Lesson Seed

Unit Title: Teamwork
Grade Level: 1st
Essential Question: How are we better together?
Focus Question: How is each person important to a team?
Text/Resources
Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathman
Text Complexity Considerations:
Quantitative Measure(Readability measures and other scores of text complexity): Lexile: 510L
Qualitative Measure (Levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands): This fantasy story about a K-9 dog that interprets and acts out Officer Buckle’s safety tips will entertain and amuse students. Important details, conveyed through text and illustrations, make a document camera a must for a close reading of this text.
Reader and Task Considerations(Reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed): Through this read aloud, students will see that as few as two can team up. Students will also learn that each member of this team has an important contribution to make, and that they are better together than either is alone in keeping with Officer Buckle’s safety tip #101: Always stick with your buddy. After listening to the story, students will express an opinion about whether Officer Buckle and Gloria are better together or alone.
Supplemental Resource: Scholastic video of Officer Buckle and Gloria

Standards
RL.1.1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text..
RL.1.3. Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
RL.1.7. Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
RL.1.10. With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.
SL.1.2. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media
L.1.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
  • Capitalize dates and names of people.
W.1.1. Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.
Student Outcomes
  • Students will closely attend to text and picture details in Officer Buckle and Gloria.
  • Students will use illustrations to retell the story.
  • Students will describe the characters and important events.
  • Students will express an opinion about Officer Buckle and Gloria as a team with support from story details.

Sample Activity:
Have students think-pair-and share a time that they worked with an animal as a team e.g. throwing a Frisbee to a dog who catches and brings it back.Tell students that you are going to read a story about an officer who gives safety talks and is joined by a K-9 dog. Remind students to view the illustrations closely since they contain many important story details. Engage in an interactive read aloud. Use any or all of these text-dependent questions to engage students in a cooperative discussion with a partner or with the students in their groups.
  • What do students think of Officer Buckle’s safety tips? How did you know?
  • Why do accidents continue to happen at school – even after Officer Buckle’s safety talk?
  • How does Gloria help Officer Buckle? How do work as a team? How is each person important to the team?
  • What happens when Gloria is onstage alone? Why is she unsuccessful
Have students complete this cloze sentence to express an opinion: Officer Buckle and Gloria are better (alone/together) because ______. (Students must support their opinions with one or more detail from the story.)
**Prepare for small group/guided reading instruction by selecting appropriate text and materials. Make connections to the concept of Teamwork wherever possible.

R/ELA/MSDE.4/27/2012