Lesson Seed

Unit Title: Teamwork
Grade Level: 1st
Essential Question: How are we better together?
Focus Question: How do families and friends work as a team?
Text/Resources:
Mama’s Coming Homeby Kate Banks
Text Complexity Considerations:
Quantitative Measure(Readability measures and other scores of text complexity):Reading Level -4.0
Qualitative Measure (Levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands):First grade students who are already proficient with decoding will be able to read this text with its helpful picture clues and a repeating line: “Mama’s coming home.” Students will readily relate to the idea of working together to prepare for someone’s arrival.
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):Read this story aloud to notice and imitate the author’s craft – the use of strong verbs to convey the story action.
Standards:
RL.1.9. Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.
SL.1.1. Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
W.1.3. Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.
W.1.5. With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed.
L.1.1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
L.1.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
Student Outcomes:
  • With guidance and support, students will strengthen writing by adding one or more strong verbs.
  • Students will edit for the conventions of Standard English by correcting errors in capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

Sample Activity:
Set a purpose for rereading the story, Mama’s Coming Home: Listen and look for words the author uses to show what people in the family are doing e.g. sprawling, crawling, etc.Tell students that authors use strong action words to show what is happening in a story..Have students wave their hands when they see or hear a strong action word.List strong verbs from the story on chart paper.
Model revisiting your personal narrative to decide where a strong action word would show the reader what is happening in your story. Revise the sentence(s) to include one or more strong verbs. (Revise and add the strong verb right on the draft. Cross out the weak or ordinary verb and write in the strong verb or write the strong verb on masking tape placed over the weak verb.)Have students work with a partner to add at least one strong action word (verb) to their personal narrative drafts. (Students may need examples of strong verbs to replace commonly used verbs: went, did, saw, etc.)
Continue the writing process during subsequent class period by having students proofread and edit their writing (for sentence capitals and end punctuation) and publishing their work (by preparing a neat, illustrated paper or electronic copy for placement in the class library).
**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