Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name
Stephen Atchison
Position

Teacher

School/District

Simpson Middle School/ Cobb County

E-mail

Stephen.atchison@cobbk12.org

Phone

678-361-2757

Grade Level(s)

Content Area

Language Arts

Time line

5 days (classes are 70 minutes long)

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills,
and strategies do you expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas
and subject area benchmarks? ) Please put a summary of the standards you will be
addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which standards were
addressed.
Curriculum standards: 7th grade ELA Common Core Standards
ELACC7RL1: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the
text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
ELACC7RL2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development
over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

ELACC7RL3: Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how
settings shape the characters or plot).
ELACC7RL7: Compare and contrast a written story to another written piece of
literature or poem.

ELACC7RL10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories,
dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as
needed at the high end of the range.

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ITSE Standards:
1

Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop
innovative products and processes using technology.
a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes
b. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression

2. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work
collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others
3. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and
conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools
and resources.

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible
products
The Unit: This is the last performance based assessment before the CRCTs. This assignment
is to assess the reading standards of character, theme, comparing and contrasting texts,
symbolizing in literature, discussing setting, and analyzing a stories plot.
Students will be creating a Tell All website about their recent novel. Students selected a novel
from a list of three that shared the same theme, survival and choice. This website that they
will create will have several tabs about the characters, setting, theme, plot, symbolism, and a
metaphorical expression. The last tab will have a podcast that compares and contrasts the
elements of the book to another book.
The final part of this assignment is to put the website on Edmodo and respond to three of their
peers projects.
The three books that the students were able to select from were Touching Spirit Bear, The
Book Thief, and Divergent.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would
students care or want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students
thinking about the topic or generate interest about the topic? Additionally, what questions can
you ask students to help them focus on important aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions)
What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring to this topic and build
on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry. They
should not be answered with a simple yes or no and should have many acceptable
answers.
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Essential Question: All questions are to be answered through the Weebly website and through
textual evidence
1. What is the theme of your novel?
2. How does the setting of your novel affect the plot and the characters?
3. How does this book compare and contrast to another read? What makes your novel
better than the one you have read in the past?
4. What have you taken from this novel personally?
5. How do the characters in the book differ from each other?
6. What are the symbols in the book and what do they mean?
7. What does the word survival mean to your novel?
8. How does the plot change the characters through the course of the novel?

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students
do to generate new knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative
assessment)? How will you assess what they produce or do? How will you differentiate
products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or rubrics. Include these in your
presentation as well.
The students will produce a website that provides answers to the essential questions with tabs
that have summaries of what they have learned, and a podcast (that is added to their website)
that compares and contrasts the book to another.
Rubric and instructions sheet are attached
Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resources
online student tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates,
assessment rubrics, etchelp elucidate or explain the content or allow students to interact
with the content? What previous technology skills should students have to complete this
project?)

Rubric (students will receive this day one of the assignment, it will be gone over in class
and a Edmodo Q&A if students think of questions along the way)
Previous student Weeblys from other projects. (These are not about novels so that the
students Steal other ideas).
Sites: Weebly, Pod-o-Matic, YouTube (Youtube for watching how to make a podcast
video)
Students novel
The class Edmodo page
Previous skills: Students will have been trained with Weebly and Pod-o-matic before the
lesson (in previous projects).

Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this
lesson? How can you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students
have?)
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Students needs: students will need to know how to infer and analyze apiece of literature for
literature elements such as character traits before the CRCTS, this lesson allows that one last
time in an engaging way.
Students interest: students were able to choose the book of their choice and will have many
layouts and creative ability using Weebly
Students prior learning: students will need to remember the definition of terms such as
symbolism and theme. Also students have had lessons on examples on all the elements in
previous literature pieces that we have studied. Students also will have had to complete the
novels before starting their Weebly.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your
students and the use of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work?
(Small groups, whole group, individuals, classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to
achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this lesson? Describe what technical
issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or troubleshoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as
well as throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work
through the issues that occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was
completed.

Students will be working as individuals until peer editing occurs.

Peer editing will allow students to proof each others work before publishing it to our class
Edmodo page.
Students will be reminded of our technology safety procedures, since Weebly is a site that
can be seen by anyone, no last names, personal information, or addresses are aloud.
I will book the 7th ELA computer lab for five days to allow enough class time to finish it.
Technology issues that might arrive: I will need to keep a log of students password
and usernames (for their Weebly accounts) since they are middle school students and
can forget this. I will need to make sure the Edmodo page is up and running properly, I will
need to make sure that everyone has a Podcast account and that they have selected the
free version.
Prior to lesson: Make sure I have enough computers and that they are all working
properly, if there are issues, prepare with the media specialist to check out netbooks for
backups. Also if the internet is down or something occurs I have allowed extra time and
also these tools can be assessed in the media center lab before school and at home
(99% of my students have internet at home from a survey completed at the beginning of
the year).

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Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities Describe the research-based instructional

strategies you will use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these
activities? What is your role? What are the students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure
higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or creativity levels of Blooms
Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic, relevant, and
meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build
knowledge and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and
collaborate with each other and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?

See next page

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Teacher Role:
1. The Teacher creates all material in advance for the lesson and has time to tweak and
make adjustments for students on IEPS and gifted students.
2. Teachers model the lesson by discussing examples from other lessons
3. The teacher is the leader during the rubric and instructions Q&A
4. The teacher becomes the facilitator and tech support once the students are in the lab
working on their websites.
5. The teacher is the time keeper, the support, and the challenger when in the lab to help
each students needs.
Students Role:
1. The student will be responsible for completing the novel before the lesson.
2. During the read, the students are to book mark or highlight any textual evidence that
comes about the lesson.
a. Who are the characters?
b. What makes the character a strong protagonist? And antagonist?
c. What is the setting?
d. What are the key parts of the plot?
e. What text best help you understand the theme of the novel?
3. Students are to set goals for themselves and create a timeline in their agendas as to
what should be completed each day of the lesson.
4. Students are to create a website that has a Podcast embedded into it. The layout of the
website should be personalized but also relate to the theme or story of the novel.
5. Once the website (using Weebly) is created, the students will post on the class Edmodo
page before the deadline.
6. Students will use logic, professionalism, and higher level thinking when leaving
questions and commentary to peers projects.
Higher Level Thinking Strategies:
1. Student will be analyzing the text to support their claim and answers
2. Students will create their own website that depicts all of the literature elements of the
book that they read.
3. Students will create a podcast that compares and contrasts the book to another.
4. Students will evaluate other peers work.
Technology Support:
1. Technology allows the lesson to be engaging and relatable to the students since
website making is something that is becoming very normal for students to create
throughout their school career.
2. The podcasts allow even the shyest student to speak their opinions with having an
audience watching them as they create it. Also with a podcast, students can start over
as many times until they are happy with the final product.
3. The layouts of a Weebly lend themselves to the themes of the novel allowing a visual
art the acts as a background for the novel and presentation.

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Tasks:
Rubric and instruction sheets are attached (last page of document)
Building knowledge and skills:
Students are building off a semester of learning what words such as characterization,
symbolism, and theme and now applying these words to website creating and podcasts
skills while using higher level strategies of using text support which is still very new to this
age of students.
Collaboration and managing collaboration:
Students will be collaborating through peer editing after they have completed the website.
Students will also be collaborating by posting commentary on peers projects once they have
been posted on Edmodo. I will monitor this by making sure everyone receives a comment by
assigning peer comment groups. Also, throughout the year we have been collaborating
online so the students know the rules of being professional and appropriate online.

Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various
learning styles and abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others?
How will you provide extensions and opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies
will you need to provide?)

The content: The content was differentiated by choice of book. Those books were
differentiated by interest and readiness level. Divergent is a higher level book (9th -10th
grade), The Book Thief is on level (7th-8th grade)and Touching Spirit Bear is a little lower
reading level. (7th grade- maybe higher 7th grade).
The process: The Lesson was chunked for my lower level students with receiving
pieces of the directions to not get overwhelmed, also they had a check list to what to
complete so that they knew what was expected to be completed every day.
Students with IEPS: I will refer to those IEPS to see if students need extended time
and assistive technology.
Gifted Students: Students have extra challenges that they may add to their websites
(see rubric and instructions for details).

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work?
Will students be asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your
process for answering the following questions?
Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
In what ways was this lesson effective?
What went well and why?
What did not go well and why?
How would you teach this lesson differently?

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The students found the lesson to be worth completing. Its always a nice thing to hear
when students are talking positively in the hallways about your lesson. The students like
creating something as oppose to the teacher creating it, and they sit and watch a
teacher talk for an entire period.
The lesson was effective mainly because it was assessing the standards while at the
same time assessing in a performance based task that allowed the students to use
higher level thinking skills and creativity.
The final products and the timing went great. Five days was plenty of time. For many of
my gifted students, they finished early on the fifth day and went back to add more of
their personality in the layout and more insight into the Weebly. I had very few kids
having to finish it for homework that weekend. The final products were great. I could see
myself using a few of my students Websites as lesson plans. Why did it go over well?
Students were engaged so their time was focused and there was a specific, organized
way that they had to complete the task. Lastly, the collaboration went well. Students
gave very professional and wise commentary on Edmodo, and I think that the students
always enjoying seeing other students projects. Its like an online project museum walk.
The one part that did not go well was some books limited it to easier than others.
Divergent and The Book Thief are both now movies so finding images and information
online were easier. Also the theme etc. was easier to find allowing those students more
time to focus on making their final product look presentable and professional while
those students, who read Touching Sprit Bear, spent more time on the questions.
Next time I teach this lesson; I would add more books to the lesson and give more
choice. Instead of having the students do a Weebly, I would allow other options as well
such as Wiki.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your
experience with implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to
implement the lesson? Please provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson
and its implementation.
Teachers have told me that I am the king of my school when it comes to differentiation. I feel
that differentiation was in my lesson and at times it was strong, but I also need to reflect on
some ways that I could add more differentiation the next time. Differentiation that focuses on
the process on how the students complete the assignment.
I would tell other teachers, if they were to does this lesson, to use time wisely, make sure the
students know the programs, the material, and what is expected of them BEFORE going into a
computer lab. Once those students turn on those computers, it is hard to get their focus on
new instructions since the lesson is engaging and fun for the students. Also I would tell
teachers to make sure internet safety is being used. No last names, or personal information or
pictures are on the websites. Also teachers will need to discuss professionalism with the
students about responding to each others post on Edmodo (or maybe that teacher uses a blog
instead).

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Rubric and Instructions:

THE LITERATURE WEEBLY: The Survival Edition

What you will be doing?

1. Now that you have survived you survival novel---You will be using www.weebly.com to
create a website that has several tabs FILLED with information on your book. The last
tab on your website will have a podcast that you will create from the site that we used in
previous lessons www.podomatic.com .
2. Your tabs on your website will be answering the following EQs:

What is the theme of your novel?

How does the setting of your novel affect the plot and the characters?
How does this book compare and contrast to another read? What makes your novel
better than the one you have read in the past? (This question will be answered through
your podcasts).
What have you taken from this novel personally?
How do the characters in the book differ from each other?
What are the symbols in the book and what do they mean?
How does the word survival mean to your novel?
How does the plot change the characters through the course of the novel?

How will you be successful?

The layout of the website should represent how you see the theme of the book.
The EQs should be answered through detailed discussion answers and textual
evidence to support your answer.
The grammar and conventions should be easily understood and appropriate for your
audience.
The assignment will be turned in on Edmodo on YOUR classes page by the deadline.

What is the Collaboration component?

Once you have completed your Weebly, work with one of your Peer Buddies to discuss
errors in conventions, how the website could be improved, and to make sure everything
is included.
Once the website is published on Edmodo, you will be assigned new Peer Buddies and
leave positive commentary using our PQP method ( Praise, Question, Polish).
When will you turn it in?
Website on Edmodo: April 13th
Peer post: April 16th
How will I be graded?
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The assignment is worth 60 points, check rubric to see how you can exceed on the
assignment.

Rubric:
Requirements: (10
points apiece)
The Weebly:

Does not meet

Meets

The Weebly is rushed,

sloppy, or incomplete

The Weebly is complete

and meets the
expectations given by
the teacher.

The Elements X2:

There are more than

four required elements
missing from the
website or are not
complete

The Podcast:

There is no podcast on
the Weebly or the
Podcasts does not
work

The conventions:

More than 4 grammar

or convention mistakes

The collaboration:

There are no peer

comments on assigned
peers websites.

There are 1-2 elements

that are missing from
the website
Or
All elements are there
but they lack
information or textual
support
The podcasts is not 2
minutes long
Or
The podcasts is missing
crucial information that
helps compare the two
novels.
No more than three
mistakes in grammar or
conventions
There is only 1 peer
commentary but the
PQP method was
completed successfully
Or

Exceeds
The Weeblys theme
matches the book, is
creative and additional
elements are added to
the website.
All elements of the
website are there and
they all have adequate
amount of information
and textual support to
back up the element.
The Podcast is more
than 2 minutes long
and compares and
contrasts the novels
successfully with using
textual evidence and
reasoning.
Less than three
mistakes in grammar or
conventions
There is commentary
on both assigned peers
and the PQP method is
completed successfully

There are two peer

commentaries but the
PQP method was not
used
Total points:
______/ 60 points

What are the elements? The elements are the literature elements that are addressed
in the EQs of the project.

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