Mallory Glanzman Comprehensive Lesson Plan EDUC 139

Al Capone Does My Shirts

Goal: The goal for the 4th grade students is to use visualization and questioning skills to comprehend the text. Iowa Common Core Literacy-Reading: Literature-Grade 4 o IA.1. Employ the full range of research-based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing, and monitoring for comprehension. Objective: The 4th grade students will use their prior knowledge to question and visualize the book Al Capone Does My Shirts and use these comprehension skills to reflect and understand the text. This chapter book aligns with the 4th grade curriculum and is also grade-level appropriate for the 4th grade students. Students will have previously been expected to practice other comprehension strategies, such as making connections, and they will have that prior knowledge for this comprehensive lesson plan. Materials: Al Capone Does My Shirts text, journals, pens/paper, markers, poster board Resources
http://alcaponelessons.blogspot.com/ http://www.educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2360&Itemid= 4465

Opening Students, today I am going to read you part of a book called Al Capone Does My Shirts. This book is written through the eyes of a boy named Moose who was forced to move to Alcatraz. This story takes place in the 1930s. For those of you who are not familiar, Alcatraz was an island and a prison where the worst of the worst were sent. Imagine being your age and living in the same area as some of the most dangerous and deadliest criminals in the entire country. Moose was forced by his parents to move with them and his sister. This book is a funny story about how Moose survives on the island and would interact with people in the prison. I am going to read you part of the book where Moose first arrives to the island and his first reactions to this scenario. To get to know the story better, I am going to ask myself some questions about what is happening, and I will be putting myself in Mooses place to understand his emotions. Lets take a look at Mooses thoughts and see how we would feel in his shoes. Focus Lesson Before we begin reading, I am going to take a look at this picture before the first chapter starts. This is a picture of the island of Alcatraz. This picture labels where Moose lives

Mallory Glanzman Comprehensive Lesson Plan EDUC 139 and how close he actually is to the prison itself. I wonder if he feels safe or scared living so close. If I were Moose, I would be very nervous living that close to such dangerous criminals. I am reading some other names on this map. I see the names Piper and Annie. I wonder if they are going to become Mooses friends in this book. I am visualizing Moose and the different places he goes on the island. I am picturing Moose coming in contact with some of the prisoners. I am now going to read the first chapter. While I read, I am going to write my questions or visualizations from the story on this poster board so I can remember my thoughts from the text. Guided Practice: At this point I would read the first chapter, making visualizations about the place where Moose is moving. I would ask myself at least 4 questions about the text, so I model for students how I am interacting with the text. Once I give at least one or two questions or visualizations, I will ask students for their own visualizations about the text. I feel at this point, students are given many examples of questioning and visualizing so they can make their own connects. This will be very important to students in their collaborative practice. The following parts of the story are examples of when I will question, visualize, and ask students for their questions and visualizations: o Im not the only kid who lives here. Theres my sister, Natalie, except she doesnt count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison like my dad does. Plus there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. Wow, if I were Moose, I would feel very nervous moving to an island full of these men. I wonder some of the crimes these men committed and how bad they actually were to get themselves sent to Alcatraz. o I think about going in my room now, but it smells like the inside of an old lun ch bag in there. My beds a squeaky old army cot. When I sit down, it sounds like dozens of mice are dying an ugly death. Theres no phonograph in this apartment. No washing machine. No phone. Theres a radio cabinet, but someone yanked the workings out. Who gutted the radio, anyway? They dont let the criminals in heredo they? When I hear Moose talk about his bedroom and the apartment, I feel very bad for him. I am picturing a very old, dark, smelly room that he has to live in. I am picturing a cot with a small pillow that does not have a lot of blankets for it. I wonder if the criminals do go in the apartment, just like Moose is thinking. Collaborative Practice: Students will get into small groups and conduct a group poster. Students are going to use the visualizations they made during the first chapter, and

Mallory Glanzman Comprehensive Lesson Plan EDUC 139 make a poster that is similar to a traveling brochure (poster) about Alcatraz. They are going to visualize the island as a whole, and Mooses apartment. Students will be in groups of 3-4 to make their travel posters. Since Moose was forced to move to Alcatraz, students are going to have to make the island seem wonderful and a great place to move. Independent Practice: Students will write in their writing journals and visualize more of the story. Students are going to write using the following prompt: o If you were Moose, how would you feel if you had to pack up and move away without any choice? o Has there been a time when you had to move, or you were forced to do something drastic that you really did not want to? o Think about how Moose explained Alcatraz. What would you do if you saw prisoners on the island? How would you react? o Think about Mooses apartment and his room. Is this similar or different to where you live and how? o What are you most excited to find out about in this book? Closing Students, today we practiced two different comprehension strategies. We visualized and questioned. We were visualizing through the story what it would have felt like if we were in Mooses shoes moving and living at Alcatraz. We asked questions to make sense of our thoughts and try to work through our own ideas to better understand the text. Good readers use both of these strategies to help them comprehend what is going on in the story. When I read, I ask myself questions and I visualize the story in my head so I can really understand what the author is trying to show me, as a reader. Assessment: To make sure students reach the objective, I will observe how students are questioning visualizing the story during our shared reading session of the first chapter. I am going to clipboard cruise while students are creating their group posters. I will make sure that every student is participating and providing input for their group. I will watch to see how students are creating their posters and if this aligns with what the author showed in the story, along with the students portraying their own visualizations. I will look at every students writing response in their journal. I will read through their ideas and see that they are accurately showing they know how to question and visualize a text. I will make sure that each student writes about each 5 components from the writing prompt. Overall, I will note which students understand these two comprehension strategies and who may need more assistance.