Concept Unit

Lesson Plan Template

Unit Working Title: Why Do I Care?
Unit Big Idea (Concept/Theme): Value Systems
Unit Primary Skill focus: Reflection
Week 1 of 3; Plan # 4 of 9; [90 mins.]
Plan type: Full-Detail
Content Requirement Satisfied: Reading Experience
Unit Learning Objectives (numbered) [from my Backwards Design Unit Document],
followed by Specific lesson objectives (lettered) being taught in this lesson:
SWBAT:
Cognitive (know/understand):
Affective (feel/value) and/or Non-Cognitive:
3. Students will value reflection and understanding where they come from.
a. Students will know that reflection writing helps to process ideas.
Performance (do):
5. Students will be able to reflect on the value systems of another person or community.
c. Students will be able to identify the values of a community other than their own.
d. Students will be able to articulate the values presented in another persons work.
SOLs: [List with numbers portrayed in the SOL document]
CCSs: [List with numbers portrayed in the CCS document]
Methods of Assessment:
[How will you know if the intended learning occurred?] List all methods of assessment used in
this lesson or which are related to this lesson and come in a future lesson. After each
assessment, indicate in brackets the number(s) and letter(s) of the unit objective and the related
lesson objectives that the assessment is evaluating.
Diagnostic

Formative

Summative

Journal reflections- 3a, 5d

Somebody Wanted But So- 5c, 5d
Double-Entry Diary- 5c, 5d
One question one comment- 5c, 5d
Procedures/Instructional Strategies
[Note: Any words that represent what I would say directly to students appear in italics.]
Beginning Room Arrangement: The class will be arranged into tables of desks, with four
desks pushed together to create a table group. There will be five different desk groupings/tables
in the classroom.
1.

[5 mins.] Bridge/Hook/Opening to lesson: SSR

Hello everyone, welcome back I hope you had a great weekend! On your desk you will find your
writing journals with some feedback inside. You all are doing a great job with these so far- just
make sure that you are really trying to write the whole time. I noticed that some entries seemed
pretty short, and just wanted to remind you that you can keep writing even if you think your idea
is fully formed. Who knows, you may even get some new ideas!
Go ahead and take a seat with your SSR books for about 5 minutes while everyone gets settled
in. We have a busy day so we will get moving along soon!
2.

[3 mins.] Intro to memoir

One of our big projects for this unit is to write our own memoirs. We started it a little last week
when we look at Watermark events and created our own Humans of New York posts. Does
everyone remember doing those?
Since we are going to be writing memoirs, I thought it would be helpful if we read one first.
Today we are just going to go through the story and understand what the author is telling us.
Tomorrow we are going to break down the parts of the memoir so that we know what we should
have in our own writing. Does this sound good?
3.

[10 mins.] Before reading free write

Before we begin today, I want you all to take out your writing journals for me. We are going to
do another free write today. In this free write, I want you to reflect on a holiday that sticks out in
your mind for some reason. It can be a good reason, or it can be a bad reason. Try to focus on
a specific holiday, like your 3rd grade Thanksgiving rather than Thanksgiving in general. I want
you to write everything you can remember about that holiday for the next 10 minutes, ok? Our
reading today is about a specific holiday, so thinking about our own experiences can help us
connect to the ones we read about. Go ahead and start.
During this time, circulate the room and pay attention to which students are focused and which
are not. Look at some student writing to see how they are doing with the prompt.
4.

[30 mins.] During reading

Ok class, now that you have thought about your own holiday experiences lets read one
together. This short memoir is called Magic and its by Liz Rosenberg. I am going to read the
first page aloud to everyone. As I am reading, try to think of one question and one comment you
have that come up.
Read first page to students.
Hopefully everyone has one question and one comment from that passage. Go ahead and write
it down, then turn to your partner and share.
Allow students to talk through with their partners for a minute or two. Observe conversations
and offer opinions/thought when appropriate. Discuss all religion questions/comments openly
and without pushing one way or another.

Great job everyone. Im going to read the next page aloud again, and you all should do the
same thing.
Read second part of story aloud while students like for comments and questions.
Ok, go ahead and write down your question or comment. Then again, turn to your neighbor and
discuss.
Give partners a chance to do this, observe when I can.
Great work class. Now I want you to finish the story on your own. You should still work on
finding one question and one comment on each page. Any questions? Ok, go ahead and read
the end.
After it looks like students finish up, have them share their questions and comments for the last
few pages with a partner.
5.

[15 mins] After reading: Somebody Wanted But So

Ok everyone, now we want to look back at our story and figure out what it was telling us to do
this, we are going to do an activity called Somebody Wanted But So. This takes each of the
characters from the story and helps us dig into it a little deeper. Lets do the first one together.
Go through the SWBS chart for the narrator.
Great work guys. Now, go ahead and fill out the sections for 3 other characters from the story.
This will help us get the story from all sides.
6.

[15 mins] After reading: Double Entry Journal

Now instead of just looking at what happened during the story, we want to figure out how we
can find Lizs values in this experience. We have talked a little before about how our values
come from our experiences, so lets see if we can figure out what those are in Magic.
In this double-entry journal you will find quotes from the memoir that you think give information
as to what Lizs values are. In the first column write the quote, and in the second column write
why you think it is important. Are there any questions? Make sure you focus on figuring out her
values. Go ahead and get started.
Allow students to work on this sheet. Circulate the room to see how they are doing, and answer
any questions if needed.
7.

[10 mins] Free-write reflection

Now that you have determined what values Liz talks about in her story, I want you to do another
short free write. This time, write about how the values Liz talks about match up with your own.
Do they or do they not? Why? Go ahead and explore these questions in your writing journal.

Allow students to free write, and answer any questions they have. Observe the class to make
sure all students are working during this time.
8.

[5 mins] Exit card

For your exit card today, I want you to write one thing that you notice is different in memoirs
from other types of writing you may have seen before. Try your best to think of something, and
turn them into me on the way out. Thanks for your hard work today!
Differentiated Instruction to accommodate one or more of my profiled students:
(This is where you identify specific aspects of this lesson which have been differentiated in
order to address the needs of one or more of your profiled studentsidentify them by name)

Materials Needed (list):

Magic
Somebody Wanted But So worksheets
Double-Entry Diary worksheets
Materials Appendix: (e.g., supplementary texts, Ppts, overheads, graphic organizers,
handouts, etc.)
Resources: Claggett chapter 2 https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/content/group/06b52ee29dce-4452-92a1-5eb3ed238761/7.%20Readings_2016/Claggett%20Chap2%20Assess
%20Assign%20reading.pdf

SOMEBODY

WANTED

BUT

Double Entry Diary

Quote and page number

Why its important

SO