Student Teacher: Kaylee Baldwin

Date: 10/19
Grade: 5th

School: Bret Harte

Period/Time: reading periods

Subject/Topic: Reading - Story Elements: Conflict

Standards:
NJSLSA.R2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the
key supporting details and ideas.
NJSLSA.R3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of
a text.
Objectives:
SWBT: Define conflict.
SWBT: Identify the difference between internal conflict and external conflict.
SWBT: Outline conflict within a text, using textual evidence.
Materials:
Edward Tulane Ch. 7-10
Reading notebooks
Procedures:
Introduction:
Review story mountain from yesterday. Tell them that in the plot (story mountain) that problem or dilemma
at the topic is called conflict.
Body:
Have them take out their binders to a clean page for conflict.
Ask students what they think conflict is, and if they have ever encountered conflict in their lives:
Can you identify conflict from your independent book?
Can you tell about a time when you had conflict in your own life?

Put the definitions on the SMART Board and talk about them one at a time:
Conflict: the tension/problem in a story. It is a large part of the plot.
Internal conflict: when a character is in disagreement with him or herself
Character v. self
External conflict: when a character confronts an obstacle outside themselves. This can be
another character, nature, & society.
Character v. Character
Character v. Nature
Character v. Society

Explain that we will be looking for conflict in Edward Tulane as we read. Ask students to retell what overall
conflict is, internal conflict, and external conflict to check for understanding before I start reading out loud
to them. As I read I will stop at certain points where conflict arises and question the students to whether
they think it is internal or external. I will tell the students they should be writing down what conflict we talk
about because they will need it later.
Closing:
About 5 minutes before the end of the period I will repeat the definitions of conflict and ask the students
about the big conflict in the story.
Assessment:
The assess that students understand the conflict I am going to ask them to pick one conflict we read
about today and write it, 1-2 sentences, on a piece of paper I will hand out as an exit ticket. I will collect it
as they're on their way out of the room.
Management Issues, Transitions, and Differentiation:
Management & Differentiation: To manage my students noise levels I will provide them with opportunities
for accountable and productive talk. I will also circulate the room to check for understanding and keep
students in check if they are distracted or talking during instructional time.
Transitions: When transitioning I will give them a time limit to work on their conflict ideas from Edward
Tulane before sharing. Then when we share I will ask for a few students to share out. If we are nearing
the end of the period I will give them the time warning for how long we have left, and then direct them to
work on their independent reading.
Self-Reflection and Evaluation of Lesson:
This lesson went well overall. There were a few things I did that prove I am aware of my class.
This includes the use of proximity with my students who were chatty or distracted. In order to keep them
on task I made sure to circulate the room and hover over students so that they would not talk while I was
reading. I also made sure to pay attention to a student with ADHD who is very easily distracted. I called
on him and made sure he was on task, and I used proximity to stay close to him when he needed some
more reinforcement.
Some other things I did could have been done more effectively to create a more active student
body, rather than a passive student body. For example, I provided the students with definitions and
examples. However, we did talk about personal examples, and between the students and myself we
came up with some examples to fit every type of conflict. But when I pulled up my definitions I had pre-set
examples already typed in, so it was not student centered in that way. I could have typed in the examples
we came up with as a class to keep it relative. Also when we were talking about the examples I was
prompting the students more than they were speaking so it was more teacher talk than student voice.
That created a more passive a student body environment in the room as opposed to an active student
body, which in turn created them to become more easily bored or uninterested in the read aloud.
I also stopped at certain points of my read aloud to check for understanding, which was good.
However, when I stopped I prompted them: asking what type of conflict do you think this is? When I
should have just stopped and told them to turn to a partner and talk about what they heard me read and
then come up with some ideas on their own. In that way I would have been facilitating student led talk and
learning, but instead I just called on a few students, which was not keeping the whole class engaged.
When starting the reading period, I did tell the students that they would need to pay close
attention to the reading so that they would be able to fill out their exit ticket. This gave a purpose for
reading and an objective for the class, which was good. However, when I reached the closure portion of

my lesson I restated what the students should have on their exit ticket and what I could have done better
would be to ask the students, what happened in the story so far? This would have generalized the
student comprehension for the day to look at the big picture, and then I could tailor my questioning to
focus in on conflict if they didn't already lead themselves there.
Overall this lesson was good and I do think the students understood conflict. I would definitely
change some of the things mentioned above for next time to see more student engagement and studentled learning. But overall they were able to convey conflict on their exit tickets, only a few students
struggled and now I know to pull them aside and review this concept with them, or do a larger review
before moving on.
In general, I feel like I am steadily progressing into a more grounded teacher. I am constantly selfreflecting and changing my lessons and I feel more confident as a teacher now than I ever have. I feel
like I am growing and learning so much.