Backward Design Lesson Plan Template

Lesson Plan Version 2.0

Section 1: Framing the Lesson
This lesson would fit into a unit called: Creative Writing
Subject/Course: Language Arts - Literacy
Necessary time frame for this lesson: 55-75 mins total (~20 minutes for reading, ~35 minutes for
worksheet, ~20 minutes to post to online writer's blog)
Strand: Oral Communication, Writing, And Visual Arts
Grade(s): 3 (can be adapted for other grades by changing book and response question)

Section 2: Desired Results

The Fundamental Disciplinary Concepts driving this lesson (from the curriculum document) are:
Lesson Objective(s):
[list the skills, understandings, dispositions, accomplishments that students will have
made/acquired during this lesson]
By the end of this lesson, students will
Be able to listen to read aloud with the purpose of understanding the characters
in the story
Independently reflect on the story and characters in order to answer response
question
Answer response question using full sentences and proper grammatical
techniques (i.e. starting sentences with capital letters, and proper punctuation)
Use their imagination and creativity to create their own piece of work

Ontario Curricular Overall Expectation(s) with which this lesson aligns:

Oral Communication: Listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of
situations for a variety of purposes (p. 64)
Writing: Use editing, proofreading, and publishing skills and strategies, and knowledge of
language conventions, to correct errors, refine expression, and present their work effectively (p.
70)

Visual Arts: Creating and Presenting: apply the creative process to produce a variety of two-and
three- dimensional art works, using elements, principles. and techniques of visual arts to
communicate feelings, ideas, and understandings

Ontario Curricular Specific Expectation(s) with which this lesson aligns:

Oral Communication: 1.2 Active Listening Strategies - Demonstrate an understanding of
appropriate listening behaviour by using active listening strategies in order to contribute
meaningfully
1.6 Extending Understanding - Extend understanding of oral texts by connecting the ideas in
them to their own knowledge and experience
Writing: 3 Applying Knowledge of Language Conventions and Presenting Written Work
Effectively - 3.1 through 3.8 are all touched on and aligned with this lesson
Visual Arts: D1.2 - Demonstrate an understanding of composition, using principles of design to
create narrative art works or art works on a theme or topic

Essential Questions:
How can I use the context from the story to create my own character?
Why am I writing and for whom?
How can we express our feelings about the characters in our written work?
How can we express our imagination about our own created character in our visual art?
How, as writers, can we plan our writing?
How can we evaluate and reflect to improve writing?
What are different strategies we can use when revising our texts?

Section 3: Gathering Acceptable Evidence

What Information will you collect during this lesson that will allow you to make claims about how
your students are progressing toward the curricular expectations?
Observe their engagement through the read aloud on the carpet; are they paying
attention, are they answering questions, are they asking questions? (Specific
expectations: 1.2 and 1.6)
The response question allows me to see and assess their application and use of
proper writing techniques. (Specific expectations: 3.1-3.8)
Their art work allows me to see their use of creativity in visual art and their
creative thinking behind the art. (Specific expectation: D1.2)

Section 4: Universal Design for Learning

To accommodate all learners in my classroom, my lesson design includes the following
components that are informed by my understanding of Universal Design for Learning:
My Lesson allows room for accommodations in order to help all learners in my classroom
achieve greatness. I have used my understanding of Universal Design for Learning and broken
down how my lesson aligns with the core concepts of UDL outlined in the Ministry of Education
publication Learning For All.
Universality & Equity: This lesson will meet the needs of all of my students. For
special needs students or ELL/ESL learners accommodations such as sentence starters,
scribes, or access to a laptop to type on can be provided.
Flexibility & Inclusiveness: I as a teacher will be flexible with my time (i.e. if the
students are struggling with the story and need to discuss further, we can spend more
time on that). A variety of assessment strategies is important in a class, therefore I will
not be using a rubric that would normally be used on a written assignment. I will be
assessing the students informally through discussion and through correcting their written
responses (only correcting the writing conventions like grammar and spelling; not
correcting any ideas as it is creative writing).
Appropriately Designed Space: The students should all have a clear line of sight,
which is why we will be on the carpet for the read aloud in order guarantee that each
student will be able to hear me clearly and see the illustrations. Then the students will
work individually at their desks on their written work and art.
Simplicity: I will avoid unnecessary complexity by clearly stated instructions and
expectations of the activity. The instructions for written work and artwork can be broken
down into small steps and shown on the blackboard so students can refer back.
Safety: As a teacher, I hope that my class will always be a caring and safe
environment for students to learn and grow. This can specifically be done in this lesson
by ensuring that there is no such thing as a bad writer and to constantly encourage
creativity in their written work as well as their visual art.

Section 5: Plan
Sequence of Learning and Instructional Activities [including assessments for learning]
Use the table below to list the ordered sequence of learning, teaching and assessment activities
that will take place [adjust/edit the table as necessary by adding/deleting rows]. The sequence

of activities should align with the stated objectives, and align with what you know about how
learning happens.
Teacher Will

Students Will

Introduce the book. Facilitate a group

Listen and prepare to understand the story.
discussion about predictions (prompt: what do
you think this book is about?). Explain that
the story is about a group of students who go
on an adventure (prompt: what kind of
adventure do you think they are going on?).
Read the book (The Dunderheads), pausing
at any new or difficult vocabulary for
clarification, to discuss the characters, and to
predict what is going to happen in order to
keep the students engaged and assess their
active listening..

Listen to the story and raise their hands when

there is a word that is new or difficult and they
would like clarification, or when they would
like to participate in large group discussion by
answering teacher prompts.

Ask the students to name the characters from

the story and write the names on the chart
paper.
This is when the teacher can see how
engaged the students were and how much
they remember.

Raise their hands and name a character from

the story.

The teacher will then explain the assignment

(a response question and an art project).
The first part is a response question: Who
was your favourite character in the story?
Explain why?
(Prompt written on chart paper in front of
class: My favourite character was _______
because)
The second part is an art project: Create your
own character to join the Dunderheads on
their next adventure. Give him a nickname.
The students are encouraged to use markers,
coloured pencils, google eyes, and any other
materials in the class room.
Link to worksheet:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fvAfmc
9DJslaghMojOWLojDogbhFBbeB5HHDp7d7yM/edit?usp=sharing

Listen and ask any necessary questions

about the assignment before returning to their
seats.

Observe students working habits (i.e. are they Sit at desk and answer response question on
sitting quietly and working? are they using
the hand out.
their personal dictionaries as resources?)
Begin reviewing and assessing the written

Hand in written work to teacher and then

response work.

begin the art assignment

Hand out corrected responses and direct

students to ipads, chromebooks, or laptops,
to work on their creative writing blog.

Add their edited writing response work to their

only writing blog (weebly) which has been
growing since the beginning of the year with
the students writing response work.
(Technology addition)
*Extension: create wanted poster for the
character they have created on smore

* Links to future lessons:

The students can write their own stories revolving around the characters that
they have created.
The students can write and present a readers theatre by adapting the story into
a script (this would be a great extension activity for a student who needs a challenge)
The online blog of written work links to past and future lessons
Logistics and Materials
Student Groupings: All together for read aloud, working individually on hand out (response and
art)
Materials Required: The book, chart paper, work sheets for response work, markers, coloured
pencils, google eyes, construction paper, any other desired art materials, glue.
Digital Tools and Technologies:
http://www.weebly.com/home/
https://www.smore.com (extension)

Rationale for this Lesson Design and My Revisions

What revisions have you made to this lesson plan? Justify your design choices with reference
to what you have come to understand about students, their learning needs, and the
experiences that can enable that learning to take place.
I have taken feedback from 1.0 to slightly adjust the learning sequence of my lesson. I had
added in more discussion before and during the reading of the book. I have included example
prompts I would use in a large group discussion which would allow the students to think and
predict what is going to happen next. Chapter 2 of How people learn: Brain, mind, experience

and school, written by Bransford, Brown & Cocking, discusses problem solving and explains
that an expert can flexibly retrieve important aspects of their knowledge with little cognitive
effort, and in doing this, there is is more cognitive space for higher problem solving (p. 31).
This relates to the large amount of discussion I have added to the beginning of and
throughout my read aloud. As students constantly practice active reading and predicting what
will happen by using their previous knowledge, the skill of active reading will start to become
much more natural and happen automatically as the student is reading.
As previously mentioned, I have added in accommodations in order to align with the UDL
principles and all students learning needs. There is room for differentiation by using sentence
starters, prompts, scribes, and typing help with use of laptop. I have added these aspects into
my lesson as I have come to understand the learning needs of ELL and special needs students
first hand in my CSL placement. Extension can be done by creating a poster online of the
character the student has created, and/or creating readers theatre scripts adapted from the
story.
I have emphasized that the creativity process and ideas of the students will not be
marked/corrected. Only the writing conventions such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, use of
full sentences, etc. will be marked from the written portion of this lesson.
I have added in the technology piece to my lesson, an online writers blog, which will link to
other written lessons as the students will be adding their work to the online writers blog all year
long.