Read, Analyze, Then Write Your Own

Alison Ebel

Kindergarten/ English Language Arts

Common Core Standards:

Key Ideas and Details
RIT.K.1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

Craft and Structure

RIT.K.1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.
RIT.K.2. Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

RIT.K.1. With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the text in
which they appear (e.g., what person, place, think, or idea in the text and illustration depicts).

Print Concepts
RFS.K.1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of
letters.
c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
d. Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

Lesson Summary:

This lesson plan is constructed to understand elements of the way a book is built and to identify key details in a
text. As a class, we will read a short book to learn the way a story is built, and how to discover key details of a
text. Over the two days that this part of the lesson is completed, students will turn in worksheets that I will
evaluate about key aspects of what is important to creating a story (I will give them feedback during this).
Following the reading of a story, students will have the opportunity to create their own story in which they will
include everything that they learned from evaluating the previous reading. This will include clear characters,
setting and plot, illustrations, written sentences (words from left to right, top to bottom, page by page), and a
front cover, back cover, & title page of a book. As a class, students will walk around the classroom and read
each others piece of work as a form of show and tell.
Estimated Duration:

Five 50-minute class periods.

Commentary:
To start the lesson, I will read a popular/famous story that mostly everyone is familiar with. During parts of the
story, I will stop and ask the students a question through the use of an iPad where they will then pick the
answer they think is the correct. The answers will then be tallied up as a poll/survey on my SmartBoard where
then we will discuss the correct answer and why the other answers are wrong. This will get the students
hooked into the lesson by creating an engaging and fun way of learning new things through the use of
technology.

Instructional Procedures:

Day 1: As a class, the first 30 minutes of the class will be dedicated to the warm-up/refresher lesson that the
teacher has prepared on key details in a story. Students will answer a series of questions, with prompting,
during the time that the teacher is reading the story. These questions will include things like who the main
characters are, what the title of the story is, what picture is a picture of the cover a book vs the back of a book,
etc. As a class, after the students answer the question on the iPad, they will redirect their attention to the board
where the poll of answers is retrieved to. The teacher will discuss with the class the right answer and why the
other answers were wrong. After this warm-up activity is over, with prompting, support, and direction, the
students will work on analyzing another story on their own and filling out work sheets that correlate with the
stories.
Day 2: The first 20 minutes of class will be spent completing the assignment from Day 1. Students should be
completely done reading and analyzing their stories as well as finished with answering the questions that were
provided to them on a worksheet. After the 20 minutes is up, the teacher will then hand out mid-class warm-up
problems for the students to complete within 10 minutes. When the 10 minutes is up the students will line up
by the teachers desk and the teacher will provide individual feedback to each student by evaluating their
answers on the warm-up problem (this will take approximately 20 minutes). This will indicate whether the
student is ready to move on to the next part of the lesson plan or if they need to work on some things first.
Day 3: After the teacher has given feedback and advice to the students, Day 3 will be started with 10 minutes
to complete a warm-up to refresh what was learned the previous day and to ask the teacher any questions that
they might have. The remainder of the class following the warm-up refresher is when the students will begin to
brainstorm and organize elements of creating their own story that will be turned into a book. I will provide
each student with a graphic organizer to get started. Once their graphic organizer is complete, I will check it
and give them their blank story books and let them begin creating their story.
Day 4: The first 5 minutes of class will be designated to questions that the students have and a fun song to get
the students excited about working on creating their own stories. After the 5 minutes is up, the remainder of the
class will be a continuation of the previous day where the students will just work on their story books.
Day 5: This is the last day for the students to work on their story books. I will allow the first 20 minutes of
class for the students to finalize their creations and after the 20 minutes is up the students will have the
remainder of the class period (30 minutes) to work on their ten question test.

Pre-Assessment
Prior to allowing students to start working on creating their own stories, the teacher will give warm-up
problems at the beginning of class that will not be scored. These warm-up problems will consist of asking
questions about key elements of a story and how well they understand how to create a story of their own. After
the students answer these warm-up problems the teacher will get a better understanding where each individual
student is and how ready they are to begin to create a story of their own.

Scoring Guidelines:
Teacher will use her judgement to determine the extent of how well students identify key details of a
text and the elements of building a book as well as a checklist to double-check every aspect is
completed.

During Day 2 of the lesson plan, the teacher will visit with each student to give them feedback on what
they are doing right and what they know, and then what they need to work on or if the teacher needs to
redirect them into understand specifics of the lesson.

Post-Assessment:
The individual stories that each student turns in will give the teacher a general idea of how the class as a whole
understand what is being taught and what they are learning.

In addition, the students will all complete a short written assessment based on their own individual stories that
they wrote. This will determine how well each student can understand and recall concepts from their own
stories and elements of the way a book/story is created.

The assessment will be grouped into two sets of five questions. The first set will ask the students a series of
questions about their stories (who is the main character, what is the setting, etc.). The second set of questions
will be a series of questions that will ask the students about the basics (what is the title of your story, do you
capitalize the names of people, questions about the front cover and back cover, etc.).

Scoring Guidelines:
The teacher will score the post-assessment by evaluating each individual story that the student turned in
with his/her assessment. In other words, each test will be graded based on the students own stories.
The scoring will be a pass or fail type of grading.
Differentiated Instructional Support
Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated
students:
For the students who meet the needs of gifted or accelerate and need an extra challenge, the teacher
will give the students an opportunity to follow a set of instructions that will allow them to create a
completely virtual story on the computer. Included in the instructions are additional questions that go a
step further and more in depth than what the other students are learning and answering questions for.

Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material:
For the students who might be struggling with the material, the teacher will support and advise them to
re-visit everything that was learned for this specific lesson plan during class time. While re-visiting all
of the main concepts that were taught, the student will practice identifying key elements and practice
understanding parts of a story. The students can either do this through an online software provided to
them on the computer, in a small group where everyone can help each other, with one-on-one help from
the teacher, or with printed out worksheets that the teacher will provide them. After mastering the
lesson, the student will then be able to move on to the next step of the lesson/next lesson in general.

Extension
This is a wonderful website to create your own story/book.
https://www.storyjumper.com/
This is a great and helpful website to understand and organize elements of a story that you create, you can print
the organizer or access and use it online.
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/story_maps

Homework Options and Home Connections

Students are encouraged to read and identify key details of what they are reading at home with
parents/guardians or any family member.

Interdisciplinary Connections
In this lesson, students are using their artistic abilities to draw and or trace images that correlate with their
stories that they are creating. They are allowed to look at and draw a picture they found on the computer, trace
a picture, or free-hand their own illustrations.
Art
During this lesson, students are also using their math skills to number the pages of their stories that they are
creating.
Math
Materials and Resources:

For teachers Internet capable computers, printer, access to a class set of iPads, Smart
Board/overhead projector, crayons, pencils, blank story books, scissors, glue sticks

For students Internet capable computers, iPads, crayons, blank story books, scissors, pencils,, glue
sticks

Key Vocabulary
Character, Setting, Plot, Story Elements, Key Details, Front Cover, Back Cover, Title Page, Spaces, Uppercase
Letters, Lowercase Letters

Additional Notes

N/A