HOLY NAMES UNIVERSITY LESSON PLAN Planning Statement Title of Lesson: Introduction of the Personal Thesaurus Grade: 4th

Anticipated Time Frame: (How long will each part of the lesson take?) Introduction: 5 min Think, Pair, Share: 6 min Individual Work: 10 min Computer Work: 15 min Conclusion: 5 min Flexible time: 4 minutes (the lesson plan should ideally be 46 minutes long. You have 4 minutes of flexible time that the teacher can add to space that may need more time) Subject Area: Reading Classroom organization: (whole class, small group, partner, independent) Introduction: Whole class. All children will be sitting at their desks, if they would like to say something they can raise their hands. Teacher will introduce the idea of a personal thesaurus. She will have a copy she will either draw up on the white board or project onto a screen using an elmo. Think, Pair, Share: Students will quietly think about their answer, share with their elbow partner (the person sitting next to them), and then share their results with the teacher. The noise level should be at a point where the teacher is able to speak in a moderate level talking voice and all students will be able to hear her. Teacher can put music on at a certain volume. If the students are unable to hear the music, they are talking too loud. Individual Work: Two students will pass out the personal thesaurus workbooks. Each child will have his or her own to keep. Remind the students that these are theirs to keep. It is their responsibility to care for the booklets, so they will be able to last for rest of the school year. They will keep these personal thesauruses in their desks and can pull them out at anytime throughout lessons to add to it. Students can quietly add to their thesauruses and ask clarifying questions to their elbow partner or teacher. Talking amongst neighbors is

welcomed as long as it is on topic. Student dictionaries and thesauruses will be placed at each table. Students must remember that there are limited dictionaries and they will have to wait patiently to use the dictionary and thesaurus. After looking up a word they must ask if anyone else is waiting to use the book. If not they can continue using the book. This procedure must be repeated each time. Teacher can put music on at a certain volume (lower than the think, pair, share time). If the students are unable to hear the music, they are talking too loud. Computer Work with a Partner: Teacher can bring students back to attention using a clap response. Teacher can ask students for any new additions to the personal thesaurus. Calling up students to write on the board using the elmo. Teacher will then hook up the elmo to show a computer screen with the thesaurus webpage already on the page. She will then show the students how to use the site and then direct them to share a computer with their elbow partner. From this point students have 10 minutes. Students can quietly add to their thesauruses and ask clarifying questions to their elbow partner or teacher. Talking amongst neighbors is welcomed as long as it is on topic. Teacher can put music on at a certain volume (lower than the think, pair, share time). If the students are unable to hear the music, they are talking too loud.

Conclusion: Whole class. All students personal thesauruses should be on their desks ready to discuss and add to. Students can quietly add to their thesaurus throughout the discussion. Class will raise hands as they discuss different synonyms for certain words. Resources and materials: Attach any worksheets or graphic organizers. *Please see attached materials. The worksheet attached will be presented in booklet style; it will have 8 individual pages. Technology Used: Elmo and one computer per 2 kids. Preparation: This will be easier if all computer screens have been pre-set to the thesaurus website. If students are familiar using the computers and have established firm boundaries surrounding them, it will be fine to have the kids bring up the thesaurus page themselves.

Central Focus or Big Idea of Learning Segment: Students will be able to name different words that are synonyms to the original word theyve used. California Content Standard(s): READING: 4th Grade 1.0 Word Analysis, Fluency, and Systematic Vocabulary Development Vocabulary and Concept Development 1.5 Use a thesaurus to determine related words and concepts. Specific Learning Objectives: What do you want students to learn in this lesson? Students will learn that they can use different words to express the same thing. How will students demonstrate their learning? (observable learning outcomes) Students will demonstrate their learning by writing down different synonyms in their personal thesaurus. Students will individually write down a synonym for a word. The teacher will collect these pieces of paper. This will demonstrate their knowledge of the word.

Prerequisites: What skills, knowledge and prior experience do students need for this lesson? ELL

students must be at an early intermediate language learning level. Know how to look up words in the dictionary and thesaurus. Be able to read and write basic words in English. Students will have already signed an computer waiver stating that they will only use the computers for the given activity being instructed at the time. How will you determine whether students have these? Before the lesson plan I will briefly ask students to look up different words in the dictionary and thesaurus. We can have a quick round of dictionary draw (thesaurus draw). A game where students see who can find a word the fastest in the dictionary or thesaurus. How will you connect to students interests, backgrounds, strengths, needs? To keep students attention I will encourage them to use any word that is a synonym for the words they are working on. It could be slang or it could be a formal academic language word.

Key ELD Standard(s):

Reading Fluency and Systematic Vocabulary Development
Vocabulary and Concept Development

Grades 3-5: Beginning ELD Level Create a simple dictionary of words frequently used by the student. Intermediate ELD Level Use decoding skills and knowledge of both academic and social vocabulary to read independently. Early Advanced ELD Level Use a standard dictionary to deter-mine the meaning of unknown words (e.g., idioms and words with multiple meanings).

Challenging Academic language and concepts: What particular language demands are there in this lesson? (types of text, features of text, key subject-specific terms, for example) What language demands are likely to be challenging? Students must have an early advanced to advance EL Level. They will be thinking of different ways to say a given word. Students can use playground language, slang, and

formal academic language Dictionary: a book or website that tells you the meaning of a word Thesaurus: a book or website that lists similar or like words together Personal: belonging to that person. For example, my clothes are my personal belongings. Adjective: A word used to describe a noun. Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea. Access to the curriculum / modifications: How will you make the lesson accessible to English learners? Students will be provided with student dictionaries and thesauruses at their desks. The dictionaries will have colorful applicable pictures that will give students cues as to what a word means. Student will also be working at a computer for a bit of time and if need be they can use the thesaurus application on the computer. There is a voice application and students can click the voice application to hear the word out loud. How will you make the lesson accessible to students with special needs? I would use the following curriculum/modifications above for my students with special needs. This could then be modified depending on the students present needs. How till you make the lesson accessible to students in the GATE program? This lesson can be easily adapted to an advanced student. If the student finishes placing synonyms with the words he or she has been given the teacher can give him new and more challenging words. The teacher can also challenge him to think of more synonyms to describe the same word.

Assessment: What evidence of student learning will you collect? I will briefly look through different the personal thesauruses. At the end of class we will fill out a section of an example personal thesaurus using equity sticks to call on students. What criteria will you use to interpret the evidence? Attach any rubrics or descriptions of performance tasks. How will the results of this assessment inform your next steps in teaching? The results of this assessment will tell me that students understand synonyms and are able to think of different words to describe the same thing. Instructional Sequence Set or introduction: How will you begin to involve the students in the content of your lesson? What

activity or questions will motivate them, get them to interact with content or draw on prior knowledge? What will you say to let them know the purpose and objectives of this lesson? Introduction: Today we are going to participate in an activity that will help us to develop our vocabulary and give us new words to describe our life around us. I will ask the students to describe their school in their own words. Using their graphic organizer I will write down each word the students use to describe their school. We are going to use adjectives to describe our school. Can anyone tell me what an adjective is? A word or phrase used to describe a noun. What is a noun? A person, place, thing, or idea.

We are going to use this graphic organizer to help us introduce our personal thesaurus. Our personal thesauruses are going to help us think of other words that have the same meaning or almost the same meaning as one of the words we have up here. Can anyone tell me what a thesaurus does? A thesaurus is a book that lists words in groups or synonyms. What is a synonym? A word or phrase that means the same or almost exactly the same thing as the word you are using. Developing Content: (Teacher Directed Instruction) TDI How will you develop new concepts, skills or strategies through teacher directed instruction? What specific critical thinking questions will you ask? What modeling or demonstrating will you do? How will you scaffold understanding? Through your think-alouds, how do you demonstrate critical thinking, processing of information and application of skills and knowledge? Introduction Continued: (project a copy of a page from the personal thesaurus projected on the white board using an elmo.) We are now going to choose one adjective we picked to describe our school and we are going to think of synonyms for this word. We are going to be placing these synonyms in our personal thesaurus. Each one of you will receive a personal thesaurus that has a bunch of sheets of paper that look just like the one I have projected up

here. You will be able to use this throughout al of your classes. You can choose any word you want, as long as it has a like meaning. You may even use slang or informal words you would not use in an academic setting, but please make sure to mark a word as slang. If you are not sure it has a like meaning you can use the dictionary. We are not going to use our thesauruses unless we are really stuck because I want you to be able to practice doing this on your own without the help of a thesaurus. If you have a test will you be able to use your thesaurus? Pick one of the words they used to describe their school. Show the students what synonyms you might think or for this word. They can add their thoughts in too. Make sure to mark slang with an S and academic language with a AL At what time might we use slang? (let the kids answer) We can use slang with our friends or with our family. At what time would we use academic language? (Let the kids answer) We would use this when we are in the classroom, writing answers on a test, when we turn in a paper, or when we are talking at an official setting (like with the president, teachers, or policeman). Student Learning Tasks: Guided Practice: begin working on the assignment together (brainstorming ideas, doing a problem together, starting writing together, beginning to fill in a graphic organizer, ) Think, Pair Share: Pick a new adjective and ask the students to use think, pair, share for this activity. Teacher will say to students: Think to yourselves for 30 seconds, once you have a synonym for this adjective please give me a thumbs up. Now take 30 seconds to turn to your elbow partner and share each others ideas. Remember if you are unsure of your word, you can look it up in a dictionary. If it is slang you and your partner will have to decide together if it is a synonym for the adjective we are using. Now we are going to take 3 minutes to share the different synonyms we came up with. Write down each one of the words the students come up with so that they can see it projected up on the board. Repeat this step again if you feel like the students need another example. Independent Practice: students continuing to work individually or with peers. Individual Work: Teacher will now fill in the next spaces of the Personal

Thesaurus with the remaining adjectives to students used to describe their school. Once students receive their own personal thesaurus they will copy down the teachers personal thesaurus, so they will be able to have their own example. Once they have done this they can continue trying to fill it out on their own. Ask 2 pre-assigned students to pass out a personal thesaurus to everyone. Let the students know that from this point on they have 8 minutes to try and complete as much of it as they can. At the end of the 8 minutes teacher will let students know that they can keep out their thesauruses because they will be discussing them with partners and as a group. Computer Work: Use an attention grabber to bring students back to the lesson. Okay class we are now going to use a new way to find synonyms. I have here on the whiteboard a website. Can anyone tell me what is says? (let students answer) It is an online thesaurus site. Here we can plug in almost any word and it will be able to find us other like words or synonyms. Demonstrate for the students how you would use the site. What adjective should we plug into the website here? (Allow students to respond) Okay, what did we get back? What words do we already know on this list? What are new words we did not already know? Lets write the ones that we know and the ones that we dont know. Its a great reminder for us. Okay guys now that I have showed you how to use this website, I want you to go with your elbow partner to your pre-assigned computer and pull up the webite and look up two different words. What words should we look up? (Ask the kids) If you finish early try looking up a different word in the thesaurus. Okay you can now move.

Checks for Understanding / On-going informal assessment: How will you know what students are understanding? (questioning and observing throughout the lesson) Teacher will know students understand the concept of a personal thesaurus based on their performance during their individual work time. If they are

able to fill out the personal thesaurus with little assistance from the teacher or their peers, they will have grasped this concept. By asking questions such as: What is a synonym? What is another word we could use to describe this object that still has the same meaning as the adjective we already used? What is a thesaurus? These questions will be an indicator as to whether or not students have grasped the idea. If they do not answer correctly the teacher must first go over the instructions and description one more time. Second, depending on the question they are having trouble with she will clarify this. Closure: How will learners summarize or reflect on what they learned (for example, share work, share a strategy, share a process, discuss what they learned, raise a new questions)? Conclusion: Teacher will move back to her graphic organizer. Pick one of the adjectives that we chose as a group to describe our school. Please share with your elbow partner three of the synonyms that you came up with for this adjective. Make sure to include as least one slang word and one academic word. You have 1 minute to share. Teacher will then ask, what are some of the synonyms you came up with? (take 2 minutes to do this) Make sure to note slang and academic language, and briefly note the best times to use these words. Teacher will then explain that this is going to be used in all of their classes. If you find out a new way or word to explain a word they already knew they can write it in their thesaurus. They do not have to use their thesaurus specifically for adjectives but this will most likely be the majority of the words they have in their thesaurus. Extension: Teacher can take this time to use a noun as a example with their personal thesauruses. Try using school. Teacher can repeat the Think, Pair, Share step.

Personal Thesaurus Synonym: a word or phrase (small group of words) that has the same or almost the same meaning as another word. Word:_____________________ Synonyms 1. _________________________ 2. _________________________ 3. _________________________ 4. _________________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _________________________ 7. _________________________ 8. _________________________ Word:_____________________ Synonyms 1. _________________________ 2. _________________________ 3. _________________________ 4. _________________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _________________________ 7. _________________________ 8. _________________________ Word:_____________________ Synonyms 1. _________________________ 2. _________________________ 3. _________________________ 4. _________________________ 5. _________________________ 6. _________________________ 7. _________________________ 8. ________________________