Thanksgiving Day

Lesson Topic: Thanksgiving Lesson Date: Friday, November 22

nd
2013

Proficiency/Grade level
Level One Grades 9-12

National ELL Goals/Standards:
Goal 1: To use English to communicate in social setting.
Standard 1: Students will use English to participate in social interaction
Standard 2: Students will interact in, through, and with spoken and written English
for personal expression and enjoyment.
Standard 3: Students will use learning strategies to extend their communicative
competence.
Goal 2: To use English to achieve academically in all content areas.
Standard 1: Students will use English to interact in the classroom.
Standard 2: Students will use English to obtain, process, construct, and provide
subject matter information in spoken and written form.
Goal 3: To use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
Standard 1: Students will choose a language variety, register, and genre according to
audience, purpose, and setting.
Standard 2: Students will use non-verbal communication appropriate to audience,
purpose, and setting.
Standard 3: Students will use appropriate learning strategies to extend their
sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence.

Language Goals/Standards:
Objective 1: Obtain new vocabulary words associated with thanksgiving.
1.1 Use vocabulary words appropriately.
1.2 Respond appropriately to questions involving new vocabulary words through
spoken language.

Objective 2: Understand the reason for thanksgiving.
2.1 Able to classify the right responses for comprehension questions.

Background Information:
Students will have their first formal instruction on Thanksgiving Day beginning with this lesson.
Students need to be familiar with understanding what each vocabulary word and concept means.
Students will have formal instruction on recognizing poetry.

Vocabulary:
Students can learn the vocabulary through the PowerPoint presentation and in context with the
story Thanksgiving Day. They will need to know the following: Thanksgiving, Pilgrims,
Massachusetts, Native Americans, rocketed and demolished.


Materials:
PowerPoint presentation of terms, Thanksgiving Day worksheet (with copies) and The
Thanksgiving Turkey poem (with copies). Construction paper and colored pencils/markers.

Activate Prior-knowledge/Set:
Warm-up yellow worksheet activity. Sentence for today: I am thankful for my mom.
With table pairs, one student writes the other helps, students try to write as many words from the
sentence in one minute. Whoever gets the most words gets to choose a treat from the bucket.

Input/Modeling (include informal checks for understanding):
1. Vocabulary PowerPoint: go over words and students repeat out loud.
2. V4U thumbs up thumbs down for vocabulary and the pronunciation the words.
3. Students can use notebooks to write vocabulary down (optional)
4. Hand out worksheet and Read Thanksgiving Day. Have students volunteer reading the
paragraph out loud taking turns.
5. V4U thumbs down thumbs up during and after the paragraphs.
6. Have students underline or circle the new vocabulary words they recognize.
7. As a group complete the comprehension questions from the story.
8. Transition to The Thanksgiving Turkey Hand out Poem worksheet. Ask students if they
know what the big food/dish that families eat and make for thanksgiving-Turkey.
9. Students will read the poem. This can be done with groups or have a student read one line
of the poem.
10. V4U on the poem

Informal Check for Understanding:
Have student give thumbs up and thumbs down for each of the new vocabulary words presented
on PowerPoint. If there are many thumbs down, go back and review that word before moving on.

Guided Practice (Release of Responsibility):
11. Questions to the worksheet on the back. Model how to refer back to the poem to find the
answer to the questions. I will do questions 1-4 with the entire class.

Independent Practice:
12. Ask students to work with table pairs or individually to finish questions 5-10 or as many
as possible until class is brought back together.
13. V4U as students are working on questions.
14. Bring class together and discuss answers to the questions out loud.
15. (If there is time) Students create what they are thankful for posters or draw in their
notebooks a picture and write a sentence. Go around the classroom and share with the
group.

Assessment:
Anecdotal records will be taken while students are reading and discussing Thanksgiving Day and
poem.
Completion of worksheet questions for the poem.

Extension Activities:
*While the PowerPoint presentation is being present, students have a piece of paper out and they
are following along by writing notes and drawing pictures to help them remember the
definitions.
*As the PowerPoint presentation is going on take the time to give each student time to write their
own example or sentence for that word.
*Students create What I am Thankful Posters.
*Students can hang up their posters around the classroom.
*Write sentences or draw a picture of what you are thankful for.
*Create a poem.
*Make paper turkeys and color them.

Closure:
Students will go around the classroom and share one of these questions: one thing they are
thankful for, what their plans are for thanksgiving, if they never celebrated thanksgiving what
food would they like to eat or what they are going to do for their break.

Accommodations:
Students with vision impairments will be at the front of the room
Students with vision impairments will work with enlarge texts
Students will be arranged into heterogeneous partners, pairing higher-ability learners with lower
Students will be seated next to a peer model if needed
Students with attention needs will be allowed to take short breaks throughout the lesson
Students with special needs will be seated next to a peer model to help

Reflection:
Was this lesson appropriate for this level of learners?
Did I meet my lesson objectives?
Were the students able to work independently and be successful?
Do I need to go back and re-teach any vocabulary words?
Was the website poem I chose appropriate and did it get their attention?
What would I do different next time to make the lesson even better?
Should I read a book instead of using a poem?
Should I show a video?
Did the students comprehend the meaning of Thanksgiving Day?