MODEL LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Topic, class, and level: Lucy Calkins: Series Writers Investigate What Makes Realistic Fiction
Realistic
Date for implementation: Monday, March 30, 2015 OR Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Conceptual Framework: To what important concept, essential question, enduring
understanding, or big idea in the discipline does this lesson connect?
Teaching Point:
o Realistic fiction writers often study what makes realistic fiction seem so realistic.
Then they call on their own experiences to write stories that seem this real.
Standards: MA, Common Core, WIDA or other Standards for this lesson or unit:
Common Core Standards:
o CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more
appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use
temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.
Knowledge/Understandings: What should the students know and understand at the end
of this lesson?
o Students will know that fiction means that the writer gets to pretend.
o Students will know how to begin writing a book from a new series.
o Students will understand what makes realistic fiction real.
Skills: What will the students be able to do when this lesson is over?
o Students will be able to call on their own experiences to write realistic fiction
stories that seem real.
o Students will be able to begin a new realistic fiction series that has a new character
and new adventures.
o Students will be able to recognize and articulate what is seems real in Cynthia
Rylants Henry and Mudge and the Happy Cat story.
Assessment. How will you check for student achievement and understanding?
The teacher will listen to the students talk in partners about what is real in Cynthia
Rylants book. The teacher will consider and evaluate the responses.
The teacher will check in with individual students/pairs will they are writing.
The teacher will collect the students work at the end of the session to evaluate the
progress and understanding of the main teaching point.
Instructional Approach: (Describe activities, allotted time, and closure)
Materials, preparation, and/or on-line resources to be used:
o Lucy Calkins Book
o Henry and Mudge and the Happy Cat
o Henry and Mudge and Mr Putter and Tabby Books
o Posters from Previous Series Writing Lessons

o Blank Books for Writing

Hook: What question or activity might spark student curiosity and motivation?
o Celebrate the series work students have done so far as a means of extoling their new
powers that theyll put into play soon.
Have students introduce themselves as the authors of their series.
Show that Cynthia Rylant wrote two completely different series with a new set
of characters and adventures.
Emphasize what it means to write realistic fiction and introduce the idea that
writers need to recall on their own real experiences to write realistic fiction.
Activities: What question/s might encourage the student to explore and discover the
content? What will happen during the body of the lesson?
o Activity 1: Return to your mentor text, in our case, Henry and Mudge and the
Happy Cat. Initiate a mini-inquiry into what makes some fiction feel so real. Later,
youll debrief in what that young writers can copy.
Look back at Henry and Mudge and the Happy Cat to figure out what makes
stories feel real. As the teacher reads, students should ask themselves the
question: What feel real about this story?
The teacher will read a few pages and ask herself what feels real about the
story. The teacher will point out that Henry is in house not in a spaceship or a
volcano.
The teacher continues reading and emphasizes the fact that the characters in
the story are ordinary people doing ordinary things. The boy is on a couch
watching TV and the dog barks. The TV doesnt turn into an alien and eat
them.
o Activity 2: Give students a chance to revisit a few more pages, listening in as they
notice realistic details, and voicing over to help name them.
The teacher will start at CHAPTER 2 and continue reading the story. The
teacher will instruct students to make a fist with their hand and hold it in the
air. As the student hears a detail in the story that seems real, they should put
their thumb up.
Once the teacher sees a good amount of thumbs, she will stop reading and ask
the students to share the real part with the person next to them.
The teacher will listen in to the various conversions and contribute thoughts.
o Activity 3: Debrief, summarizing what students have notices, transforming their
details into broader generalizations.
Teacher says, Writers, I love how you really thought about this question,
what feels real about this story?
The teacher will emphasize the real parts of the story that make it realistic
fiction (generalizing students answers).
o Activity 4: Recall some of the steps fiction writers follow and remind students of
tools that are in the room to help them, telling them that they can and need to apply
what they know to get started independently.
The teacher will acknowledge previously made charts and assure students that
they know how to start a new series.
The teacher will remind the students that they need to draw from their own
experiences and make their stories real.

Differentiation including SEI Considerations (key vocabulary, language/content

objectives, etc.):
o The teacher will scribe for student who have difficulty getting their ideas on paper.
o The teacher will provide sentence starters and additional assistance to students who
are struggling to get started.
o The teacher will emphasize the use of posters on the white board for students who
may have difficulty recalling previous teaching points.
Grouping: If you are grouping at some point during the lesson, why are you grouping?
How are you grouping?
o The students can choose to work in their previously assigned writing pairs or by
themselves in a quiet writing space.
Sponge activity: (to soak up extra time)
o Use the document camera to share a few stories to the class.
Homework when appropriate:
o None
Wrap-up: How will you help students make meaning from the lessons activities?
o Conference with students and share stories.
o Emphasize the real, or fictional aspects, of the students story. Help students make
the fictional parts more real.
Potential Pitfalls and Reflection: What difficulties can you predict (or did you discover as you
taught) that your students may find challenging or have misconceptions about? How will you
address those confusions?
A potential pitfall may be that some students are not ready to move on to a new series.
o Solution: Students can still participate in the lesson regardless, but the students who
are not yet ready to move on to a new series may continue working on their original
one.

Brandeis University
August 2014