Indiana Wesleyan University

Elementary Education (Children’s Literature) Lesson Plan

CAEP 2018 K-6 Elementary Teacher Preparation Standards

Book Title and Author/Illustrator:

Read Aloud of Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones

LESSON RATIONALE/INJUSTICE CONFRONTED

This book confronts poverty in a way that also teaches children the difference between
wants and needs. Students will confront the differences in the lives of their peers by using
empathy and wrestling with the question of “how are my needs different than my friends’
needs?”

READINESS
I. Goals/Objectives/Standard(s)
A. Goal(s): The students will be able to understand the characters based on the
information given throughout the given text.
B. Objective(s): After reading Those Shoes, the students will be able to state how they
know what Jeremey’s wants and needs are based on textual evidence.
C. Standard(s): 2.RL.4.1 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a
print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
(CAEP K-6 3.c)
II. Management Plan-
a. Time per lesson element: Anticipatory set (3 minutes), Read aloud (10
minutes), Grand conversation (5 minutes), Partner response activity (10-15
minutes), Small group response (7 minutes) Closure (5 minutes)
b. Use of Space: Anticipatory set, read aloud, and grand conversation will be
done on the floor. Response activities and closure will be done from their
desks.
c. Materials: the book, Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts and illustrated by Noah Z.
Jones and shoe print outs for each student
d. I expect students to participate in our grand conversation and to try their
hardest in the response activity (writing is not their favorite). I will pair
students up ahead of time so that time is not wasted and send them one
group at a time from the carpet as to avoid wasting transition time
Adaptation to Individual Differences and Diverse Learners—
 Many students in this class struggle with writing. They will simply be asked to list wants
instead of writing sentences.
 Students who struggle with sitting still (Eastyn and Kamdyn) will be allowed to sit in
their seats so they can wobble in them instead of being a distraction on the carpet.
III. Anticipatory Set
• When I was in the third grade, I thought that I HAD to have a dog. I was convinced
that I needed a dog because all of my friends had dogs and I loved them. Every time I
went to a friends house, their dog was there to greet them so I constantly told my

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 parents I needed a dog but they would always respond with “no, you do not need a
dog and we cannot afford one.” This was the response I got every single time I
asked. Eventually I realized I would survive without a dog, but I really really wanted
one. I would always wonder if some of my other friends wanted things that their
parents could not afford.
IV. Purpose: “We are going to read Those Shoes today and by reading it we will be learning
what Jeremey’s wants and needs are so that we can better understand our wants
and needs.”

PLAN FOR INSTRUCTION

V. Adaptation to Individual Differences and Diverse Learners: Through the grand
conversation and the response activities, we will begin to understand what it means to
“walk a mile in my shoes” as we learn about each other and the needs of each person in
the class.
I will place struggling writers with a student who is stronger at writing to allow for
support.
VI. Foundational Theory: Reader-response criticism is a school of literacy theory that
focuses on the reader (or “audience”) and their experience of a literary work, in
contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or
the content and form of the work. (CAEP K-6 1.b)

VII. Lesson Presentation (Input/Output)

 I will have all of the students come sit on the carpet so they can easily see the
illustrations.
 I will read the story aloud using different voices and vocal inflection so that they
have a better chance of staying engaged.
(CAEP K-6 3.f)
 I will model appropriate expression and reading strategies so that they can model
after me.
(CAEP K-6 3.d)

VIII. Check for understanding. How do you know students have learned? What
strategies will you implement if all students have not met lesson outcomes? Employ
one or more strategies to determine student learning.
 I will begin by asking students what their first thought was- how did they like the
book, what did they take away from it?
 I will the ask students if they can tell me the difference between a want and need is
(wants vs. needs are part of first grade standards) and help them if needed. We will
then make a list of examples of wants and needs on the white board.
 After that we will have a grand conversation. I will ask questions to help students
make the connection as to why the cool shoes were not a need but a want (because
of poverty). I will ask questions such as:
o What did you learn from Antonio and how he handled Jeremy’s situation?
o When have you felt like Jeremy did?

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 o What would you have done if you were Jeremy? Antonio? Brandon T. who
laughed?

IX. Review learning outcomes / Closure: “In the same way that Jeremy’s friend never
made fun of him for not having the cool shoes because he understood he could
not afford them, we are going to practice what “walking a mile in someone else’s
shoes” (explain what this means) looks like. I am going to pair each of you up and
you are going to interview your partner and ask them what their most important
needs are and you are going to put them inside the print out of the shoe. After
that I will put you in small groups and you will share your partners most
important needs (so if Jerzey and Jaxon are partners, Jerzey will share Jaxon’s
needs and Jaxon will share Jerzey’s needs). Remember, we all have different
needs- you may need a new coat while your partner needs new shoes.”
X. To end the lesson I will have two or three students share with the class the needs
they listed.

PLAN FOR ASSESSMENT

 As a whole class we will brainstorm a list of wants and needs which will give me a
basis for who is understanding right away what a need is and what a want is. This
list will include Jeremy’s wants and needs and they will have to give me a reason
based on the book as to how they know that is a want or need.
 When they do the response activities I will have time to see what everyone is
writing down and will be able to see if they are really giving needs. I will collect the
shoes at the end to make sure each student understood needs.

REFLECTION AND POST-LESSON ANALYSIS

1. How many students achieved the lesson objective(s)? For those who did not, why
not?
When I asked the students what Jeremy's wants and needs are (there was only one of
each), everyone seemed to be able to tell me. I do however believe I could have better
connected the wants and needs back to the story.
2. What were my strengths and weaknesses?
My weaknesses included not elaborating enough on certain vocabulary words- especially
empathy. I also did not always use students responses to get me to my next question.
Another weakness was my response activity confused students because they were
interviewing a friend. Some of my strengths included my read aloud, prompting students
with the right questions in the grand conversation, and transitions.
3. How should I alter this lesson?
The response activity needs altered for sure. They were simply not understanding the
whole interview your partner concept and they were still really wanting to talk about
wants (even though I specifically said talk about needs only because I knew they would get
too caught up in wants if that was a choice).
4. How would I pace it differently?
I might spend more time in the instruction part of it as I helped students understand key
vocabulary such as empathy and poverty. I breezed over those concepts a little too much.

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 5. Were all students actively participating? If not, why not?
For the most part yes. The students did much better in our conversation than I expected
them to. When it came time for the response activity, some were not participating because
they did not want to think of needs or they did not understand the whole interview concept
after I explained it to them individually.
6. What adjustments did I make to reach varied learning styles and ability levels?
I prompted more than I thought I was going to have to because the connections were not
being made. I also based my partner groups on giving a struggling student a higher student
but then they did not always get along well.
7. Were students able to make some of the necessary connections to create a feeling of
empathy in this classroom?
I do not think they were able to connect this during the response activity because they got
too intrigued with wants. It became more about wants and needs even though I was
walking around asking them to focus on needs. I think when it came to the book and our
conversation they were understanding to an extent but it also came down to my lack of
explanation on what empathy was.
8. Did students have all the same needs? If so, how can that be avoided/ explained
better?
Not all of them did and if they did it was because I left the list on the board that we made as
a class and they just wanted to copy that. Next time I would erase that list and define needs
better because some students still thought they could not survive without a game or a
phone.

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*The shoe to print for the response activity*