Stephanie Brunette

Project Title: Author’s Purpose

Lesson Title: Author’s Write to Entertain Readers

Curriculum Area (s): Language Arts

Grade Level: 2

Estimated Time Required: 40 minutes

Instructional Groupings: Are you using whole group, small group, partners, quads, homogeneous, heterogeneous? Is there an opportunity to work individually if wanted?

I will start this lesson in a whole group setting then send students off to work in small groups. Within their small groups, students will have the opportunity to work individually or in smaller partnerships if they want, but they will be expected to participate in a discussion sharing their examples as a small group.

Standards: List the state or national standards that you are using in this unit/lesson. Cut/paste these from the DOE website. EL.2.3.1 2006 Analysis of Grade-Level Appropriate Literary Text: Compare plots, settings, and characters presented by different authors. EL.2.3.4 2006 Identify the use of rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration (using words with repeating consonant sounds) in poetry or fiction. EL.2.7.9 2006 Report on a topic with supportive facts and details.

Materials: What do you need to remember to get ready and organized? What do your students need?  What Do Teachers Do (After You Leave School)? – Read aloud book  Bag of picture books – All demonstrating different ways author’s write to entertain readers  Post-its  Anchor Chart

Overview: What is the purpose of the lesson?

Students will continue exploring author’s purpose in this inquiry into how authors write to entertain readers by identifying some ways that authors entertain us in the read aloud book, What Do Teachers Do (After You Leave School)?. Students then will rotate in small groups to different areas of the room to browse through a variety of other text examples and jot down other ways that authors convey their purpose of entertainment. What will I differentiate? Content, Process and/or Product – Who needs this differentiation?

I will differentiate process for Susie and Sammi by having Susie stay in one work area throughout the duration of the activity, and by having Sammi browse through entertaining books about dogs. I will differentiate product for Ben by allowing him to use the classroom iPad to document ways that authors use characterization in texts to expose their entertaining purpose. I will do this so that each student can actively engage in the activity in a way that suits his or her learning needs.

How will I differentiate? For readiness, interest, learning preference(s), affect/learning environment combination. How can I use assistive technology to support my students?

I will differentiate process for Susie: Instead of having her navigate the classroom through the rotations, I will have Susie’s small group remain in the same area of the classroom. One student from this group will go and trade baskets of books with a different group.

I will differentiate process for Sammi: Since Sammi is highly interested in dogs, I will provide a text side for her to explore that is all about dogs. She will use post-its to mark the pages in her books where she found examples, but she will document her evidence visually using an iPad.

I will differentiate product for Ben: Instead of having Ben just pull out examples of ways that authors entertain us in books, I will have him specifically focus on ways that authors do this with character development. (What do/don’t authors tell us about characters? What are ways that they reveal these clues to us?) Ben will also use an iPad to document his findings visually.

Why will I differentiate? What are the differentiated needs? What are the cognitive, cultural, linguistic and gender differences that need to be approached?

I will differentiate because Susie, Sammi, and Ben all have a variety of learning needs that I want to target with this activity. Susie physically disabled and is in a wheelchair. Having said this, I will have her group pick one area in the room to stay throughout the duration of the activity so that Susie does not need to continuously be navigating the classroom. Sammi has Autism and OCD, and from getting to know her, I know that her main interest is in dogs; for this reason, I have found a text set of dog books all written with an author’s purpose of entertaining the reader. I also will have her capture her examples of authors’ uses of entertainment with an iPad. Ben is twice exceptional with an IQ of 118 and is autistic. I am differentiating this activity for him so that he is challenged to push himself beyond finding examples in books of entertaining features that authors use. Being able to visually capture the evidence he finds on ways that authors specifically use characterization in texts allows him to be challenged in the activity, yet still participate with his small group.

As a result of this lesson/unit students will be able to:  Compare plots, settings, and characters presented by different authors  Identify the use of rhythm and rhyme in fictional texts  Report on a topic with supportive facts and details Pre‐Assessment (How will you find out about where your students are at for this lesson? What will your pre‐assessment look like?) 1. I will gather all students in the class meeting area, and engage them by first saying, “I noticed yesterday that many of you were inspired to try using the author’s purpose of entertainment in your own writing yesterday. I love that you all are thinking like real readers and writers, so I thought today we could spend some more time thinking about how authors develop a sense of entertainment in their books.”

What is the emotional hook? Emotion drives attention drives learning. How will I emotionally hook my students so that I have their attention and they are ready to learn? 2. “I want to first share this book with you called What Do Teachers Do (After You Leave School)? I’m hoping that, as I read, you’re taking time to notice how the author writes and maybe even some of the illustrations that help entertain you as a reader.”

Steps in the Lesson: Be specific. How will you address challenges with student engagement? 3. After the read aloud, I will refer students back to the anchor chart we started on the previous day. I will ask, “In what ways did the author entertain us in this story? How do we know? Where is our evidence?” 4. Next I will have a few students share their thinking about the how the author conveyed her purpose in this story. 5. I will then say, “I am so proud of how each of you is thinking about the author’s purpose. Good readers notice the same things that all of you are noticing about how the author is telling a story to us. For workshop today, you will be working in your small groups to explore lots of different books. I’ll even tell you a secret: All of the authors of these books wrote them to entertain their readers, so you will not need to identify if they are trying to inform or persuade. They all are books written to entertain!” 6. Next I will say, “I want each of you to browse through these books in your groups and find examples of ways that the authors entertain you. You may start by working independently or with a partner within your small group, but I will let you know when I want you to start sharing your findings with your small group, and discussing why an author would include something in their book to entertain you. At each location around the room, there are notecards that I have written three questions for you to consider as you are working: First, What made you want to mark this page in the book? Second, How does this help us understand that the author is writing this story to entertain us? Third, How could you use the example you marked in your own writing/book-making?” 7. “There will be three baskets of books spread around the room for you to explore in your groups. As you are browsing the books, I want you to use the post-its at the tables to mark your examples, and maybe even a note on the post-it about why you’re marking it. When we come back together as a whole class to share, we will want lots of examples to choose from.” 8. Students will then be dismissed into their groups and at this time I will approach Ben and Sammi individually and give them their differentiated tasks. 9. As the students are working, I will circulate the classroom and conference with individuals and groups. 10. Just before we come back together as a class I will say, “Take these final three minutes to look at the post-its you have kept from each station and decide which two examples your group discussed feel most important to share. When you decide, your group will need a spokesperson to bring the book up and talk us through your conversation.”

Closure Activity/Wrap up: Will there be an opportunity to celebrate their learning? How will the students reflect about the process and the product? 11. When I gather students back at the meeting area I will have each group spokesperson come up and share their group’s examples of entertainment and place their post-it on the anchor chart near the topic it correlates best with (i.e. rhyming words category and post-it ‘the ball bounced down the hall and into the mall’.) 12. When we have gone through each group, I will then ask for other important ways that authors showed entertainment in their books that we have not mentioned yet. At this time individual students can come up and add their post-it examples to the anchor chart and share their thinking or group’s thinking behind why the example is important.

Post‐Assessment: How will you reflect about the process and the product? How will you monitor continued growth? What do I want to remember for next time?

I will reflect on the process and product of this lesson by analyzing the students’ noticings from the text sets. I will also analyze how they categorized their example under the categories/headings on our Author’s Purpose: Entertain anchor chart. The conversations amongst group members will be telling as to where they are in understanding how authors develop the purpose to entertainment in their writing. I will think about how I can challenge all students to think about how they can apply the examples we discuss in their own writing, and how we can continue expanding on the author’s purpose of entertainment.