Teachers: Amanda Oglesby & Paige Lemke

Date: July 8, 2022 Grade Level: 3rd Grade

Mini Lesson 1
E: Essential questions
● What factors drive a character’s motivations?
● How do a character’s feelings and thoughts contribute to the sequence of events in
a story?
● How does a person’s environment shape his or her behavior?

5 minutes: Activating strategy

Pass out index cards with different emotions (sad, scared, happy, excited, etc.).
Without telling the class what is on their card, students should act out their emotion while
others guess what emotion they were given.
Have a classroom discussion about times in their lives when they’ve felt these emotions.

Did it change decisions/actions you made in the future? Did those emotions have an
effect on your thoughts or opinions about something?

10 minutes: Teaching

I do: The teacher will pass out 3 sticky notes to each student and say:
“We are going to read a story today about a boy named Jose.While reading, we are going
to focus on the events that happen, and how Jose may be feeling throughout the story.
For example, everyone knows the story of the Three Little Pigs, yes? Well in the
beginning of the story the pigs are happy (write this on a sticky note). Why are they
happy? (write, and say, ‘they have built their houses out of sticks, hay, and brick’). In the
middle they were scared (write this on the 2nd sticky note). Why were they scared?
(write, and say, ‘their houses were blown down by the wolf because they were not strong
enough’). At the end they were relieved (write this on the 3rd note). Why? (write, and say,
‘the strongest house did not let the wolf in , so they were safe’).

We Do: While reading the first few pages of the story, pause and do the first sticky note
together. Give students a moment to share their thinking and choose their emotion and
reasoning. Let students know that there are lots of different answers, and to keep that in
mind for the middle and the ending of the story.
You do: Students will fill out the last two sticky notes for the middle and ending of the
story. Share findings with the class using talk-and-talks, pair-and-share, BME anchor
chart, or a BME carousel.
 ● ELL accommodations: Provide a word back with pictures displaying a variety of
emotions.
● Sped/lower ability accommodations: Allow students to draw a picture of the
emotion or provide a word bank.
● Gifted/Higher Ability: Require students to avoid simple emotions such as happy,
sad, mad, etc. or require more than 3 sticky notes.

5 minutes: Summarizing strategy

While students are sharing the teacher will listen and fill in the left side of the chart with
emotions/feelings. Complete the right side together.

Cause (Feeling/Emotion) Effect (What did the character do?)

Mini Lesson 2
E: Essential questions

● How can we compare the two texts?

● How can we contrast the two texts?
● Why are the similarities and differences within the two texts important and what
can they tell us?

A: Activating strategy (5 minutes)

Students will watch this flocabulary video about comparing and contrasting. Throughout
the video, the teacher will pause to elaborate and explain what it means to compare and
contrast two topics/books.

T: Teaching (20 minutes)

I do: The teacher will display a venn diagram on the board and explain how to use it to
compare and contrast. The teacher will then display two images on the board - a
snowman and a gingerbread man. The teacher will demonstrate qualities that are the
same and qualities that are different about the two images. She will think out loud as a
modeling strategy so the students can visualize what this looks like.

Gingerbread Man Snowman

Both
-cookie -make it outside
-brown -winter -it melts
-has arms and legs -christmas -made out of snow
-use an oven to make it -you make
-make it inside them

We do: The teacher will draw another venn diagram on the board and give each student
two sticky notes. The teacher will read two books: Immigrant Kids by Russell Freedman
and Immigration by Stella Sands. The teacher will ask the students to think of something
to write on each of their sticky notes that can be used to compare or contrast the two
stories. About ⅓ of the way through (both stories), the teacher will stop and ask for
volunteers to place their sticky notes on the venn diagram.

You do: The teacher will then give each student a paper copy of a venn diagram. The
teacher will finish reading each story while the students write as many things as they can
in their own venn diagram, independently.

Accommodations:
ELL/students with an IEP - students who are English Language Learners OR have a
learning disability will be given an audio format of each book that they can go back and
listen to again as needed. They will also work with a partner who will serve as a
language model for them.
Gifted students - gifted students will be given a certain amount of things needed to write
in each category. They will then write a short essay (one or two paragraphs) on which
story they enjoyed the most and why.

S: Summarizing strategy (5 minutes)

Once the stories are over and the students have had enough independent work time, the
teacher will ask for volunteers to share some of the things they wrote on their venn
diagram. As the students share what they learned, the teacher will write down what they
say in the appropriate area of the venn diagram.