Lesson Plan #1

Grade Level: 3rd Number of Students: 4 Instructional Location: classroom

Date: March 11, 2019

#1---Lesson Goals
Central Focus of Lesson: What does it mean to find the main idea of a passage?
Standard(s) Addressed: ELAGSE3RI2: Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they
support the main idea.

#2---Lesson Objectives and Demands

Content Objectives: Students will determine the main idea of a text and identify supporting details. Students will be able to
explain how to find the main idea of a text
Key Vocabulary in Lesson: main idea, supporting details, topic sentence, paragraph, and passage.
Language Objectives: Students will demonstrate their understanding with syntax and discourse throughout the lesson. They
will engage in group discussions about how to find the main idea of a text, read along with the teacher as the powerpoint is
presented, and finally write three sentences describing what it means to find the main idea in their own words.

#3---Lesson Considerations
Materials: Smart Panel, Introduction to Main Idea Powerpoint, reading notebooks for writing, pencils, and space on the board
for modeling the comprehension strategy of determining the main idea of a text.
Prior Academic Learning and Prerequisite Skills: Students have previously been working on comparing and contrasting
information given in grade-level text. They have been using this information to write a summary of the texts. This gave them
the experience to take on the challenge of finding the main idea of a text and retrieving details from the text.
Misconceptions: One common misconception is that the main idea is always in the first sentence of the passage. Another is
that the main idea can always explicitly be found in the text, and if it cannot be found, the passage simply must not have a
main idea.
Pre-Assessment: I provided three informational passages for the students to read, and they were required to identify the
main idea in the choices provided. After identifying the main idea, they were asked to supply three supporting details that
supported the main idea.

#4--- Lesson Plan Details:

Part 1--- Lesson Introduction - “Before”:
1. The PowerPoint will open to the picture of my guide dog Norman to catch their attention.
2. To activate prior knowledge, students will turn to their “talking partner” and tell them what they think they know about main
idea. By listening to them discuss, I will be able to get an idea as to where they are with the understanding of what it means to
find the main idea. Then, I will play the main idea song in the PowerPoint. This should all last about ten minutes.
Part 2--- Learning Activities - “During”: about twenty minutes
3. I will have my technician student change it to the next slide titled “How to Find the Main Idea”.
4. I will then ask the students if the main idea is always found in the first sentence of the passage or if the main idea is always
“spelled out” in the passage. (This will be a discussion and we will talk about the responses together as they are presented).
5. We will then go to the next slide, which will be titled “Supporting Details”. We will explain that supporting details are what
help to determine what the main idea is. I will explain that if the main idea is not given to you, the supporting details are what
give clues as to what the author’s overall message is supposed to be.
6. The next slide will focus on what a topic sentence is. I will explain that the topic sentence is given to let the reader know
what they are about to be reading and what they are supposed to take away from it. I will explain that the topic sentence is
usually located somewhere at or near the beginning of the passage/paragraph.
7. The next slide will explain the difference between a passage and a paragraph. I will explain that they can be the same, but
a passage is usually multiple paragraphs, and the main idea of the passage is supported by details in each of the paragraphs.
8. The final slide will be called “We Can Do It Together!” I will have a passage about Norman’s training, which we will read
aloud as a group. I will call my “scribe” up to the board to write down at least three supporting details that might point to the
main idea that will be supplied by the group.
9. Then, we will talk about what those supporting details support. Then, my “scribe” will write down our topic sentence
supplied by another student volunteer. After this, we will pull our topic sentence and supporting details together to make a
summarizing paragraph.

Part 3--- Closure - “After”: 10 minutes

10. I will restate that finding the main idea is crucial to understanding the importance of what you read, because if we do not
know the importance of the passage, there is no purpose of reading it at all. The main idea is what the author wants the
reader to take away from the passage.
11. As a “ticket out of reading”, I will have the students write three complete sentences explaining why it is important to know
how to find the main idea of a passage.

Part 4--- Assessment:

The turn and talk at the beginning of this lesson, as well as the group participation throughout the lesson will be informal
assessments for me to check for understanding. Also, my “ticket out of reading” will be a fast way for me to check if my
students truly grasped the importance of why we find the main idea of a text. If there is time, I will have them share these exit
slips with one another when they finish.

Evaluation Criteria:
Exceeds expectations: writes more than three sentences and supplies a variety of strategies to find the main idea described
in the PowerPoint and the song, gives detailed descriptions of why it is important to find the main idea of a text
Meets expectations—Gave their own definition and reasoning of the meaning and importance of main idea, at least 3
complete sentences.
Does not meet expectations—does not give clear definition or reasons why finding the main idea is important and/or does
not have at least 3 complete sentences

Next Step: For the next lesson, we will be working with an excerpt from “Charlotte’s Web” to find the main idea and
supporting details. This will give the students another opportunity to take part in more guided practice before the final lesson
when they will be expected to write a summary on their own using the main idea and supporting details that we will find in the
second lesson.
Extension: If time permits, students can find the main idea of the paragraph they wrote for their exit slip.

Lesson Plan Appendix and Commentary Section

Evidence and Formative Assessment of Student Learning: How will you know whether students are making progress
toward your learning goal(s) and/or how will you assess the extent to which they have met your goal(s)? Use the chart below
to describe and justify at least 1 formal or informal assessment strategies that occur in your detailed plan above.

Assessment Strategy #1: Describe assessment strategy here.

Alignment with Objectives: Describe how this assessment is aligned to your stated objectives. Which objective(s) is it
assessing?
Evidence of Student Understanding: Describe how this assessment strategy provides evidence of student understanding of
the concepts being taught.
Student Feedback: Describe how you will provide feedback to students on this assessment.
Note: Add more assessment strategy boxes here if needed.

Utilizing Knowledge about Students to Plan and Implement Effective Instruction

Building on Personal/Cultural/Community Assets:
Explain how your plans linked student’s prior academic learning and personal/cultural/community assets to new learning
Grouping Strategies:
Describe how and why students will be divided into groups, if applicable (random, ability, interest, social purposes,
etc.).

Planned Supports/Differentiation
Describe the instructional supports during your lesson that address diverse learning needs in order for all students to
successfully meet lesson objectives.
 Specifically: How will you provide access to specific IEP, 504, or other SPED needs?
How will you challenge your above average students?
What if…students finish early?
…students can’t do what you have planned?

Supporting Literacy Development

Essential Literacy Strategies:

Identify a specific strategy (revising a draft, completing a graphic organizer, note taking, analyzing text structure, retelling a
story, etc) used to help students comprehend and compose text within this lesson.
Requisite Skills:
Identify the requisite literacy skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and representing) students will develop and
practice while learning the identified literacy strategy.
Reading/Writing Connections:
Identify how your lesson helps students make reading/writing connections
 Lesson Plan #2
Grade Level: 3rd Number of Students: 4 Instructional Location: classroom Date: March 12, 2019

#1---Lesson Goals
Central Focus of Lesson: Can students successfully find the main idea of a passage and supply supporting details from the
text with support from the teacher?

Standard(s) Addressed: ELAGSE3RI2: Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how
they support the main idea.

#2---Lesson Objectives and Demands

Content Objectives: Students will be able to determine the main idea of a passage and recount supporting details. Students
will also be able to explain how the details support the main idea.
Key Vocabulary in Lesson: main idea, supporting details, topic sentence, and excerpt
Language Objectives: The students will be interacting with the vocabulary through syntax and discourse. They will be
reading the text as a group, writing the main idea and supporting details, and explaining how those details from the text
support the main idea.

#3---Lesson Considerations
Materials: Smart panel, “Charlotte’s Web” excerpt, main idea graphic organizer, reading notebooks, and pencils for writing.
Prior Academic Learning and Prerequisite Skills: From the previous lesson, the students should have a firm
understanding of how to find the main idea of a text and how to locate supporting details in the text.
Misconceptions: There should not be any misconceptions at this point. (If there are any, I will address them in the lesson.)
Pre-Assessment: As mentioned in lesson plan 1 of this unit, a lot of students seemed to struggle with using the supporting
details to determine the main idea of a passage.

#4--- Lesson Plan Details:

Part 1--- Lesson Introduction - “Before”: 5 minutes
1. I will ask the students to tell me what we discussed on the previous day. (I will ask for students to volunteer to tell us what
we discussed.)
Part 2--- Learning Activities - “During”: 20 minutes
2. I will tell the students that we will be using a fictional piece today to determine the main idea of and recount supporting
details to support the main idea. (ask if any student knows what an excerpt is)
3. The “Charlotte’s Web” excerpt will be displayed on the smart panel and I will explain that an excerpt is a small part of a
larger story
4. We will then read the excerpt as a group.
5. I will ask students to tell me what the setting of the excerpt is and if anyone has had any experiences or know of anyone
who has had experiences on a farm. (this will allow the students to make connections if possible)
6. I will then ask students to identify the topic. (we will write this down on our graphic organizer after the topic has
been supplied)
7. I will ask students to tell me what they feel the passage is mostly about. )I will take a volunteer response and we
will write this down)
8. I will then have each student supply a detail for us to add to the graphic organizer. (we will need at least three)
9. After this has been done, we will talk about whether or not our details support our main idea.
Part 3--- Closure - “After”: 5 minutes
10. I will have the students turn to their partner to tell each other the steps we took to find the main idea of this passage.
11. I will use the call-back technique “class-class” “yes-yes” to get their attention focused on me again.
12. I will then ask each student one step we took to determine the main idea and supporting details of this passage to check
for understanding.
Part 4--- Assessment: The student responses throughout the lesson will serve as a quick check for understanding. The
partner discussions will tell me what my students have learned from the lesson. My “ticket out of reading” at the end will serve
as the individual assessment at the end of the lesson.

Evaluation Criteria:
Exceeds expectations: gives an explanation as to why we performed that particular step when finding the main idea and
gives a step we used
Meets expectations: gives a step that we took to find the main idea of this passage
Does not meet expectations: does not supply anything at all or gives a response that is not related to the lesson

Next Step: For the next lesson, the students will write their summaries using their graphic organizers that they wrote main
idea and supporting details on for this lesson.
Extension: Students can talk to their partner about how they will go about writing their summaries for the next lesson if time
permits.

Lesson Plan Appendix and Commentary Section

Evidence and Formative Assessment of Student Learning: How will you know whether students are making progress
toward your learning goal(s) and/or how will you assess the extent to which they have met your goal(s)? Use the chart below
to describe and justify at least 1 formal or informal assessment strategies that occur in your detailed plan above.

Assessment Strategy #1: Describe assessment strategy here.

Alignment with Objectives: Describe how this assessment is aligned to your stated objectives. Which objective(s) is it
assessing?
Evidence of Student Understanding: Describe how this assessment strategy provides evidence of student understanding of
the concepts being taught.
Student Feedback: Describe how you will provide feedback to students on this assessment.
Note: Add more assessment strategy boxes here if needed.

Utilizing Knowledge about Students to Plan and Implement Effective Instruction

Building on Personal/Cultural/Community Assets:
Explain how your plans linked student’s prior academic learning and personal/cultural/community assets to new learning
Grouping Strategies:
Describe how and why students will be divided into groups, if applicable (random, ability, interest, social purposes,
etc.).

Planned Supports/Differentiation
Describe the instructional supports during your lesson that address diverse learning needs in order for all students to
successfully meet lesson objectives.

Specifically: How will you provide access to specific IEP, 504, or other SPED needs?
How will you challenge your above average students?
What if…students finish early?
…students can’t do what you have planned?

Supporting Literacy Development

Essential Literacy Strategies:

Identify a specific strategy (revising a draft, completing a graphic organizer, note taking, analyzing text structure, retelling a
story, etc) used to help students comprehend and compose text within this lesson.
Requisite Skills:
Identify the requisite literacy skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and representing) students will develop and
practice while learning the identified literacy strategy.
Reading/Writing Connections:
Identify how your lesson helps students make reading/writing connections
 Lesson Plan #3
Grade Level: third grade Number of Students: 4 Instructional Location: classroom Date: March 13, 2019

#1---Lesson Goals
Central Focus of Lesson: Can students effectively utilize the main idea and supporting details to write a summary of the
text?
Standard(s) Addressed: ELAGSE3RI2: Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how
they support the main idea.

#2---Lesson Objectives and Demands

Content Objectives: Students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of main idea and supporting details to write a
summary of the text.
Key Vocabulary in Lesson: main idea, supporting details, topic sentence, passage
Language Objectives: Students will demonstrate their understanding of the vocabulary through syntax and discourse.
Students will be reading the information presented on the graphic organizer to write a summary of the text that was read in
the previous lesson. They will each read their summary aloud and explain how the graphic organizer from the previous lesson
helped them write a summary of the text.

#3---Lesson Considerations
Materials: smart panel, reading notebooks, pencils, and graphic organizers from previous lesson to write summaries
Prior Academic Learning and Prerequisite Skills: The students have had modeling and guided practice and now it is time
for them to apply what they have learned to a relevant task independently.
Misconceptions: This is the final day of the unit, so there should not be any misconceptions. If there are still some
misconceptions, before they take the post-assessment, I will help to clear them up.
Pre-Assessment: (see previous lesson plans)

#4--- Lesson Plan Details:

Part 1--- Lesson Introduction - “Before”: 5 minutes
1. Ask students what we worked on the previous day and explain that they will be using the information they put onto their
graphic organizer to write their own summaries to present to the group. The students will explain how their graphic organizer
helped them write their summary during their presentation.
Part 2--- Learning Activities - “During”: 20 minutes
2. I will then have my time keeper set timer for twenty minutes to give time to work on the summary.
3. When the timer goes off, I will call students to present their summaries and tell us how the graphic organizer
helped them write their summary. (this should not take longer than three minutes for each student)
4. After presentations, I will have them turn to their partner and talk about everything they learned in this unit about
main idea, supporting details, and using that on a graphic organizer to write a summary.
Part 3--- Closure - “After”:
5. We will close with a discussion about how to find the main idea of a text and why it is important for
comprehension to do so. I will tell them that the next day they will complete the post-assessment for this unit to see
what they have learned

Part 4--- Assessment: I will assess how well they were able to pull together the concepts learned in this unit by the student
presentations of their summaries and explanations of how the graphic organizers helped them write it. I will also be able to tell
what they have learned by listening to their partner talks about what they learned in the unit.

Evaluation Criteria:
Exceeds expectations: additional details from the text included in the summary, high confidence with presenting,
explanations give ways that the material can be connected to other tasks besides the one completed in class

Meets expectations: has a full summary paragraph, clearly used their graphic organizer to write the summary,
clearly connects how the graphic organizer helped them write the summary, speaks audibly and confidently

Does not meet expectations: incomplete summary, does not use graphic organizer, does not have graphic
organizer, cannot explain how the graphic organizer helped them write the summary, not confident in presentation,
cannot be heard

The post-assessment will be scored as follows:

Exceeds expectations—gets all questions correct with more than three supporting details from the text
Meets expectations—gets all or two out of three correct with at least three supporting details from the text
Does not meet expectations—does not get any or only gets one correct, only supplies one or two details, does
not supply any details, or details do not come from the text at all
Next Step: The next step, now that they have a firm foundation of main idea, they can continue to develop well-written
summaries.
Extension: If I see that there will be more time at the end of the lesson, I will extend the time for students to work on their
summaries so that they can develop their summary and presentation to the best of their abilities
Lesson Plan Appendix and Commentary Section
Evidence and Formative Assessment of Student Learning: How will you know whether students are making progress
toward your learning goal(s) and/or how will you assess the extent to which they have met your goal(s)? Use the chart below
to describe and justify at least 1 formal or informal assessment strategies that occur in your detailed plan above.

Assessment Strategy #1: Describe assessment strategy here.

Alignment with Objectives: Describe how this assessment is aligned to your stated objectives. Which objective(s) is it
assessing?
Evidence of Student Understanding: Describe how this assessment strategy provides evidence of student understanding of
the concepts being taught.
Student Feedback: Describe how you will provide feedback to students on this assessment.
Note: Add more assessment strategy boxes here if needed.

Utilizing Knowledge about Students to Plan and Implement Effective Instruction

Building on Personal/Cultural/Community Assets:
Explain how your plans linked student’s prior academic learning and personal/cultural/community assets to new learning
Grouping Strategies:
Describe how and why students will be divided into groups, if applicable (random, ability, interest, social purposes,
etc.).

Planned Supports/Differentiation
Describe the instructional supports during your lesson that address diverse learning needs in order for all students to
successfully meet lesson objectives.

Specifically: How will you provide access to specific IEP, 504, or other SPED needs?
How will you challenge your above average students?
What if…students finish early?
…students can’t do what you have planned?

Supporting Literacy Development

Essential Literacy Strategies:

Identify a specific strategy (revising a draft, completing a graphic organizer, note taking, analyzing text structure, retelling a
story, etc) used to help students comprehend and compose text within this lesson.
Requisite Skills:
Identify the requisite literacy skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and representing) students will develop and
practice while learning the identified literacy strategy.
Reading/Writing Connections:
Identify how your lesson helps students make reading/writing connections