JPTAAR Lesson Format

Name: Petrros Lee

Grade Level: 10

Date lesson was taught: 9/15/15 9/24/15 Time: 1:30pm

Prior to Teaching
Justification
This section of the planning process helps you think through why this lesson is
necessary. It is the data that supports your purpose for the lesson. It contains the
following:
1) Pre-assessment:
One day I overheard a group of students talking amongst themselves
about their opinions of what we were doing in class, such as, Where are
teachers getting these interpretations from, I dont get this book, and When
will I ever use this. It is comments like these that led me to believe that my
students need to be shown how to appreciate works of literature not just as
stories, but meaningful commentary that reveals important values that can be
applied even today. Thus, I plan on walking them through the book To Kill a
Mockingbird, a classic work, which has blatant moral implications on the topics
of race, ethnicity, and cultureall of which are still significant issues today.
2) Purpose and relevance:
A students willingness to learntheir interior motivationis perhaps one of
the most important aspects to their ability in retaining the information of a lesson.
Students need to believe that what they are learning matters in a present-day
context and can be applied to their livesnot just within the classroom. This lesson
exploring To Kill a Mockingbird can be their stepping stone towards understanding
how to go beyond taking a story at face-value, but analyzing it through the use of
critical reading to find an overarching meaning.
3) Objectives:
After this lesson, students will be able to:
1.) Read critically and analyze other literary texts
2.) Synthesize current event articles with literary text (e.g.
Racial Issues)
4) Common Core Alignment:
This lesson fits in with common core standard thee, Aligned with
college and career expectations and four, Based on rigorous content and
the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills. In college
and careers, being able to read and think critically about what one has read
is not only important for English courses, but can be applied to other courses
that requires one to analyze information in a thought out manner. This lesson
will incorporate higher-order learning skills because reading with purpose is
not an easy task. Searching beneath the surface of the text in-class will help
students connect themes in literature with issues in todays world.

5) Technology Standards Alignment:

MTTS:
This lesson fits into standard 1. 1 states that students must access,
evaluate, process, and apply information efficiently and effectively. Because
students will need to find current events that correspond to the novels
themes, students will access databases and find articles to help them support
their main ideas in their essays.
ISTE-S:
This lesson fits in with standards 1B, 3B and 4a. 1B states that
students should create original works as a means of personal or group
expression. With any writing assignment, the idea and wording of the piece
should be original and from the mind of the own student.
3B states that students should locate, organize, analyze, evaluate,
synthesize, and ethically used information from a variety of sources and
media. With the lesson, students will be finding current event or scholarly
articles that show any sort of relational significance with To Kill a
Mockingbird. The article search will prompt them to locate and organize,
while students will have to evaluate and synthesize the contents of the article
into their writing.
4a states that students should be able to identify and define authentic
problems and significant questions for investigation. In the lesson, students
will have to identify the problems and issues that To Kill a Mockingbird
addresses and discuss those issues in their synthesis papers.
6) Post-Assessment:
Students learning will be assed based on a writing assignment they will
do. In class we will have had the chance to relate the values found in To Kill
a Mocking Bird with current event articles in an effort to reveal how
literature can be applicable to everyday life. Now, in order to see how much
the students have learned, they will be given the chance to do the same on
their ownwith a text of their own choosing.
Students will perform a close reading of their desired text and discuss
how its implications are relevant to the world today by providing a broader
meaning of the work.
Considerations for Teaching
7) Instructional Materials:
To Kill a Mockingbird Text
Computer
Example Article
Projector

8) Teacher Preparation and Resources:

To be knowledgeable about this lesson, I need to be familiar with the
novel To Kill a Mockingbird as well as how to approach literature in general
if I am to properly teach my students how to do close readings and analysis
of texts.
9) Media and Technology:
The technology used in this lesson would include computers, access to
the internet, and a projector. Using these technologies, I would teach kids how to
perform searches on databases to find scholarly and appropriate articles for their
research, show them example articles and example essays that I have written, and
perhaps show them the movie To kill a Mockingbird while we proceed through the
chapters.
10)

Differentiation:
For this lesson, if struggling students need help, I will pair them
with higher-achieving students so they can bounce ideas off of one another so they
are not overwhelmed by the individual writing assignment. In addition, I will also
post example essays about how to structure the writing assignment, as well as
provide a time when students can ask questions so I may guide them on how to
read and think critically about the text.
11)
Adaptations for students with special needs:
Special education students and/or students with IEPS will be given
accommodations or modifications for the lesson. In order to give them time
to think and contemplate about the topic more thoroughly, they may be
given extra time to write this assignment, or they may give a presentation
instead of writing a paper.
12)

Multicultural and Diverse Perspectives:

This lessons shows diversity because the wonderful thing about English
is that something in the text might mean one thing to a student while it may
mean another to another student. Likewise, what stands out to one student
may come off as completely irrelevant to another. Thus, this lesson shows
diversity through the different interpretations of To Kill a Mocking Bird that
the students have to offer. Specifically to To Kill a Mocking Bird, we will also
be discussing race relations during the 1960s.

13)
Possible Modification of Plans:
Finishes before due date: If the student finishes the assignment before the
due date, the student may submit their writing assignment to me and I will
edit their paper and hand it back with criticisms with what to do better--without a grade so that they may improve on their analysis.
Does not understand how to complete assignment: If students still do not
understand how to complete the assignment because they lack the skills

needed to perform a close reading and analysis of To Kill a Mocking Bird, I

will host a writing workshop in which I will assist struggling students at a
slower and perhaps more comprehensive pace.
During Teaching
Procedures:
14)
Introduction:
I will access the students prior knowledge by putting a short
story I made up myself and asking them to read it and summarize
it. Then, Ill ask them what the story means to them individually, to
gauge the amount of different responses I get in order to get a feel
of how good the students are at analyzing and coming up with their
own interpretations of any given text.
15)

Sequential Scaffolding Steps:

To start out, I will have a story on projected on the screen and I
will ask my students to read and then write down a summary of
what happened within it. I will then ask students to share what
they have written. Because I asked for a summary, Im
expecting many of them to be around the same, and I will guide
them to help them realize that this is only surface level reading,
much like one does for leisure.

16) Guided Practice:

To go into further depth, I will ask that the students tell me
what the story means to each of them individually, to get a feel of
whether they are able to develop their own interpretations of the story,
which is supported by the text. Then, I will ask the students to share
their interpretations. This will be the gateway into helping my students
learn how critical and close reading works. Throughout the course,
then, we will practice this through the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird,
only we will be exploring how the novel written in the 1960s is
relevant in a modern day context by going through the history of racial
tensions during the 1960s and then discussing how racial tensions
have or havent improved since then with scholarly articles and current
events.

17) Independent Practice:

At this point, I will ask the students to practice critical reading and
perform an analysis of several chapters. The students will be broken off into
several groups of my choosing and I will assign each of them several
chapters to analyze
Group 1- Ch.1-5
Group 2- Ch. 6-10
Group 3- Ch. 11-15

Group 4- Ch. 16-20

Group 5- Ch. 21-25
Group 6- Ch. 26-30

18) Closure
Each of the groups will present their close reading of their chapters
and we will have a discussion about how the textual evidence supports their
analysis and interpretations of the text. We will then discuss overarching themes
found within the given chapters and explore how these themes have a present-day
significance, hopefully displaying to the students that literature does indeed matter.