Central focus of learning segment (Comprehension): Retell Narratives using key details

Essential literacy strategy: Using story elements to retell a narrative

Grade Level: 1
Subject: Literacy
Duration: 45 minutes
Common Core State Standards: Highlight relevant parts of the standards that relate directly to your
lesson objectives
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2 Retell stories, including key details[]
Learning Objectives: What are the thinking skills
(Cognitive), Social or Performance based skills
are students developing through this lesson?
1) Students will be able to list the sequence of
events in the story during a retelling of the story.
2) Students will be able to retell the story.

Academic Language Development

Language Demands (objective): What syntax
and/or discourse is important for students to
understand/use in order to take in and/or express
their understanding of the learning objectives?
The students will need to use the following syntax
while speaking and writing in order to achieve the
learning objectives and language demands:
In the beginning, ________
In the middle, __________
In the end, ___________________

Vocabulary Development: What words and

phrases are important for students to understand
and/or use to express the learning of this
particular lesson?
The students will need to use the following
vocabulary words in order to list the sequence of
events, speak, write, and retell the story:
Beginning, Middle, End
(retell, key details, problem, and solution
from previous day will be used as vocabulary
supports as well)

Assessment*: What do you want students to be

able to do?
Students will participate in a small group while
teacher uses clip-board to take notes and
informally assess students understanding of listing
events.
The students will produce their retelling in a story
booklet that the teacher will collect at the end of
the lesson.
Supports: How will you support students who may
find these language demands challenging?

Teacher will give appropriate wait time

through the lesson so ELLs can process new
language demands of beginning, middle,
and end
The teacher will model correct syntax using
examples from the three little pigs.
Sentence frames will be enlarged and
visually displayed on the board available for
students to see and practice
reading/speaking
Small group activity will be established to
provide additional oral language processing
time for content learning
Supports: How will you support students in
understanding and using these words and
phrases?
Although my students are familiar with the words
beginning, middle, and end, I will be displaying
these words at the front of the classroom while
providing a definition and context examples of how
to use the vocabulary words.

Instructional Materials and Resources (teacher and student): How do these materials support the

development of new learning by reflecting your students everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds
and interests?
1) Title of book: The Rainbow Tulip This book demonstrates a young girls awareness of her
Mexican heritage. The setting of this book connects to my students every day experiences
living in a multi-ethnic area of the city. All of my students live in the center of a populated urban
city, where the main demographic is of Mexican-American culture, just as this book highlights
with its main characters, Estelita (Stella) and her mother. The character in this narrative also
uses a mix of English and Spanish to describe things around her, which connects to the cultural
background of the 10 out of the 19 Spanish-speaking students I have in my class. The struggles
this character faces with fitting in, as it pertains to her cultural differences, will connect to my
students everyday experiences of attending a wide multicultural school.
2) Definitions of the vocabulary words: beginning, middle, end.
3) Sentence will be printed and enlarged for students to practice reading and speaking.
4) Story Elements organizer poster: This poster will support students by helping them organize
their ideas of character, setting, problem, and solution. An enlarged example of this organizer
will be filled in using a story my students are very familiar with, The Three Little Pigs, and the
organizer will be displayed the entire week at the front of the classroom.
5) Each group of students will receive several illustrations with supporting sentences of the story.
Students will be asked to retell the story by placing the illustrations in the correct sequence of
events.
6) Each student will need to have their own story booklet to write a retelling of the story. Students
will also be asked to draw an illustration of their writing. Drawing is something most of my
students are interested in and enjoy doing.
Prior Academic Learning: What prerequisite skills (content knowledge, skills, academic
experiences) do your students already have related to the instructional strategies and tasks in
this lesson?
My students have experience using meaningful illustrations to retell a story because many of their
independent reading level texts use illustration to support comprehension, however this lesson asks
students to use key details to retell the story, so this will be an additional newer concept for my
students. My students also have experience writing stories in similar booklets to the booklets that they
will receive in this lesson. My students do not have a lot of experience working in small groups of 3-4
people, so I will need to remind them of the respectful behavior we use while participating in a small
group with other students.
Differentiation: What specific scaffolds or modifications have you planned to support the varied
student learners in your classroom in reaching or exceeding the identified learning objectives
(Cognitive, Social, Performance)? How do you plan to support students who do not have the
background knowledge or prerequisite skills? What scaffolds will you use to support student thinking
or active engagement in the learning tasks? How will you extend for high performing students?
Listing the sequence of events using illustrations is a whole-group differentiation I
Whole class
have planned. Because many of my students arent strong readers yet, using
illustrations is effective because the activity sparks connections of events from the
reading, without having to read an excerpt from the story again.
Sub-Groups
Language Processing IEPs (Students #18, #15, #8): Teacher will strategically
(Refer to CFL)
place students with appropriate group members; Teacher will ask students to use
selected sentence frames to guide thinking; Teacher will provide students with prewritten sentence frames in their story booklets; Teacher will closely monitor
students during small group time; Teacher will help students write/transcribe their
retelling if needed
ELLs: Teacher will ask students to use selected sentence frames to guide thinking;

Individuals

Teacher will allow students additional time to practice speaking and writing with
the new vocabulary and syntax if needed during the class activity of retelling.
Advanced Learners (Students #13, #1, #19): The teacher will challenge this group
of students to extend their thinking during their retelling, such as how students can
retell the story in a different way, or use more key details from the story to
describe the beginning, middle, and end.
Student #2 (Beginner ELL): Teacher should closely monitor students during small
group listing and discussion; Teacher should place student with Spanish-speaker
peer who could help student communicate thoughts via Spanish to English.
Teacher should allow proper wait time for student.
Student #16 (Early Intermediate ELL): Teacher should closely monitor students
during small group listing and discussion and assist students with possible
vocabulary to use when retelling events in the story. Teacher should allow proper
wait time for student.
Student #6 (struggling reader/writer): Teacher will sit with student and help
transcribe any writing during the lesson. Teacher should allow proper wait time for
student.

Anticipatory Set: (Activating Student Background Knowledge, Establishing Rapport and

Motivation) What core background knowledge or skills are necessary to understand the new
learning? How will you incorporate or build on RELEVANT student personal and cultural experiences
Teacher will begin lesson by saying, Does anyone remember the activities we did earlier this week
about sequence of events and using key details? Today we will be working in small groups to practice
retelling the story, The Rainbow Tulip, that we read yesterday. Retelling stories is something we do
everyday. Sometimes our friends or family ask us what we did at school that day, and we retell them
events that happened during the day! Can we retell stories if we dont know who the characters are
and what some key details of the story are? (Students respond no) Of course not! Thats why its
important for us to learn about story elements! We will be using important language today to help us
retell the story. Lets turn our attention towards the information I have on the board!

Main Portion (body) of the Lesson**:

Describe in sequential order what students will be doing throughout the lesson/activity. How are
they actively engaged in the learning? This may include independent practice opportunities, guided
practice opportunities, direct instruction, collaborative practice opportunities etc.

1) Introduction/Anticipatory set (2 minutes)

2) The teacher will review the story elements worksheet from the previous day. The teacher will
do a short review of the worksheet students worked on and give any needed whole-class
feedback to the class pertaining to their story element worksheets that she collected the
previous day. (4 minutes)
3) After reviewing the elements that coincided with each category within the story elements
organized for our story The Rainbow Tulip, the teacher will add three new words a vocabulary
poster at the front of the room: Beginning, Middle, End. The teacher will read the words and
definitions to students and explain/review why these words help readers understand the
sequence of events. (3 minutes)
4) Next, the teacher will explain the activity portion of the lesson. Students will be asked to work
together in groups of 3-4 to list the order of events from the story. The students will take turns
listing the illustration cards in order and explaining what happened at that part of the story. The
teacher will explicitly model how to list the order of the story with the different story
pictures/illustrations using the correct vocabulary words: beginning, middle, end, as well as

character, setting, problem, and solution. (2 minutes)

5) The teacher will introduce and show students the story booklets. The teacher will tell students
that in their groups, they will write down a retelling of the story. The teacher will open the
booklet and show the students each page on the document camera. (Each page has lines for
writing and a small area for an illustration). The teacher will explicitly model how students
should write in their booklets using specific syntax. The teacher will model correct syntax using
examples from the three little pigs. The students must start their first page by writing In the
beginning, ________. The students must start their second page by writing In the middle,
__________. The students must start their third page by writing, In the end,
___________________. (5 minutes)
6) The teacher will allow a segment of time for questions to address any part of possible student
misconceptions about the assignment. (3 minutes)
7) The teacher will release students to complete their group work. She will remind students that
this is a collaborative conversation activity where all group members actively listen and
politely agree or disagree to each others ideas. The teacher will walk around from group to
group asking students thinking questions about the task. For example, Can you tell me how
you knew that this picture came next? and Can you explain the beginning, middle, and end to
me? Why do you think that is the beginning? How do you know that was the middle? Was
there a problem? A solution to that problem? The teacher will have a clipboard to informally
assess student responses. The teacher will specifically target visiting groups with IEP students
as well as ELL students to guide and center student conversation around the essential literacy
strategy. (10 minutes)
8) After students have had the opportunity to listen to their peers retell the story as well as
individually practice retelling the story orally, the teacher will redirect them to start working on
their story booklets by writing out their retelling using the key details from the story elements
organizer. (15 minutes)
9) The teacher will collect students story booklets at the end of the lesson to assess student
understanding.
Closure: How will you bring closure to this activity/lesson? How will you transition students to the
next activity?
The teacher should say, Im proud of you for working hard in your groups to retell your stories using
special words like, beginning, middle, and end. Tomorrow we will read another story and have more
practice retelling that story!