IMB Reading & Social Studies Integrated Direct Instruction Lesson Plan

By: Angela Urbina

Grade Level/Subject: Fourth Grade
Central Focus: The students will relate each of the five
Geography and
themes of geography to their own lives, create examples of
Literacy/Comprehension
each theme, and identify the main idea and supporting
details within an informational text to develop
comprehension.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:
3.G.1 Understand the earths patterns by using the 5 themes
of geography: (location, place, human environment
interaction, movement and regions).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.2
Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is
supported by key details; summarize the text.

Date submitted: 11/13/15

Date taught: 11/4/15

Daily Lesson Objective: Given the two worksheets, the students will meet todays objectives by
independently creating one relevant example for each geography theme and by finding the main
idea and the supporting details within an informational text within the time given. The Five
Themes of Geography worksheet will be collected for a participation grade (1 point per question;
total of 4 possible points) and The Big Ideas in Geography notebook entry will be collected for a
completion grade (1 point per question and 1 point per drawing; total of 10 possible points).
21st Century Skills:
Academic Language Demand (Language Function and
Environmental Literacy: The
Vocabulary):
students will be able to
The students will learn about the Five Themes of
demonstrate knowledge and
Geography (vocabulary) including Location, Place, Humanunderstanding of the environment
Environment Interactions, Movement, and Regions. The
and the circumstances and
students will be able to understand the text and develop
conditions affecting it.
their comprehension.
Initiative/Self-Direction Skills: The
students will be able to work
independently to monitor, define,
prioritize and complete tasks
without direct oversight.
Productivity/Accountability: The
students will be able to Prioritize,
plan and manage work to achieve
the intended result

The students will learn specific vocabulary, including Main

Idea, Supporting/Key Details, Text Features, Title,
Introduction, and Headings and be able to identify these
things within the text.

The students will be reading, writing, and listening during

the teacher input and independent practice sections, and
speaking during the guided practice and closure sections of
the lesson.

Prior Knowledge: The students will have some understanding of text features, authors purpose,
main idea, and supporting details.

Activity

1. Focus and Review

2. Statement of
Objective
for Student
3. Teacher Input

Description of Activities and Setting

Have one student from each table gather the social studies
notebooks of the people at their table and pass them out.
Then, have all of the students join you on the carpet. Okay
class, what have we been talking about in Social Studies?
Allow one student to answer (Geography). What is
Geography? Tell students to Turn and Talk to their partner.
Allow 2 minutes. What have we been talking about in
Reading? Allow one student to answer. We have been
talking about themes, main ideas, text features, and authors
purpose. Today, we are going to focus on Geography while
also working on identifying main idea and other
comprehension skills.
Today I am going to teach you about the Five Themes of
Geography. We are going to use a worksheet to identify these
themes and we will identify the text features and main idea of
the text to develop our comprehension. At the end of the
lesson you will answer questions about the five themes on
another worksheet and complete a journal entry.
I will hand out The Five Themes of Geography worksheet. I will
display the worksheet (Google Document on laptop) for
students to follow along with on the SmartBoard. Remind the
students to follow along while I read using their finger. I will
read the entire text aloud to the students. I will stop and use
examples for each theme to support students
comprehension. I will use examples for Location: Point A on
the map might be Coltrane-Webb Elementary and Point B on
the map might be Asheville, NC. I can look at the map, draw
the points and see how far those points are from each other.
Place: The Outer Banks consists of mainly beaches and is
described as having a temperate climate, there are many
restaurants, shops, and tourists, especially in the summer.
Human-Environment Interactions: I used to live in the
mountain region of North Carolina (Banner Elk) where there
were very few people around and not many cars or traffic. I
recently moved to the city of Charlotte, NC where there are
lots of people and cars. I had to adjust to my surroundings. I
had to get used to all the noise and the crowds of people.
Movement: People in Charlotte travel by planes, cars, trains
and buses. The people of Charlotte have to communicate with
one another in order to buy things and sell things. Sometimes
people even communicate in different languages. Regions:
The Mountain region of North Carolina is very different from
the Coastal region of North Carolina. The Coastal region

Time

5 min

1 min

10 min

4. Guided Practice

consists of mainly coastline (beaches), cities, and tourist

attractions, whereas the Mountain region consists of
mountains, farms, and really small towns. Tell the students
to open their Social Studies notebooks. Introduce Main Idea
and Supporting Details by displaying and reviewing the
meaning of main idea and supporting details on the easel
chart paper (Main Idea and Supporting Detail Stool Chart). Be
sure that the students take notes in their Social Studies
notebooks so they can go back and remember the meaning of
main idea and supporting details.
"Now that we know the meaning of main idea and supporting
details, let's look at Number 4 at the bottom of the
worksheet." It says, Read each paragraph. Underline the
main idea sentence. Circle the details that support the main
idea. Allow one student to help identify each main idea
within the paragraphs by underlining the sentence on the
Google document/SmartBoard. Allow other students to help
identify the supporting details by highlighting the sentences
on the SmartBoard. Have an open discussion form of
identifying the main ideas and supporting details. If it seems
necessary/desired, allow students to Turn and Talk to their
partner to discuss why they think certain details are important
or why they support the main idea. After that, we will review
the other questions at the bottom of the worksheet together
and answer them/complete the tasks. Number 1 asks, What
is the topic of the text? Which text feature communicates the
topic? Keep in mind that the topic of the text is not the
same thing as a main idea. We will address that a little bit
later. What do you think a topic is? The topic is whatever the
entire passage/text is about. What are text features?
Remember that when we preview a text we look for the text
features, like the title, the authors name, the illustrators
name, the blurb on the back cover, etc. I can display a
classroom book and point out the text features to
demonstrate. The title of this passage (The Five Themes of
Geography) identifies the overall topic/what it is about. Be
sure that students write their answers along with you.
Number 2 asks, What is the authors purpose for including
paragraph one? So, what do you think paragraph one is?
Why would the author include that paragraph? Allow two
students to answer. Right, it is the introduction paragraph,
which introduces the topic of the text to us so that we know
what we are going to read about. Number 3 asks, What is
the name of the bold faced text features above each

15 min

5. Independent
Practice

6. Assessment
Methods of
all
objectives/skills:

paragraph? What is the purpose of the features? Allow one

or two students to answer. Right, they are called
Subheadings and they tell us what the paragraph is going to
be about. So if we were answering questions and one of the
questions asked about location, we would know that we can
find the answer in the Location paragraph.
Display The Big Ideas in Geography worksheet (Google
Document) on the SmartBoard. Okay, for the final activity I
want you to open your Social Studies notebooks to a new
page. Title the page: The Five Themes of Geography (The
spelling is on The Five Themes of Geography worksheet).
Once you get the new worksheet, you will cut out each square
and glue them onto your Social Studies notebook page. Then
cut out the question squares that are at the bottom. You will
glue in the first question and answer it in your notebook, then
draw a picture that represents that theme and explain your
drawing. (Have this example/drawing to demonstrate) For
example, the first question is about Location. It says, Where
is your house? Is it near or far from your school? I will have a
premade example to display. In my example I wrote that my
house is actually an apartment and it is near my school (about
3 miles). I drew a picture of the apartment where I live and
15 min
the school I go to and drew a line connecting them and
labeled the line 3 miles to demonstrate the distance
between those two points (locations) on my map. After
completing the question for Location, you would glue in the
question for Place and write your answer and drawing, then
glue in the question for Changes, answer it and complete your
drawing, and so on until you finish all of them. Remember
these are all to be glued into your Social Studies notebook.
Also, make sure that you are working independently. Once
you are finished you will turn in both The Five Themes of
Geography worksheet and your Social Studies notebook
entries for a grade. Are there any questions? Send the
students quietly to their desks and pass out The Big Ideas in
Geography worksheet. Walk around and confer with each
student to support their comprehension of the themes and
guide them in creating good examples for each theme.
The Five Themes of Geography worksheet will be collected for a
participation grade (1 point per question; total of 4 possible points) and
The Big Ideas in Geography notebook entry will be collected for a
completion grade (1 point per question and 1 point per drawing; total of
10 possible points).

After completing and turning in their work, (while at their

desks) the teacher will ask about what they learned during
the lesson and ask the students if they found the lesson to be
7. Closure
3 min
helpful. Allow a few students to share or if little instruction
time remains, allow the students to turn and talk with their
table.
8. Assessment
Each student was able to meet the objectives for this lesson and
Results of
received a total of 10 points total (4 points on The Five Themes of
all
Geography worksheet and 6 points on their social studies journal
objectives/skills:
entries).
Targeted Students
Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations:
Modifications/Accommodations:
Students that are hard of hearing and
One student in my cooperating teachers
visually impaired will be seated at the front
classroom has high functioning Autism, so I will
of the classroom, closest to the teacher, so
plan to confer with that student one-on-one during
they can have a closer view and have a
the Independent Practice section of the lesson. I
closer range of sound. Students that are
also anticipate a few other students to be
English language learners will be provided
challenged by this activity, so I will plan to confer
an English-native language (Spanish)
with those students as well. I will offer a few
dictionary that will allow them to look up
guiding suggestions and offer my support during
any unknown words that they are not
the independent practice section of the lesson.
familiar with yet. AIG students will be
challenged by completing The Five Themes
of Geography worksheet independently. This
will be turned in for a grade.

Materials/Technology:
The Five Themes of Geography worksheet
The Big Ideas in Geography worksheet
Google Document
Laptop
SmartBoard & SmartBoard tools
Main Idea and Supporting Details Stool Poster (display on chart paper/easel)
Social Studies notebooks
Pencil
References: My cooperating teacher and I collaborated to create this lesson plan. She provided
the resources and I developed the plan and taught the lesson independently.
Main Idea and Supporting Detail Stool Poster retrieved from:
http://www.lessonplandiva.com/2012/01/there-is-lot-of-learning-going-on.html
Reflection on lesson:
My cooperating teacher allotted her two-hour social studies block to me for my lesson. The
lesson took about an hour to teach and the rest of the time was used for the students to
complete their assignment. After reviewing the students work, I felt that they met the objectives
for the lesson and gained knowledge about the five themes of geography and about main
idea/supporting details. During the lesson, the students stayed focus (for the most part) and
were receptive to what I had to offer. I managed student behavior by reminding the students to
raise their hands. I also asked a certain student to sit closer to me because I knew that he would
get easily distracted. The students actively participated by sharing some of the places they have
been and locations in their surroundings like their school. The students found my main idea chart
to be helpful and took detailed notes. The students also actively participated by identifying the
main idea and supporting details of each paragraph within The Five Themes of Geography
worksheet by circling and highlighting the sentences on the SmartBoard. When I sent the
students off to complete the independent practice section of the lesson, they got to work right
away and stayed on track (for the most part). I walked around and offered guidance and
suggestions to some students who struggled. I felt that the students shared an appreciation for
the themes of geography and were able to relate the themes to their daily lives.
On the other hand, I felt that The Five Themes of Geography worksheet could have been used
more effectively by focusing on the social studies standard and the literacy standard in separate
lessons. I felt that the students lost focus at times during the lesson because there was a lot
going on. Since I was trying to teach both a social studies standard and a literacy standard the
students lost focus based on the length of time it took. I think it would have been more effective
if the students were able to focus on social studies separate from literacy. It also did not help
that the AIG students were pulled out for their weekly AIG meeting during the time that I was
teaching my lesson. It caused a big distraction when they all got up from the carpet and left the
room. My cooperating teacher has a good number of AIG students, so I was left with very few
students to continue teaching the lesson. If I could reteach this lesson, I would break up my
instruction into two days. For the first day I would have used The Five Themes of Geography

worksheet to introduce the five themes and, if necessary, to introduce the concept of main idea
and supporting details. For the second day I would focus in on the five themes by reviewing each
theme using The Big Ideas in Geography worksheet and then have the students complete their
drawing examples as an assessment of what they learned. Although there were some ups and
some downs, I learned a lot from teaching this lesson and from hearing my cooperating teachers
feedback.

Resource Used: Main Idea and Supporting Details Chart

Worksheets Used: The Five Themes of Geography and The Big Ideas in
Geography

The Five Themes of Geography

Learning about places is an important part of history and geography. Geography is the study of
Earths surface and the way people use it. When geographers study Earth and its geography, they
often think about five main themes, or topics. Keeping these in mind will help you think like a
geographer.
Location
Everything on Earth has its own location--the place where it can be found. Location tells us
where a point is on the Earths surface and why it is there. It also tells us how far a point is from
other points.
Place
Every place has physical and human features that make it different from all other places.
Physical features are formed by nature. Human features are made by people. Place tells us
special features an area might have, such as climate, people, and landforms.
Human-Environment Interactions
People and their surroundings interact, or affect each other. Peoples activities may change the
environment. The environment may affect people. Sometimes people must change how they live
to fit into their surroundings.
Movement
People, goods, and ideas move every day. They move in your state, our country, and around the
world. We travel and communicate with one another. We depend on each other for products and
ideas.
Regions
Areas of Earth with main features that make them different from other areas are called regions. A
region can be described by its physical features or its human features. Regions are areas of Earth
that are alike in one way or another.
______________________________________________________________________________
1. What is the topic of the text? Which text feature communicates the topic?
2. What is the authors purpose for including paragraph one?
3. What is the name of the bold faced text features above each paragraph? What is the purpose
of the features?
4. Read each paragraph. Underline the main idea sentence. Circle details that support the main
idea.

Example Used: Location