Introductory Essay and a Five-Day Lesson Plan

Rosaleen Faggiano
Boston University, School of Education, SED BI 535
Christine Montecillo Leider
December 15, 2014

These lessons are for an eighth grade ESL classroom where there are eight
students that are all thirteen years old. There are four girls and four boys whose fluency
ranges between WIDA levels 3-4. All students live in the urban part of Boston and are
bussed into the Allston based school. All of the students have free or reduced meals and
are bussed in from surrounding neighborhoods. All students L1 is Spanish, but the
students country of origin differs. All students immigrated to America from, Mexico,
Honduras, or the Dominican Republic. All students have resided in America for at least
two years, but the majority of the students have been here for almost three academic
years. All of the students are in an US history class and continuously lack the background
knowledge to keep up with the rest of the class and comprehend the material.
These five days of lessons are a way to introduce the students to slavery and give
some background knowledge while also working on the five skills of vocabulary,
comprehension, fluency, and text level skills. Working on their English proficiency skills
is the most important part of the lesson however; the lessons are focused around history
to for lack of a better phrase; kill two birds with one stone. For this reason the standards
for these lessons are centered on ELA and not history. It is not the goal of the lesson for
them to memorize slavery and be able to take a formative assessment on the facts of the
American Slave Trade. Rather it is for the students to work on their English proficiency
skills using history based texts. The standards that these lesson plans are centered around
are, Compare and Contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the
differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style (MA Curriculum
Frameworks (2011), English Language Arts and Literacy Reading Standards for
Literature 6-12, English language learners communicate for social and instructional

purposes within the school setting. (WIDA ELD Standard 1), and The language of
Language Arts: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts
necessary for academic success in the content area of language art (WIDA ELD
Standard 2).
To practice the four English proficiency skills, everyday of the five-day lesson
plan incorporates at least one of these skills. The first days lesson will in some way focus
on all of the English Proficiency skills but a majority of the attention will be on
comprehension, fluency and vocabulary. All of the students have worked with historical
fiction and short stories before which means this gives them the opportunity to practice
their skills with a text they are familiar with. The ultimate goal of the week is to take
these the comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency skills they are working on while
reading the short story and apply them to reading an expository text on the fourth day and
then to transfer them into students writing and their history class. Like many of the other
fictional stories the class has read throughout the year, Africa is my Home A Child of the
Amistad by Monica Edinger has direct linear, plots and is communicated in a language
that is clear and concrete. These qualities have proven in the past to help students use
their decoding skills to comprehend the main points of the story. The main purpose of a
narrative text is to tell a story. Narrative texts are structured with a beginning, middle and
end; they include characters, a plot or conflict, and a setting. This structure is easier for
the students to follow and pick up on the important events in the story.
For the fist day there are two objectives. The first is that the students will
comprehend the first 21 pages and recognize the narrators tone. The second is that the
students will be able to recognize their new vocabulary words in the text and point them

out to each other and write down the definition to use later in the week. The lesson will
begin with a mini lesson to give students brief background knowledge on The Slave
Trade. Some students have moved to Massachusetts and therefore have already learned
about slavery while other students have never heard of the term before. The lesson will
include a drawing of the triangular trade and introduce their new vocabulary words,
which they will also see when they read through the text. Roit (2006) believes that,
Preteaching gives students a head start by preparing them for what they will
encounter(pg. 92). Students who have already learned about the slave trade will talk and
make predictions about what they think will happen in the story and will also write down
the new vocabulary words. Kieffer and Lesaux (2007) explain, Academic vocabulary
plays a more prominent role as students learn about science and social studies concepts in
upper elementary and middles school (pg.135). Students getting the chance to learn
these academic terms and background knowledge at a slower place in the classroom can
only have positive effects in their other classes.
The majority of the class will be the teacher reading the first half of the story
aloud while students read along. As the teacher reads the story to the students she will be
modeling the strategy of thinking aloud. This strategy takes students comprehension and
text level skills to the next level. By modeling the strategy think-alouds the teacher is
showing the students how to, understand the purpose of reading, focus on building
meaning, value sharing ideas, engage in discussion, and use academic language (Roit,
2006, pg. 86). While reading, both the teacher and the students are responsible for taking
notes in the margins of the story. Students can watch the teacher model how to find
important parts of the text, and give the students a chance to try and find things that they

think are important or things that will help them remember what happened in the story.
Morrow and Gambrell(2011) explain, These reading strategies are deliberate, goaldirected attempts to control and modify the readers efforts to decode text, understand
words, and construct meanings of text (pg. 252). The teacher will evaluate the notes of
each student after the class finishes reading for the day. The teacher can then see what
areas of the text students are struggling with and which parts the students seem to
understand. This will help the teacher plan out how to read the next day and where to
better model note taking. While the teacher is reading the story he/she is also modeling
the tone of the narrator. Throughout the story the tone of the narrator changes and
students should make note of this in their annotation. It is important for the teacher to not
only change tone vocally, but also point out the change to the students. To emphasize the
importance of understanding the tone the teacher can have students echo read specific
parts of the text when the tone changes. This gives students the chance to not only
experience the emotions that the character is going through, but the repetition can help
the student better comprehend what is going on in the text.
After the class finishes reading the text they will be given a formative assessment.
They will have to answer questions that emphasize the: what why where when, how, and
tone of the story. The teacher will give clues in each question to look at certain pictures
that may help the students understand how to answer the question better (Roit, 2006, 84).
One group of students will work on the questions in pairs and discuss what they think the
answer is with a partner before writing the answer. The second group will work as a
group to answer the questions. The groups will be split up based on WIDA levels. This

assessment is a second evaluation for the teacher to see if the students understand the
story or if the next day will require more explicit instruction.
The second day of the lesson plan is an extension off of the first day. The main
idea for the second day is to strengthen students fluency, comprehension, and text level
skills introduced the first day and to extend the students vocabulary skills with the
vocabulary introduced the previous day. The main objectives for today are for students to
understand the entire story and answer questions about the story and its narrators tone,
and that students will be able to fill in the new vocabulary words in prewritten sentences
that they and the teacher picked out from the short story. The beginning of the lesson will
again with a mini lesson for students who are in WIDA level 3. All of the students will
make predictions of what they think will happen in the story when they read today. The
students that are not in the mini group will discuss with the same partner that they worked
with the previous day and the students in the mini group will work together to come up
with a prediction. This is a final assessment for the teacher to see how much of the story
the students comprehended before reading the rest of the story aloud and modeling
annotations and think alouds. Having the students discuss with their peers as the teacher
facilitates gives the students a sense of comfort rather than they are being evaluated like
the other two assessments may have been.
The main section of the lesson will be exactly the same as the first day except the
students will echo read more often then the prior lesson. The teacher should still be
modeling think-alouds and annotating the text, but the read aloud should be majority echo
reading rather than just the teacher reading the story. Morrow and Gambrell (2011) show
studies that this type of reading also known as wide Fluency-Oriented Oral Reading had

produced students with the greatest growth on comprehension (pg. 281). Continuous
practice of this type of reading could help students improve their comprehension and
fluency. The teacher will still be modeling think- alouds and should be emphasizing the
tone of the narrator so the students can have more chance at practicing that part of their
fluency skills in that regard. Every time the tone in the characters voice changes the
teacher will explain why and make a note of it on her storys margins. Students will
continue to annotate the text and make note of important moments in the text that the
teacher points out, along with their own ideas about what is important. Morrow and
Gambrell (2011) explain that in order to have students strengthen their metacognitive
skills with reading comprehension they need to be given a pencil and taught to make,
regular annotation in the margins of the text they are reading (pg. 152). This is a very
important skill to push on students so that they can transfer the knowledge and at some
point do it on their own.
After the class finishes the story the students will answer questions that are again
centered on the: who, what, when, where, why, how, and tone of the story. As Roit (2006)
explains, Comprehension strategies are also used to delve deeper into text, to make
connections and inferences, and to draw conclusions (pg. 81). When answering the
questions the teacher will really be assessing if the students were able to use their sight
words and decoding skills to understand the main points of the story. This is important
because if the students are not able to prove where they got their evidence for the
question it shows the teacher that the students really werent able to read through and
comprehend the lesson. This is examining whether students can do more then retell the

story, but also explain the why and how (pg. 81). The next days lesson and the following
lessons require the students to be able to understand all the major events of the story.
The second mini lesson of the class and will be split up based on which students
have not studied slavery yet and students have. During this part of the lesson the students
will move ahead with learning the new vocabulary words. They will fill in the vocabulary
terms that they defined yesterday into prewritten sentences. Graves, August, and Martinez
(2013) believe that teacher-made worksheets are good practice for practicing potentially
difficult words that can be found in readings or for a specific subject (pg. 51). Students
who do not have the background knowledge will have the teacher to assist them with
finding the right word and the right sentence. Students who have the background
knowledge will take advantage of their prior knowledge and the definitions from the
previous day and fit the words into the correct sentences. Students who have not yet
learned this topic yet may still need help from the teacher to find out which words fit in
which sentence. If a student feels that they can fill in the blanks on their own they are
more than welcome to. These assessments will show the teacher how much the students
know about both the story and the background knowledge about slavery. Both of these
qualities are necessary for the following days exercise.
The goal of the third days lesson is to expand off the past two lessons. The
content objective is that the students will be able to sequence the events of the story by
organizing the flashcards in a group. The students will use their content area language
and social language to work with each other to put all cards in order. The Language
objective is that students will understand their new terms from the previous two days and
will be able to write a sentence using the vocabulary words correctly. The class will begin

with a mini lesson where all the students will read a summary of Africa is my home A
child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger. The students in the mini lesson will choral read
the summary while the students that are not in the mini lesson will read the story silently
to themselves while annotating the text.
This mini lesson will be split up based on WIDA levels. The students who are
WIDA level 3 will participate in the choral reading The point of the reading is for
students to get a short wrap up of what the story was about which will better prepare
them for the exercise afterwards. Since the students have finished reading the story they
will now exercise the knowledge they have gained from practicing their comprehension,
text level skills and vocabulary skills. The students will work in groups of four to
organize the events of the story in order. Each group will be given ten index cards. On
each index card is a small blurb about the important event in the story and a picture from
the book that illustrates the event. The students will have to work together using their
academic knowledge to organize the cards correctly. Morrow and Gambrell(2011)
suggest that, ELLs may require images and other extra linguistic sources of information
(such as the use of total physical response) about words in order to fully grasp their
meaning (pg. 126). This lesson takes that a step farther and not only lets students use
pictures for understanding terms, but also to understand events that happen in the story.
Students will also use their annotated stories and there answers from the question
worksheets to organize the cards. This exercise will test the students skills in being able
to comprehend the short blurbs that use their academic vocabulary about the slave trade.
The students should be able to transfer the information from their annotations and the
answers from their questions and apply it to the events of the story. This assignment is

testing their abilities to piece together a story with the important events to see if they will
be able to apply it to their own writing later in the week. The mini lesson after this
exercise will be decided based on which group was able to organize the index cards in the
correct order with the fewest amount of tries. The point of the lesson is not to rush to
students, but to see which students need more review of the story and academic review
before moving on to the next step of the weeks lesson plans. The class will end with all
the students writing five sentences using their vocabulary words. The students will be
using these words in their story and can therefore benefit from the practice of creating
sentences with them.
The fourth day of lessons goal is to take all the practices that the students have
been working around having the students transfer the English Proficiency they have been
learning and apply it to a new type of text. The content objective for the class is that
students will be able to read through their section of the expository text and extract the
important information that they can share with class. The language objective is that the
students will be able to use their vocabulary words to understand the text that they are
reading and will use their vocabulary words when they write their summaries of the
expository text. The first mini lesson of the class will again have the teacher pre-teach
how to read an expository text. The teacher will ask which students have yet to work with
expository texts. Those that havent will work with the teacher as she pre-teaches the
things to look for in an expository or nonfiction text. The teacher will spend this time
introducing the organizational pattern of reading an expository text. The teacher will
introduce the signal words and phrases that identify the text structure and give students a
graphic organizer to take notes of the important information that they find within the text

Tompkins (1998). Most of the lesson will be the students working in pairs to read through
a part of the text that they are responsible for and annotating what they find important or
need more explanation on. The students will then take the notes they have written and
write on their graphic organizer the points that they think are important from their part of
the text on the appropriate number. Morrow and Grambell(2011) believe it is important
that teachers make sure students work in their own small groups to read through texts and
extract information (pg. 144). With all of the information the students and the teacher will
make a list of information that the students can then use as a resource about slavery both
in their social studies class and for their project at the end of the unit. Students will need
to apply the vocabulary that they have been using for the past two days with the story
Africa is my home A child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger to decode and understand
the expository text that they are reading.
This exercise puts a lot of focus on students being able to transfer the information
they learned while reading the short story into reading an expository text. Morrow and
Grambell(2011) also say that, Teachers need to model the strategy several times with the
course content the have assigned to use. They need to ensure that students are able to
preview actively and identify important events (pg. 246). This is why the teacher is
continuously assesses how much the students have been able to grasp the information
from the first text and can do it with this text with a partner rather than modeling the
teacher. The ultimate goal is that students will be able to take all the skills that they are
learning about annotating text, learning and using new vocabulary, and learning the tone
of the text and apply all these skills to their other classes. These past three days have been
scaffolding to this moment where students can read text on their own and find the

information they think is important without having to be asked questions. Once the
students have filled out their part of the worksheet they will move around the room and
talk with the other students to see what facts they learned about from their portion of the
reading. The students will then be responsible for writing these facts on their own
worksheet in the space provided in their own words.
The second mini lesson will be the teacher checking over the worksheets of all the
students who have not yet studied US history and slavery. This is the point where the
teacher will make sure that all the students have written down important facts from each
group and have all the materials that will be needed for the next day. It is also an
opportunity for the students to ask any questions about the text that they did not
understand. The students who are not in the mini lesson will spend this time checking
over each others worksheets and seeing if anyone missed one of the pieces of
information. They will then rewrite all of the information on a new worksheet in
complete sentences. The whole point of this mini lesson is to make sure all of the students
in the class have enough information about slavery that they can write a short two-page
story about a person in slavery and use the correct facts within the story. This worksheet
is the final assessment for the teacher to find out whether or not the students are ready to
apply their knowledge in writing and will be able to keep up when their US history class
begins to teach the Slavery unit. This exercise is imperative for students to understand in
the ESL classroom so that they will do well when they have to do the same thing in their
other core curriculum classes.
The Main Idea behind the last day is have students apply all of their reading
English Proficiency skills and apply it to writing. Although students have been writing all

week this lesson is set around setting up a two-page story that each student will be
responsible for writing. The content objective for this class is that Students will be able to
come up with a story topic and fill out the graphic organizer with all the information they
will need for the story. The language objective is that students will be able to correctly
use the vocabulary words when writing their ideas in their graphic organizers. The lesson
will begin with a twenty-minute instruction where the teacher will cover all points of
explaining what the students will be doing that day and the steps that they will be taking
to get to their end goal. This will be a five-day project and today is the first part of the
process. Each day will cover a different step: planning, drafting, revising, editing, and
publishing (Morrow and Grambell, 2011, pg. 296). The teacher will explain each of the
days and what is required on that day. For this days lesson the students will be filling out
a graphic organizer that explains the characters, setting, plot, and evidence from sources
and vocabulary. The teacher will meet with the students in two separate groups that will
be divided based on their WIDA levels. In these groups the teacher will discuss possible
story settings for the students to choose from and possible story plots that they can pick
from. The students will spend time with the teacher working on their graphic organizers
and asking the teacher for help when it is needed or they are stuck. The teacher is
responsible in this setting to make sure students understand the requirements of the
assignment and to assist the students in anyway possible. When the students arent
working with the teacher they should be working on their graphic organizers on their
own. If any students finishes the graphic organizer it must be checked over by the teacher
before they can move on to the next part of the assignment: drafting.

This five-day lesson plan is designed to help students improve their English
Proficiency skills. Throughout the five days the students worked on vocabulary,
comprehension, text skills and fluency. All the students needed to show the teacher that
they understood the texts they had been working on that day in order for the teacher to
feel that she could move on to the next step of the lesson plan. Every part of the lesson
plan built on top of each other to reach the goal of students writing a short story and
having the tools they needed to complete that goal.

LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Lesson Title: Reading History to Writing about History (Slavery)
Name

Date

Grade /Age

Number

Length

Rosaleen
Faggiano

December 10th
2014

Grade: 8

8 students

75 mins

Age: 13

Context
The 8 students are 8 students all 13 years old. There are four girls and four boys and range
between WIDA levels 3-4. All students in live in the urban part of Boston and are bussed into the
Allston school. All students have free or reduced meals. All students L1 is Spanish, but students
are from different countries. All students immigrated to America from different countries
including: Mexico, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. All students have resided in America
for at least two years, but the majority has been here for three years.
The main purpose of this lesson is for students to read along with their teacher the story Africa is
my Home A Child of the Amistad. This lesson is the beginning of a larger unit where the students
will work improving their fluency, vocabulary, text level skills and comprehension while reading
other texts. These first five days are to reintroduce all of the skills to the students while working
with the text. Before reading the story the teacher will give a brief introduction to the whole class
about slavery with the most important background knowledge on slave trade that students will
need to know in order to understand the story. This introduction is not summarize all of slave
trade for the students to then memorize it is simply to give the students the background
knowledge that they may not have about slavery because they have all immigrated to America
within the past three years. While reading the short story students will be learning how to
sequence events. The students will also how to identify the authors tone and know if the tone
changes throughout the story. The teacher will also point out four vocabulary words that the
students will be responsible for memorizing throughout the week. This is to work on their text
based skills, vocabulary and fluency. All of these skills will be refined throughout the week; this
lesson is to introduce these different skills so that students can work on mastering them
throughout the week.
Rationale
Students who have not yet learned about the American Slave Trade will be pre-taught
some prior knowledge because as Roit 2006 explains, Preteaching gives students a head start by
preparing them for what they will encounter(pg. 92). This entire five day lesson plan is
surrounded by that idea, but giving students background knowledge and their vocabulary words
will help them to comprehend the story of this lesson. Kieffer and Lesaux (2007) tell us that,
Academic vocabulary plays a more prominent role as students learn about science and social

studies concepts in upper elementary and middles school (pg.135). To help ELLs be successful
in these classes they need to be taught the skills to work through the texts; this way they are able
to retain the information once they are in the specific classroom because it will not be the first
time they are exposed to the academic vocabulary. As the teacher reads the story aloud she will
also be modeling think-alouds. By modeling the strategy think-alouds the teacher is showing the
students how to, understand the purpose of reading, focus on building meaning, value sharing
ideas, engage in discussion, and use academic language (Roit, 2006, pg. 86). While reading,
both the teacher and the students are responsible for taking notes in the margins of the story.
Students can watch the teacher model how to find important parts of the text, and give the
students a chance to try and find things that they think are important or things that will help them
remember what happened in the story. As Janis Almasi and Susan Hart (2011) explain, These
reading strategies are deliberate, goal-directed attempts to control and modify the readers efforts
to decode text, understand words, and construct meanings of text (pg. 252). The teacher will
evaluate the notes of each student after the class finishes reading for the day. The teacher can
then see what areas of the text students are struggling with and which parts the students seem to
understand. This will help the teacher plan out how to read the next day and where to better
model note taking. While the teacher is reading the story he/she is also modeling the tone of the
narrator. Throughout the story the tone of the narrator changes and students should make note of
this in their annotation. It is important for the teacher to not only change tone vocally, but also
point out the change to the students. To emphasize the importance of understanding the tone the
teacher can have students echo read specific parts of the text when the tone changes. This gives
students the chance to not only experience the emotions that the character is going through, but
the repetition can help the student better comprehend what is going on in the text.
Standards
Standard

Activity

Compare and Contrast the structure of two

or more texts and analyze how the differing
structure of each text contributes to its
meaning and style (MA Curriculum
Frameworks (2011): English Language Arts
and Literacy Reading Standards for
Literature 6-12)

This standard is an ultimate goal to be

reached within the first four days of the
unit. After the students finish reading the
short story they will read an expository text
explaining what slave trade is. Within this
story there are pieces of expository text
such as news clip articles and historical
pictures of the characters within the story.
These pieces are miniature introductions to
the full expository text that will be
introduced on the fourth day and the rest of
the unit where they will be comparing
many other different types of text.

English language learners communicate for

social and instructional purposes within the
school setting. (WIDA ELD Standard 1)

This standard is being practiced multiple

times throughout the lesson. The first is
during the introduction of what slavery and

the slave trade is. The students are

encouraged to ask questions if they dont
understand something about the teachers
explanation. The second time that the
students will be able to communicate is
when they are answering the questions
about the story. The group that are split
into partners can communicate with one
another about what they think the answer is
and why. The group that is working with
the teacher are also responsible for giving
their opinion on why they choose specific
answers.
The language of Language Arts: English
language learners communicate
information, ideas, and concepts necessary
for academic success in the content area of
language arts. (WIDA ELD Standard 2)

Prior knowledge and new learning

Students will also be responsible to meet

these standards many times within the
lesson and in many different ways. The
first will be while the teacher and the
students are reading the story. During this
time students are not only responsible for
writing down what the teacher thinks is
important about the text, but also what they
find important about the text. The teacher
will look over the students copies of the
stories after the lesson to make sure this
has been accomplished. The second time
that students are able to practice this
standard is when answering questions
about the story. Most of the questions are
open-ended and require the student to
show evidence from the text. This practices
both the information and concepts required
of them during the lesson.

These students are adolescent learners in the Level 3 and Level 4 expanding stage and
according to the WIDA (2012) proficiency standards. The students have read short stories
throughout the school year and understand the process of actively reading silently along with the
teacher and making annotations to the important parts of the text that the teacher points out. The
students have also learned what a first person narrative is and should be able to identify this story
as such because it is a young girl named Sarah telling the story. Students have begun to learn
about slavery in their Social Studies class. These lessons are to help students work with narrative
and expository texts while also working with the language they will need for their social studies
class.
The main goals of this lesson are for the students to learn how to sequence the events of the story
and how to identify the different tones of the main character Sarah. To reach these goals the
Teacher will identify the important events while reading aloud and the students will make note of
it on their papers. Later in the lesson the students will answer questions about what happened in
the story and where they found that information. Listening to the teacher read the story aloud
will help to identify how Sarah, the main character, felt in the different parts of the story which
the teacher will explain after the story is the tone.
Understandings
By the end of the first group lesson and mini lesson the students should have annotated all the
important events of the story. They should have also made note of where Sarahs tone changes
both on their text and when answering the questions. Lastly all of the students should have
written down the new vocabulary words and their definitions. Although students may still not
fully understand the meaning of the words it is important that they are introduced to the words
within the text and are given definitions to better understand what the words mean.
Objectives
Content Objectives
Students will be able to comprehend the events of the story and the changes in the main
characters tone. Students will be able to write the answers questions about the events and tone
within the first 21 pages.
Language Objectives
Students will know the language necessary to answer the questions about the story.
Students will be able to recognize their new vocabulary words in the text and point them out to
each other and write down the definition to use later in the week

Materials
- The Story: Africa is my home A child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger to read and

annotate. This will also be the source for their new vocabulary words.
Worksheet asking questions about what happened in the story to assess whether or not the
students comprehend the events in the story.
Sheet of paper to write down their new vocabulary terms and the definition.

Procedure (The How)

Opening (Mini Lesson 1)
1. Take the first 15 mins of class to give background knowledge of what the slave
trade is to students that have yet to take an American History class on Slavery
* Some students have moved to Massachusetts and therefore have already
learned about slavery while other students have never heard of the term before.
- Draw the Triangle Trade and Middle Passage
Draw on the board Europe, Americas, and Africa and how each area had a
type of good that the other wanted and traded the goods in a triangle pattern
- Show a picture of the ship with the chains
Bring up a picture online of the ships that the slaves traveled in and explain
that the slaves would be packed into the boat and chained to the walls. This is the
type of ship that Sarah, the main character, will talk about in the book
- Introduce vocabulary words that the students are responsible for remembering and
will come across in the story: traders, pawn, snatched, chains and shackles.
2. The Teacher should also explain to the class the rest of the days agenda and what
the content and language objectives of this class are.
Development
1. Spend 30 mins reading the first 21 pages of the story
- The teacher should be reading the story allowed while the students read silently
along with their photocopied versions.
- The teacher should identify the five vocabulary words and re-explain the terms in
case any students do not understand from the beginning of the lesson.
- Students should be copying the teachers annotations to their copies of the text of
all the main points of the story. The teacher will point out as the story is read. The
students should be making their own notes to the story
- The teacher should point out the tone of the main character Sarah as the story
progresses and explain to the students why Sarahs tone changes.
2. When the first 21 pages have been read the teacher should walk around the room
and make sure all of the students have been taking notes.
3. The teacher should then ask if the students have any questions or didnt
understand a part of the text and would like the teacher to explain.

Closing (after second mini lesson)

1. The class will go over the answers to the questions together to make sure
everyone has the same answer and everyone has evidence to support their
answers. (5 mins)
- This will help with their homework when they will need to write a short summary
of what happened in the book. This summary should really be rewriting the
answers in paragraph form.
2. The last (5 mins) will be the students copying down the words and definitions of
the words from the text.
- The students will spend more time learning about the vocabulary in later lessons.
Mini Lesson (15 mins)
1. The mini lesson will revolve around the teacher working with the students in
WIDA level 3 to answer the questions about the story.
3. The students should be giving the teacher the answers verbally and then writing
them down.
4. The teacher is to act more as a facilitator then just giving the students the answers.
5. The teacher must also make sure that each answer has proof from the text.
2. The students who are not in the mini lesson should also be answering the
questions however, they should be working in pairs and talking with one another
about each answer.
6. The room should not be silent. Instead it should be full of everyone talking about
the story and answering the questions.
7. The teacher can leave the small lesson at points to make sure that the pairs are
staying focused on the questions.
Assessment
1. Students will be able to copy down the definitions of the new vocabulary.
2. Students will write and discuss the answers to questions about what happened in
the first 21 pages of the story with the rest of the class.
3. Students have annotated the story with both the teachers notes that she modeled
on the board, but also their own ideas and questions from the story.
Extensions
An extension for the first class would be for students to write a
summary of what has happened so far in the lesson. This lets students
transfer the information from the question sheet and practice writing in
paragraph form. This also is a great assessment to see how the
students are growing in their comprehension of the story and their
language of the content area. The teacher can use this exercise to see

if the students have really understood what has happened in the story
and that they have the language to explain all of the events.
For the next lesson students will be finishing the story that they started today. They will
read silently while the teacher reads aloud and continue to annotate. Students will again
answer questions about the story that will both assess whether they will understood what
happened and if they were able to understand the change in Sarahs tone throughout the
rest of the story. The rest of the lesson will be focused on the vocabulary words found
within the text. Students will fill out a worksheet using the definitions they took down
today and insert the correct vocabulary word into prewritten sentences.

DAY 2
Brief description of students
-There are 8 students in 8th grade and they are all 13 years old.
-There are four girls and four boys and range between WIDA levels 3-4.
-All students in live in the urban part of Boston and are bussed into the Allston school.

-All students have free or reduced meals.

- All students L1 is Spanish, but students are from different countries.
-All students immigrated to America from different countries including: Mexico, Honduras, and
the Dominican Republic.
-All students have resided in America for at least two years, but the majority has been here for
three years.

Focus of the Lesson

-

The point of this lesson will be a continuation of the first day.

The students will be finishing the story of Africa is my Home a Child of Amistad By
Monica Edinger and will be answering questions about the events of the story.
The difference in the two lessons is how the student and the teacher will read through the
second half of the story.
Rather then the teacher reading aloud a majority of the time the students will be echo
reading her as well.
This will help the students better comprehend the events of the text and will allow the
students to read through the text a second time.
The teacher will still be modeling think- alouds and should be emphasizing the tone of
the narrator so the students can have more of a chance to practice that part of their
fluency skills.
After the class finishes the story the students will answer questions that are again
centered on the: who, what, when, where, why, how, and tone of the story.
When answering the questions the teacher will really be assessing if the students were
able to use their sight words and decoding skills to understand the main points of the
story.
The next days lesson and the following lessons require the students to be able to
understand all the major events of the story.

Student needs
-

There are many reasons why this lesson focuses on these skills. Like the first day this day
is imperative in practicing important skills that can be applied to many other parts of a
students learning.
These lessons are to strengthen the comprehension and text level skills by not only

reading the text silently, but having the teacher read out loud, having the students echo
read, both the teacher and the students annotating the text and then posing questions that
make the students go back to the text to find the answers.
All of these combined help students master extracting information about a historical
moment, which is imperative that the students be able to do in their US history class.
These students need the background knowledge that comes from reading this short story
in order to understand what is going on in their other class and keep up with their peers.
It is a better use of the students time to teach them English proficiency skills while also
building their background knowledge for other classes.
Both of these areas can be transferred into the students other classes.
Being able to practice in a non judgmental environment will help the students feel more
comfortable when they have to use the same skills in their general education classes.

CCSS and WIDA Standards

1. Compare and Contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing
structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style (MA Curriculum Frameworks (2011):
English Language Arts and Literacy Reading Standards for Literature 6-12)
2.English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school
setting. (WIDA ELD Standard 1)
3. The language of Language Arts: English language learners communicate information, ideas,
and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language arts. (WIDA ELD
Standard 2)ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language
arts. (WIDA ELD Standard 2)
Lesson objectives
Content Objective: Students will be able to comprehend the story and write the answers
questions about what happened at the end of the story.
Learning Objective: Students will be able to fill in the new vocabulary words in prewritten
sentences that they and the teacher picked out from the short story.
Materials
The Story: Africa is my home A child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger
Worksheet with questions about what happened in the story
Vocabulary handout with pre written sentences and a word bank

Assessment
1. To prove that the students understood the story the will need to have both annotated the
story and answered every question on the worksheet with evidence.
2. To prove that the students are beginning to understand the new vocabulary terms they
will need to fill in the blanks of pre-written sentences.

DAY 3
Brief description of students
-There are 8 students in 8th grade and they are all 13 years old.
-There are four girls and four boys and range between WIDA levels 3-4.
-All students in live in the urban part of Boston and are bussed into the Allston school.
-All students have free or reduced meals.
- All students L1 is Spanish, but students are from different countries.
-All students immigrated to America from different countries including: Mexico, Honduras, and
the Dominican Republic.

-All students have resided in America for at least two years, but the majority has been here for
three years.

Focus of the Lesson

-

The focus of this lesson is a to have students be able to organize information in an exact
sequence.
The class will begin with a mini lesson where all the students will read a summary of
Africa is my home A child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger.
The students in the mini lesson will choral read the summary while the students that are
not in the mini lesson will read the story silently to themselves while annotating the text.
This mini lesson will be split up based on WIDA levels. The students who are WIDA
level 3 will participate in the choral reading
The point of the reading is for students to get a short wrap up of what the story was
about which will better prepare them for the exercise afterwards.
The students will exercise the knowledge they have gained from practicing their
comprehension, text level skills and vocabulary skills.
The students will work in groups of four to organize the events of the story in order using
index cards.
The students will have to work together using their academic knowledge to organize
the cards correctly.
Students will also use their annotated stories and there answers from the question
worksheets to organize the cards.
This exercise will test the students skills in being able to comprehend the short blurbs
that use their academic vocabulary about the slave trade.
The students should be able to transfer the information from their annotations and the
answers from their questions and apply it to the events of the story.
This assignment is testing their abilities to piece together a story with the important
events to see if they will be able to apply it to their own writing later in the week.

Student needs
-

In core curriculum classes students need to be able to organize events in history,

sequence steps of an experiment, and explain their process of finding a solution
By having students organize the events of the story using index cards it has the students
practicing a skill that is imperative for a students learning in every other subject.
Students will need to be able to recall facts from readings that they do in other classes.
Using visual tools helps students practice retrieving the information from both their
memory and their notes in a productive way.
In many texts that students will read there will either be pictures or will be able to
draw pictures from the information. If students are taught they can use these tools to

their advantage it can have great impact on their ability to comprehend information from
different texts.

CCSS and WIDA Standards

1. Compare and Contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing
structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style (MA Curriculum Frameworks (2011):
English Language Arts and Literacy Reading Standards for Literature 6-12)
2.English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school
setting. (WIDA ELD Standard 1)
3. The language of Language Arts: English language learners communicate information, ideas,
and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language arts. (WIDA ELD
Standard 2) ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language
arts. (WIDA ELD Standard 2)

Lesson objectives
Content Objective: Students will be able to sequence the events of the story by organizing the
flashcards in a group. The students will use their content area language and social language to
work with each other to put all cards in order.
Language Objectives: Students understand the new terms from the day before and they can write
their own sentences using the vocabulary words correctly

Materials
The Story: Africa is my home A child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger
Index cards with both a picture of what is going on in that moment and a short blurb about what
happened in that moment.
A sheet of paper with each term that students can write their own sentences for the vocabulary
words

Assessment
1. Students have successfully grouped together the events of the story

2. Students can explain why they put the photos in the particular order that they did
3. Students wrote a sentence for each vocabulary word

DAY 4
Brief description of students
-There are 8 students in 8th grade and they are all 13 years old.
-There are four girls and four boys and range between WIDA levels 3-4.
-All students in live in the urban part of Boston and are bussed into the Allston school.
-All students have free or reduced meals.
- All students L1 is Spanish, but students are from different countries.
-All students immigrated to America from different countries including: Mexico, Honduras, and
the Dominican Republic.
-All students have resided in America for at least two years, but the majority has been here for
three years.

Focus of the Lesson

The focus for todays lesson is for students to be able to read an expository text and be
able to extract things that they think are important and then relay that information to the
rest of the class.
With all of the information the students and the teacher will make a list of information
that the students can then use as a resource about slavery both in their social studies class
and for their project at the end of the unit.
Students will need to apply the vocabulary that they have been using for the past two
days with the story Africa is my home A child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger to
decode and understand the expository text that they are reading.
This exercise puts a lot of focus on students being able to transfer the information they
learned while reading the short story into reading an expository text.
These past three days have been scaffolding to this moment where students can read text
on their own and find the information they think is important without having to be asked
questions.

Student needs
-

The Focus of this lesson is to have students transfer the skills they have been learning
from reading a historical fiction story and apply it to reading an expository text.
The ultimate goal is that students will be able to take all the skills that they are learning
about annotating text, learning and using new vocabulary, and learning the tone of the
text and apply all these skills to their other classes.
Instead of having the students model the teacher annotate for the third day the students
will have to work together to annotate the text and extract the important information.
Rather than making the student read through the whole text they will be split into groups
and given a specific of the text to read and extract important information from.
Students will have plenty of time to read through the text together, annotate their
portion, and talk about the important parts of the text that they will want to remember.
This exercise is imperative for students to understand in the ESL classroom so that
they will do well when they have to do the same thing in their other core curriculum
classes.

CCSS and WIDA Standards

1. Compare and Contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing
structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style (MA Curriculum Frameworks (2011):
English Language Arts and Literacy Reading Standards for Literature 6-12)
2.English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school
setting. (WIDA ELD Standard 1)

3. The language of Language Arts: English language learners communicate information, ideas,
and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language arts. (WIDA ELD
Standard 2) ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language
arts. (WIDA ELD Standard 2)

Lesson objectives
Content Objective: Students will be able to read through their section of the expository text and
extract the important information that they can share with class
Language Objective: The students will be able to use their vocabulary words to understand the
text that they are reading and will use their vocabulary words when they write their summaries of
the expository text

Materials
Each Student has their own copy of the whole expository text, but the section that they are
reading has been highlighted
Each student will be given a worksheet with 10 numbered points to list the facts that all the
students will point out
A separate sheet of paper for the student to write their initial thoughts.

Assessment
1. Students have read through and annotated their part of the expository text.
2. Students were able to pull out the important information from the text and write it in their
own words.
3. Students used some of the vocabulary words in their summaries
4. Students wrote down all the important information that every group found.

DAY 5
Brief description of students
The 8 students are in 8th grade and are all 13 years old. There are four girls and four boys and
range between WIDA levels 3-4. All students in live in the urban part of Boston and are bussed
into the Allston school. All students have free or reduced meals. All students L1 is Spanish, but
students are from different countries. All students immigrated to America from different
countries including: Mexico, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. All students have resided
in America for at least two years, but the majority has been here for three years.

Focus of the Lesson

-

The Focus of this lesson is having all students apply the skills that they have been
learning the past four days and write a short historical fiction story.
The students will have to plan out their stories to include the new vocabulary, a direct
sequence of events, and true historical facts about the American Slave Trade that they
learned from either the story or the expository text.
The assignment will have the students write a two-page story, but within it will be all the
components that students have been working on for the four days.
For todays lesson the students will plan out all the components that they will include in
their story later in the week.
Students need to fill out a graphic organizer that explains the characters, setting, plot, and
evidence from sources and vocabulary.
This graphic organizer is a final formative assessment before the written work that lets
the teacher know all of the English Proficiency skills have been reached for this unit for

every student.

Student needs
-

Students need to able to take information from different sources and include it in their
writing
Students will need to write factual texts and fictional texts that include information from
other sources.
Students have written stories before and therefore can practice these new skills of
applying facts from expository into a written work that they feel comfortable with
The graphic organizer gives the students a way to organize all their thoughts before
having to write in full sentences
The graphic organizer lets students choose whether or not they want to use certain
information from the text or if it doesnt go along with the story.
The graphic organizer gives the teacher a chance to check over a students work and ideas
before the student starts writing so he/she can give preliminary advice.

CCSS and WIDA Standards

1. Compare and Contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing
structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style (MA Curriculum Frameworks (2011):
English Language Arts and Literacy Reading Standards for Literature 6-12)
2.English language learners communicate for social and instructional purposes within the school
setting. (WIDA ELD Standard 1)
3. The language of Language Arts: English language learners communicate information, ideas,
and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language arts. (WIDA ELD
Standard 2) ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language
arts. (WIDA ELD Standard 2)

Lesson objectives
Content Objective: Students will be able to come up with a story topic and fill out the graphic
organizer with all the information they will need for the story.
Language Objective: Students will be able to correctly use the vocabulary words when writing
their ideas in the graphic organizers.

Materials
A graphic organizer worksheet that will help them organize all the pieces of their writings.
All the worksheets they have used throughout the week.
Their copies of the two texts that they have read during the week with the annotations.

Assessment
1. Students have filled out the entire graphic organizers
2. Students have used information from their readings as resources for the essay
3. Students have included vocabulary words into the graphic organizers and have planned
how to use the vocabulary within the story.

Worksheet Day 2
NAME: ___________________________________
DATE________________

Traders

Pawn

Snatched

1. The __________ gave

2.

Chains and
Shackles.

food and received

clothing in return.
She _________ the
ball from the boy as

he wen to kick it.

3. A _______ is a piece of a chess game.
4. The _____ and ____ kept the man from being able to escape.

Worksheet Day 4
NAME: ___________________________________
DATE________________
GROUP #______________
IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT SLAVERY
1. __________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

4. __________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________

Worksheet Day 5
NAME: ___________________________________
DATE________________
My Story Plan
Characters
1.

3.

2.

4.

Setting
1.
2.
Plot
1.
Evidence
1.

2.
3.
4.

Vocabulary
1.

2.

3.

4.

References:
Tompkins, G.E. (1998). Language arts: Content and teaching strategies. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Merrill
Morrow, L. M., & Gambrell, L. (Eds.) (2011). Best practices in literacy instruction (4th
ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Roit, M. (2006). Essential comprehension strategies for English learners. In T. Young &
N. Hadaway (Eds.), Supporting the literacy development of English learners (pp.
80 95). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Kieffer, M. J. & Lesaux, N.K. (2007). Breaking down words to build meaning:
Morphology, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in the urban classroom. The
Reading Teacher, 6, 134-144.
Graves, M., August, D., & Mancilla-Martinez, J. (2013). Teaching vocabulary to English
language learners. New York: Teachers College Press.