Cluster 2: Craft and StructureArchived

This lesson is about the importance of self-respect and acceptance of others. A pompous new magistrate from London comes to a fishing village in Newfoundland after the Second World War. He acts as if he is better than everyone. Only John, who has intellectual disabilities, has the courage to stand up to him. In the end, John gains the magistrate's appreciation and respect. This story may be used in conjunction with studies on Canada (Newfoundland). The lesson plan addresses the following literacy skills: quoting accurately from the story when explaining what the story says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the story; determining a theme of a story from details in the text, including how characters in a story respond to challenges; determining the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes; and writing opinion pieces, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

Type: Lesson Plan

The Tiger Rising, written by the award winning author Kate DiCamillo, is an engaging story of two children whose lives are thrown together in a small town in Florida. Even though their personalities are in sharp contrast, they become friends who support each other through life's challenges of grief, pain, acceptance and their adventures with the tiger. Kate DiCamillo works her magic through her skilled use of figurative language to develop the characters in a way that engages readers in her character's adventures. Short chapters make this a perfect choice for literature circles. In this lesson, students will answer text-dependent questions as they analyze the two main characters in the story.

Type: Lesson Plan

This close reading lesson will engage students in discussions that involve how two authors in different genres describe the same event. These short texts, the poem "The Great Chicago Fire" and the informational text "Chicago," will require students to analyze text, make inferences based on text evidence, and defend their understandings through discussion and close reads. Students will use context clues to determine word meaning and unfamiliar phrasing in both texts. Students will participate in partner and small group work throughout the lesson. For the summative assessment, students will write an explanatory essay about the main ideas and key details of each text, as well as analyze the similarities in how each author describes the Chicago fire. 

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will begin to learn about discrimination by analyzing how a narrator's or speaker's point of view can influence the way events are described in a story. Students will create a KWL chart, Venn diagram, and Character web, and then write an essay, all while working collaboratively to explore this important cultural issue.

Type: Lesson Plan

After reading the novel Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, students will analyze the perspective of Esperanza while looking at important characterization features and other parts of the plot development. Students will create a narrative writing piece from the perspective of Esperanza based on the characterization features discussed.

Type: Lesson Plan

Using the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, students will complete a graphic organizer and identify the theme of a chapter. Once students have identified the theme they will create a new title for the chapter.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will listen to several versions of the same song. They will read a poem, and make an illustration to identify how the author develops a character's perspective and how that perspective influences the story. Students will write a narrative using dialogue and description to develop a character’s perspective throughout their story.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will read poems, see pictures, and learn about personification- the figure of speech that describes nonliving/inanimate objects by giving them human characteristics. Students will identify types of poems and create lists of characteristics, identify feelings that they evoke, and write sentences using personification. They will be writing sentences using personification to express themselves and illustrate their examples.

Type: Lesson Plan

Once students experiment with poetry, they learn that they have another outlet for communicating their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. In this lesson, students are asked to think about colors, while imagining what they taste, feel, smell, sound, and look like. They explore sample color poems, as well as imagery and symbolism. Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing before drafting, revising, and publishing their color poem. This lesson is open-ended enough that students can write free-form poetry or follow a provided template to create a color poem.

Type: Lesson Plan

Experiencing the language of great poets provides a rich learning context for students, giving them access to the best examples of how words can be arranged in unique ways. By studying the works of renowned poets across cultures and histories, students extract knowledge about figurative language and poetic devices from masters of the craft. In this lesson, students learn about personification by reading and discussing poems by Emily Dickinson, William Blake, and Langston Hughes. Then they use the poems as a guide to brainstorm lists of nouns and verbs that they randomly arrange to create personification in their own poems.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on reading Chapters 1 and 2 of the book Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. Students will analyze how the literary elements contribute to the story’s plot and describe how Esperanza’s perspective is developed throughout the story’s beginning. Students will summarize the important parts of the beginning of the story to show their understanding of the plot.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will identify and analyze common proverbs. They will create a definition and understanding of proverbs using vocabulary strategies for unknown words and phrases. Then using the literary text "The Story of Wang Li," students will identify the proverbs in the text, decipher them, and evaluate the appropriateness of them. The culminating activity will require students to use one of the proverbs from the literary text to create their own narrative in a present-day setting.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will engage students in discussions that involve conceptual understanding of vocabulary, theme, and summarizing. After reading a short fable, "The North Wind and the Sun" by Aesop, students will complete activities that require them to think deeply, make inferences based on textual evidence, and defend their interpretation during discussions. Students will use context clues, word relationships, and/or figurative language to determine word meaning and unfamiliar phrasing. Students will participate in a class discussion evaluating conceptual understandings, examining themes, and making inferences. Students will engage in student-to-student discourse and partner work throughout the lesson. For the summative assessment, students will write a summary to convey understandings presented in the text and the discussions with their peers.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity, students will write the parts of a plot on a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

In this activity, students will identify the components of a plot using a graphic organizer.

Type: Student Center Activity

This is a fifth grade poetry unit using the book Words with Wings: A Treasury of African-American Poetry and Art by Belinda Rochelle. This poetry unit addresses genre, main idea, tone, theme, author's purpose, and figurative language. The unit concepts are supported through a student packet, which includes worksheet activities and graphic organizers.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this novel unit, broken up into seven lessons, students will learn about the genre of realistic fiction, making predictions, identifying plot conflicts, analyzing character relationships, examining gender roles, determining themes, and tracking character changes through reading and discussing the novel Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Lexile 810).

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence