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Lesson Plan
Lesson Title: What Can We Learn from Folktales?

Grade/Subject: ELA, Grade 5/6

Date: Nov. 19, 2020

Time: 1 h 14 m

Context: The school which I was placed in for practicum is one that has a history of behavioral issues as well as
typically low achievement among students. My class of 19 are almost all low in terms of their reading and
writing levels with only 3-4 performing at or above grade level. It is a generally multi-cultural class with a good
portion being first nations students. 2-3 of the students have IPPs and 4 get pulled out daily to work on their
reading abilities with an EA.

OUTCOMES FROM ALBERTA PROGRAM OF STUDIES

General Learning Outcome(s)

Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to comprehend and respond personally and
critically to oral, print and other media texts.
Specific Learning Outcome(s)

 experience oral, print and other media texts from a variety of cultural traditions and genres,
such as autobiographies, travelogues, comics, short films, myths, legends and dramatic
performances

 make connections between own life and characters and ideas in oral, print and other media texts

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will:
 Predict story elements based on title page
 Examine personal relation to themes
 Develop a personal opinion on themes of story
 Compose a letter to one of the characters

MATERIALS/RESOURCES
The Salmon Twins by Caroll Simpson
50 Literacy Strategies by Gail E. Tompkins
A Computer and Projector
A Cluster Document for Large Group Discussion
Letter Template Worksheet

PROCEDURE
Anticipatory Set (Hook)
Put up Word Document for Large Group Discussion on Screen – In shape of Cluster (page 22 of 50
Literacy Strategies)

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Today we are going to be taking a look at a folktale. Many cultures, countries, and people use folktales.
Why? What is a folktale?
Write answers given on the brainstorming sheet that is projected to the class on the SmartBoard.
Folktales are often used for one of two reasons. 1. To teach a lesson about a virtue or moral lesson that
children should know. 2. Or to explain an aspect of nature in a way that is easily understood. What are
some examples of Folktales that you can think of?
Write Answers given on Cluster Sheet.
What are the lessons that are found within Folktales? Think of the examples of the slide.
Write Answers on Cluster sheet.
Do you think there is a different between a legend and a Folktale?
Write Answers on Cluster sheet.

Exactly, those are all great answers. Things such as Aesop’s Fables from Greece or Ali Baba and the 40
thieves. FNMI communities in Canada also use folktales and legends to pass down lessons, traditions,
or explain nature. Today we are going to be reading one of these stories. It is called The Salmon Twins.

Put up the First Page projected on the SmartBoard from Ebook downloaded from Library.
Based on the title page, what are some predictions we can make about this book?
Use Popsicle sticks to get students to come up with predictions.
Go through 5 different predictions.
As we go through the book, see if you can pick out if any of your predictions were correct.

Teacher Input (I Do)

Teacher will engage in an Interactive Read Aloud of the book The Salmon Twins
There are a lot of animals mentioned in this book. See if you can pick out each one and what their role
is.
Beginning on Page 1, the teacher reads until Page 10.
What is the problem that the Salmon twins are having? Why do you think they were turned into a two-
headed serpent?
Reads page 10 until page 17.
What do you predict that the eyes of the two-headed serpent can do?
Read until page 25.

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Guided Practice (We Do)

How many animals did you hear mentioned in the book? What were their roles?
Wait for Student’s answers – write answers of the board as students raise their hands with answers.
Loon – Helper and Guide
Dogfish – Ask for help in first place
Grey Whale - Transportation
Killer Whale – Greedy
Kingfisher - Messenger
Mink - Greedy
Salmon – Twins, Precious, important to pacific communities
Sea Lion – greedy
Sea Otter – Playful, Prankster
Sea Wolf – Greedy, very powerful
Two-Headed Sea Serpent – Justice and lesson learning

Every folktale or legend has a lesson. What are the lessons that you think is a part of this legend?
Wait for Answers. Pick a raised hand. Write answers on the whiteboard

We are going to be writing a letter to a character in the legend we just read. You can choose any
character you want. In this letter, you are going to ask it 2 questions about its life. You will give it
advice about how to follow the lesson talked about in the legend and you will also write about a
personal experience that you have with the lesson of the legend. Has anyone ever written a letter
before? I am going to go over it as review for some of you, but this might be new to others. Every letter
has to start with a salutation. This is where you say “Hello”. Letters often start of as “dear…,” If I was
going to write a letter to one of the characters. I would start like this “dear Kingfisher,”. After your
salutation you leave a line of space before starting to write about your questions, advice and personal
experience. When you are done your writing, you leave a line and then write a closer. This can be
“Thanks, Sincerely, Regards,” Whatever you would like. Then you leave another line after and sign
your name. Draw the letter format on the whiteboard as you talk about it.
I am going to hand out a worksheet for you to do it on with a reminder of what you are supposed to
write about at the top.
Are there any questions?
Answer Any Questions and hand out worksheet.
You have the next 30 minutes to write your letter.

Independent Practice (You Do)

Students will write their letter to their character on the following worksheet.

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After 30 minutes, gain attention of class.

We are going to do popsicle sticks to pick someone to share their letter. You do not have to read your
whole letter. Just tell us the character that you wrote your letter to and the piece of advice that you gave
them.
Pull 5 popsicle sticks.
Perfect! Now that you are finished, you can place your letter in the basket at the back and pull out your
book for silent reading.

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ASSESSMENT

The Students will hand in their letters that they have written at the back of the room in a tub with
“English” written on the side. I can then look over the letters and see if they were able to personally
connect with the lesson of the folktale and if they were able to make connections as wanted in the SLO
chosen. I can look for the learning objectives mentioned within this as well. Did they examine a
personal relation to the themes, did they write in a letter format…etc. This is a formative assessment
and grades will not be given based on it, but it allows me to see if the students understand the themes
behind the lesson and if they connect to the themes and ideas provided. I will follow the following
checklist:
Task Completed
Examine personal relation to themes
Develop a personal opinion on themes of story
Asked 2 questions of their chosen character
Gave a piece of advice relating to a mentioned
theme
Wrote about a personal experience related to the
theme

The other form of formative assessment will be done in the interactive read-aloud and cluster
brainstorming phase. Seeing what the students are able to pick up from the lesson can help me to see
where we need to spend more time as a class. The initial brainstorm gives me the knowledge of the
student’s level of background information and how to proceed timewise from there. I will be using
popsicle sticks in order to see if the class rather than particular students understand the content. If the
students need more explanation on folktales and legends, then more time can be spent there. If
students’ struggle to answer the questions in the interactive read-aloud then more time can be spent
going over the book and seeing where the students got lost.

LESSON RATIONALE
I chose to do this lesson for multiple reasons. Firstly, my school context. The students that I am
working with are quite low in terms of reading comprehension and writing overall as a class. Because
of this, I wanted to focus on an interactive read-aloud that uses an old folktale or legend. This way, the
book is not overly long, or a multi-lesson project and the students are able to focus in on key concepts
without the book being overly childish or silly. The Salmon Twins I chose for its length and its
readability. It is not a complex read so hopefully that will help the students with understanding the text.
It is also a North American First Nations Folktale which helps bring FNMI knowledge into the
classroom. I also chose The Salmon Twins for the simple fact that I could get it as a PDF and could
display it on the screen so that the students could see the illustrations and read along. I chose a few
questions to help with our interactive read-aloud. I picked places in the book where new characters or
events were going to take place to get the students to predict or answer questions. This should help the
students stay engaged and make sure that they are following along. I chose a letter as the activity to
complete so that students could base their answers off of personal experience. This is also a quite
structured way to write so that students could do it formulaically. This is to help the students who need
guidance when writing. I chose to include cluster style brainstorming to help the students figure out
answers as a whole group especially since group work is harder to do in a COVID world. By adding
cluster style brainstorming, the students can work together to think of ways that folktales affect them
each personally which will help them with the creation of their letters. It also allows them to see the
information organized in an easy to comprehend way that separates topics and allows for students to
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visualize key details.

References
Simpson, C. (2012). The Salmon Twins. Heritage House Publishing
Tompkins, G.E. (2013). 50 Literacy Strategies (4th Edition). Pearson Publishing.