library, and search for different fairy
tales to explore. GetEpic provides students with access to a variety of fairy tales in many
different forms, including digital books, videos, and audiobooks. Students can work with their
partner to see how many fairy tales they can story map.

Share:​ Have students come back and share out. Students can use their book to show images or
jots​ to help them retell. ​(Informal assessment that can be used to help guide students through
the rest of the lesson. I will be listening for partnerships who can use the “Somebody, Wanted,
But So, Then” story map to retell their fairy tale in a clear, comprehensible manner. This will
help determine whether I need to pull small groups to provide some clarification or reteach
before sending partners to create on Storyboard That.

(***This lesson is a brainstorming lesson for writing fairy tales. It will be beneficial to provide
students some “explore time” during Reading Workshop where students can log into GetEpic
to explore more fairy tales. Model how students can choose between different digital texts
based on what interests them and which text is a “best fit.” ​It will also be helpful to pull a
small group and review/ practice completing a story map using a fairy tale.​The more fairy tales
students read, the more knowledge they will have around the structure and story elements that
make up that genre. These texts will become mentor texts as students go to the page to write.)

Log into Storyboard That and show students the comic strip that you made using your story
map. (Students are already familiar with Storyboard That, as we have used it in previous
units). Make sure to highlight that each section of your comic strip correlates to the story map
you created.

Writers, the last thing we are going to do today is create a comic strip using our story map.
Every partnership is going to create one storyboard, and at the end we will have one giant
toolbox with several different fairy tale comic strips. We will refer back to these comic strips to
help us “know the classic tales well” and to give us ideas when we are choosing to adapt new
fairy tales. After you finish, we will have the chance to view other student’s comic strips and
leave comments in google classroom. (​ This will be used as another informal assessment to
track student’s progress for this lesson. This will provide students with another opportunity to
showcase their learning in a different format than oral reporting.)

Provide students 15-20 minutes to work on their comic strip. Emphasize the importance of
using their written story map to help them. Let the students have time to play and enjoy the
comic strip maker.

As students finish, send them to the front carpet. Have students log into their google classroom
so they can view their classmates’ projects. This can be done independently. On the
whiteboard in front of the carpet, provide students with sentence frames they can use to leave
comments. (only positive comments)

Examples: “I really like how you…” “Your story map helped me as a reader because…”

At the end of 25 minutes, wrap up this portion of the lesson. If students do not get to
commenting, that is okay.

Lesson Rationale:
This lesson will be supporting students’ comprehension through the use of story mapping and
collaborative work with partners. Story mapping is a scaffold for developing reading
comprehension because it helps students use the basic structure of a story for comprehending
and composing stories. Furthermore, the use of collaborative partnerships supports meaning
making when teaching because it allows students to debate ideas, address misconceptions, and
obtain instant feedback.

Reading Strategies Rationale:

This lesson included a variety of pre-reading, during, and post-reading strategies. I included
pre-reading strategies, such as structured overviews, to set the purpose and build background
knowledge. I set up during reading strategies, such as asking questions and annotating texts, to
help students monitor comprehension and read based on a purpose. I implemented
post-reading strategies, such as summarizing and reporting, to help students organize and
remember the information they collected, as this is the first step for “writing a fairy tale.”

Technology Strategies Rationale:

This lesson included opportunities for students to be a consumer of technology while utilizing
Web 1.0 tools. During the lesson, students have time to explore GetEpic, an online library with
grade-specific, high-interest topics across languages and genres. Students are required to
search for fairy tales which will provide them opportunities to practice identifying key words
to restrict their searches and sort through information. GetEpic also provides students with
access to books at their “level” along with support tools, such as “Read to me” and “Dictionary
Look Up.”

This lesson also included opportunities for students to be a producer of technology while
utilizing Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 tools allow students to read, write, and connect with students
in the classroom. In this lesson, students use Storyboard That and Google Classroom to
interact and collaborate with other students in the classroom. One benefit of using Google
Classroom as an online discussion board is that it removes some anxiety by allowing students
to plan and reflect before responding. This can be helpful for students who are reluctant to
speak up or share in class. One benefit of using Storyboard That is that students are supported
by visuals and graphic organizers. Students can match their written response with the structure
provided in the comic strip. In creating a comic strip based on their fairy tale story map,
students are also developing a collective toolkit that contains story maps of several different
fairy tales. This is helpful because as students choose to adapt new fairy tales throughout the
unit, they will have a large bank of possible, familiar fairy tales to choose from.

Assessment Strategies Integrated:

This lesson required several types of informal assessments in order to evaluate whether
students had met the language and content objectives. The informal assessments were chosen
because they are the best type of assessment for helping students in the moment. Throughout
this lesson, the teacher is constantly using observations, student-to-student conversations, and
written work to determine the extent to which students are learning content. Story mapping is
being used as a scaffold and as a formative assessment to gather information about student
learning and drive future instruction. Students are also given the opportunity to read,
collaborate, and create with partners on their story map and their comic strip. Working with
partners allows peers to provide feedback and clarify misconceptions in the moment. It is a
low pressure environment because it is one-on-one. The teacher is also assessing students
while they orally share out their story maps. This activity allows the teacher to provide
feedback in the moment and pull a small group to support students if necessary. Furthermore,
the teacher uses Storyboard That as another formative assessment to track students’ progress at
the end of the lesson. This assessment provides all learners another opportunity to showcase
their knowledge and ability in another format.

Key

Reading Strategies Integrated Yellow

Technology Strategies Integrated Blue

Assessment Strategies Integrated Pink