Lesson Plan Sample

This was a quick Author's Purpose lesson - ELAR 4.10.A - I had done with my resource students. This piece being day 2 (45 minute instructional period). Day 1, we spoke about what they knew about author's purpose. We talked about vocabulary and played a "4 corners" type game where we would talk about a text and they would move to a certain place if they thought the purpose was to entertain; a different place if they thought the purpose was to persuade; and finally, a third place for deciding the purpose was to inform. 

Day 2 I started by bringing in a stuffed dog (The kiddos love dogs- who doesn't? Haha). I asked the kids what they would say to PERSUADE their parents to buy them a dog. We discussed this for about a minute. I then followed up with the question, "Let's say your parents didn't think you knew much about caring for a dog; how would you INFORM them on how you would care for this dog?" We then decided on how a dog can be very entertaining and make us laugh and be taught tricks etc. I modeled the think aloud process using some sample texts I made, while using the checklist to decide which Author's Purpose section the sample belonged in. 

This class consisted of only 1 monolingual student. I had 5 bilingual students: 2 of those students were only in the beginning level of English language learning and the other 3 students were in the intermediate level. I had my paraprofessional who is a fluent Spanish speaker with the group of beginning level ELL learners and I worked with the intermediate level. The actual translation and Spanish support was essential in the success of this lesson, along with my visual supports for both levels of learners. 

3 students were done early and I gave them a scholastic book club flyer to cut and paste into different sections. This task was a bit more difficult because they had to use the title, picture and small information given to infer what the Author's Purpose would be. They were successful in this task. 

Within the group, 6 students all were successful in the lesson and was able to accurately answer an Exit ticket regarding Author's purpose.