Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Central Focus:
Students will be using a dictionary as well as surrounding
context clues in other words and sentences from the article

Grade Level/Subject:
4th Grade
Vocabulary
Main ideas of text
to derive word meaning from the text Debate!.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in
a text, including those that allude to significant characters found
in mythology (e.g., Herculean).

Date submitted: 11/19/2015

Date taught:
10/30/2015

Daily Lesson Objective:

With their online text copy of Debate! students will complete todays objective by finding
unfamiliar words within a text and using context clues as well as a dictionary to find out the
meaning of that word. Then, students will reread the passage with the new meaning in their
mind, so the text is comprehended in a new way that makes sense.
21st Century Skills: Critical
Academic Language Demand (Language Function and
Thinking- Students are able to
Vocabulary):
think critically about the meaning
Students will be confirming the meaning of unfamiliar
of a word based on the words
words as they read through the text, as well as reading and
around it and the context being
listening through guided and independent practice.
used in the text. Students will
search and evaluate the meaning
of words.
Communicating- Students will read
and discuss the text, and the
unfamiliar words they find with
each other and as a class. Students
will discuss what they believe the
meaning of the unfamiliar words
are, before finding out the actual
meaning.
Prior Knowledge:
Students will need to understand the concept of finding out what an unfamiliar word means
based on the words being used around it or in the same sentence. I will also expect students to
know what the words unfamiliar and context clues mean. Students will need to know how to
look up words in a dictionary.
Activity
1. Focus and Review

Description of Activities and Setting

Class, weve been working on doing Close Reads of texts to
work on finding out the meaning of unfamiliar words, using
the sentences and words that surround the word we dont
know, to figure out the meaning. Weve first been scanning
passages to find those words, and then rereading the passage

Time
5
minutes

2. Statement of
Objective
for Student

3. Teacher Input

4. Guided Practice

with the new meaning of the words in mind, to better

comprehend the text. Today we are going to be working on
doing this process with the article Debate! about hunting wild
animals on wildlife conservations that you will look up on your
chrome books. I will give students the opportunity to reflect
on what they remember us talking about yesterday,
concerning the close read of the article Dinosaurs. I will say to
the class, Do you remember how we discussed that you are
going to run across words that you have never seen or used
before? Today we are going to work on Close Read again, the
strategy that you can use to help you determine the meaning
of a word you do not know, based on the context of the story.
Today, I am going to be working with you using a strategy
called Semantic Development and Enrichment Instruction
Strategy, as we do a Close Read of the article Debate!
from the Time for Kids website. At the end of this lesson, you
are going to complete an activity and homework assignment
using this strategy.
I will make sure all students have successfully looked up the
url copy of the text, Debate!. I will read the students
paragraph one of the text, using the SmartBoard, so students
can follow along and see the illustrations if they dont want to
reference their own copy for this part of the lesson. From
paragraph 1, I will write on chart paper I will have hanging on
the board, the first unfamiliar word to students that I come
across, which are the words conservation and sport hunting. I
will continue reading paragraph 2 and write down the
remaining unfamiliar words from this section of the text:
tourism, income, population and legalize. After writing down
each word on the chart paper, and the class reading
paragraphs 1-4, I will choose two of the words from our list on
the chart and write down the sentence they were used in
within the text such as: Sport hunting has long been
accepted in African countries as a way to pay for wildlife
conservation and Critics fear Africas elephant population
may disappear under the added pressures of legalized
hunting.
I will monitor and circulate the classroom, and answer any
questions students may have and assist them, if need be. For
this section, I will ask the students questions about the two
sentences I have written down on the board, using the
unfamiliar words, to help them develop their meaning. I will
ask the students, What do you think it means to sport hunt?
What does the text say is the problem in Africa? What are

2
minutes

15
minutes

9
minutes

5. Independent
Practice

some things you know of that mean to be a tourist, or

tourism? and Why would Africas elephant population be
disappearing What do you think it means to conserve
wildlife? What does the word wildlife relate to? After asking
students these questions, I will explain to them how these
model sentences, and other sentences from the text with
other unfamiliar words, (such as paragraph 7, with the words
government and endangered species), can help the students
make connections to finding out the meaning of the unfamiliar
word. I will split the students into groups of 3-4 at their tables.
Students are to choose two more words within their groups,
from the list of words we dont know that we found in the text
and listed on our chart hanging on the board in Teacher
Input. Students will have a limited time to complete this part
of the strategy and they are to answer given questions that I
will write on the board, as well as create their own questions if
they can, about the words and context to figure out the word
meaning. Questions I will write on the chart for students to
reference and help figure out their word meanings are: What
is happening during the seventh paragraph of the story?
What are the plans to save the lions? What country has
the least number of elephants? Who is trying to save the
animals? What words do you know already in the same
sentence as your unfamiliar word, and what are those word
meanings? How could those words relate to the unfamiliar
word? After completing this part of the lesson, students are
to raise their hands and share with the class what two words
they chose from our list, where the word is found in the text,
and what they think the meaning of the unfamiliar word is and
why (what other context clues did they use to find the
meaning) etc. After discussing, we will look up as a class, with
the doc cam and a dictionary, what the real meaning of the
words we have on our list are.
I will monitor and circulate the classroom. Students are to use
this time to practice finding unfamiliar word meaning based
on the context and other parts of the passage using their
dictionaries. Students can choose unfamiliar words from our
list from the text Debate! , listed on the chart. Or, students
can keep reading the passage and look for other unfamiliar
words they may run across. Once they find another unfamiliar
word, they are to record it on a piece of paper and find out the
meaning based on what they already know about the article,
and other context clues. After writing what they think the
meaning of the word is, they can check their predictions with

their dictionaries.

For the assessment, I will give the students copies of the article to read
and work on at home. They are to continue reading, if they havent
already, paragraphs 7-11 of the text. Students are to find and list on
paper at least 3-4 more unfamiliar words they find within these
6. Assessment
paragraphs of the text. Students are to write out the sentence the word
Methods of
is being used in, and write down in a short answer, what they think the
all
word meaning is, based on other words within the same sentence or
objectives/skills:
passage. Then, they are to check their thoughts of what the word means
by looking up in a dictionary, the real world meaning. Then they reread
the passage to gain a better understanding of the words and phrases
within the article.
Now that we have completed the lesson and assessment, I will
ask for volunteers to raise their hands and tell the class
something they have learned today from the article Debate!. I
7
7. Closure
will ask the class to share, raising their hand, an unfamiliar
minutes
word they learned about from the text today, and what the
meaning of that word is and its textual meaning from the
article, Debate!
I anticipate that the class assessment results will be that students will
figure out the correct meaning of at least 3 of the words they choose
from paragraphs 7-11, using the strategy Close Read we practiced as a
8. Assessment
class.
Results of
Assessment results were that there were 20 out of 25 students present
all
for the entire lesson and activities, and only about 13 were able to
objectives/skills:
complete the assessment correctly, with the total of 3 words recorded
with their thoughts of what it means, and then the actual meaning from
the dictionary written down.
Targeted Students
Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations:
Modifications/Accommodations:
There are two ELL learners, one ADD
The students all have varying levels of need. The
student, one EC, and the rest of the
students who struggle the most are seated
students except for maybe 5 are behind
randomly throughout the classroom with students
grade level. The ELL students are seated in
who are not struggling, in small groups at their
the middle of the class, while the EC and
table. However the EC and ADD students are
ADD students are seated at the very front,
seated individually, at the very front of the
by themselves. ELL learners are able to
classroom, away from the other students so they
have access to a dictionary, in case they
dont lose focus of their tasks and the teacher can
need to look up what English words mean in keep an eye on them.
their own native language. The ADD and EC
student are not provided breaks in this
class, like I would give them in my own
classroom

Materials/Technology:
(Include any instructional materials (e.g., worksheets, assessments PowerPoint/Smart Board slides, etc.) needed to implement the lesson at
the end of the lesson plan.)

-Access to a SmartBoard
-Access to a Doc Cam
-25 copies of the text (students can look the article Debate! up on their chrome books with the
url I will give them)
http://www.timeforkids.com/news/debate/297851
-Students will have at their desk and use their Chrome books to access the article online:
-Piece of paper to record unfamiliar words and their meaning
-All students should have a pencil
References:
Reflection on lesson:
*See separate tab for reflection on lessons