Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions

Teacher(s)
Name

Rhushanda Burke

Position
School/Dis
trict

Special Education- Interrelated Teacher

E-mail

rhushanda.burke@gmail.com

Phone
Grade
Level(s)
Content
Area

941-447-9291

Time line

1 week (3 90 minute class periods)

Therrell High School/ Atlanta Public Schools

10th grade
Study Skills (English focused)

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What
knowledge, skills, and strategies do you expect students to gain? Are there
connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please put
a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and
numbers that indicate which standards were addressed.
Content Standards:

ELAGSE9-10RL4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they

are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze
the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g.,
how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or
informal tone.)
ELAGSE9-10RL1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support
analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the
text.
ELAGSE9-10SL4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence
clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of
reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are
appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.

ITSE Standards:

Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking,

construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using
technology
a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes
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b. Create original works as a means of personal or group expressions

Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and

environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a
distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of
others
a. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a
variety of digital environments and media
b. Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using
a variety of media and formats
d. Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems

Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making: Students use

critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manages projects, solve
problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and
resources
a. Collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed
decisions

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Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or

expected or possible products)
The class that I will be implementing this lesson with is my resource 4A Study Skills
class. While there is no set curriculum for the course, the class aims at providing
students with disabilities with tools to assist them with organization, time
management, study strategies, and foundational skills in math and reading to help
them keep with the demands of a high school curriculum. Since I support a number of
these students in the co-taught setting, I also use the class to re-mediate concepts
they have already learned in their core classes. Additionally, Study Skills serves as
the place where these students are able to work on their goals as laid out per their
individual IEPs. This Study Skills section is comprised of 10 students who all receive
special education services either through the co-taught or resource setting. In this
class, I have 4 students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), 4 students with mild
intellectual disability (MID), 1 student with Emotional Behavioral Disorder (EBD), and
1 student with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The class has a range
of mixed abilities in terms of cognitive and academic functioning and all students are
of African-American descent.
I selected to re-teach this concept as a result of analyzing student scores on their most
recent exam in their World Literature class and noticing a trend of tone and mood
being one of the biggest domains commonly missed. Tone and mood can sometimes be
confusing for students, especially when trying to infer them in their reading. This
lesson will review with students how to analyze text and based on the words used, be
able to determine what tone the author is trying to give off. They will be able to
determine whether the tone is negative, positive, or neutral as well as be able to
identify their mood after reading a literary piece. In order to do so I will use a medium
that they are very familiar with (song lyrics) to further demonstrate this skill.
After completing todays do now asking them about their experiences with identifying
a persons tone, students will engage in a review mini-lesson on tone and mood.
Students have previously learned about the concept during their co-taught World
Literature class, but will benefit from remediation to sharpen their skills. During the
mini-lesson, students will follow along with my power-point presentation filling in a
guided notes worksheet. Students have the option of listening to the lesson on their
own through the technology tool Voice Thread. Teacher will then model the process of
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Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing?

What would students care or want to know about the topic? What are some
questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate interest about the
topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on
important aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior
knowledge will you expect students to bring to this topic and build on?)
Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking
inquiry. They should not be answered with a simple yes or no and should have
many acceptable answers.
Essential Questions:

How does identifying the tone and mood of a piece of literary text help us in
understanding the authors message/purpose?
How does technology assist our understanding of a concept?

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What

can students do to generate new knowledge? How will you assess how students
are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess what they produce
or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your
assessment and/or rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

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There are a number of places throughout the lesson that will provide information
on whether students have reached todays learning goal. These include: share out
session of each groups identified tone and mood of their selected passage,
answering of teacher-led questions during guided practice and presentations, and
their exit ticket at the closing of the period.
In order to illustrate their understanding of todays objective, students will work
in groups of three in order to create a Prezi presentation indicating the tone and
mood of their assigned song which is differentiated using the student reading
comprehension levels. They will utilize the internet in order to hear the song
being played, use the song lyrics to support their analyses, and present their
findings to their peers. Their presentation and its content will be graded using a
presentation rubric.
Assessment of individual student mastery of todays objective will occur with the
completion of an exit ticket which will require students to identify the tone and
mood of a short reading passage and justify by providing textual evidence to
support. Students will demonstrate their understanding through written
expression using the formative assessment tool Socrative; sentence starters and a
graphic organizer to compile their thoughts will be provided.

Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools,
and resourcesonline student tools, research sites, student handouts, tools,
tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etchelp elucidate or explain the
content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology
skills should students have to complete this project?)

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The use of technology has quickly become a staple in most classrooms today. You can
rarely walk into a classroom without seeing some medium being used whether its a
desktop, laptop, tablet, or cellular device. This shift in education has provided
students the opportunity to engage in the technology space while also learning critical
skills necessary for their success in todays technology driven society. In addition to
using the internet as a resource, students will engage with three different technology
tools which will further support their mastery of todays objective.
In order to collaborate and gather their thoughts regarding their assigned song,
students will utilize the technology tool Lino. Lino is a free service that allows users to
create online sticky notes (Solomon and Schrum, 2014). In this way, the sticky notes
are posted to a web-based canvas which can include words, photos, links, and even
videos. What I like the most about this application is that it is an easy way to
encourage students to share their thoughts or findings on a topic or concept. This is
important because my students arent comfortable sharing their ideas out of fear of
being incorrect or rather sharing out in general. This tool allows students the ability
to do so by eliminating this fear while also allowing for feedback peers. During
todays lesson, each group member will post sticky notes on what they believe is the
tone and mood of their song lyric using Lino. They will also provide textual evidence
that supports their claim which gives their fellow group members and me as their
teacher the opportunity to review everyones thought process. An added benefit is that
this can occur with little to no dialogue which further supports my expectation of a
productive work session.
Students will also utilize the presentation tool Prezi. Prezi is a nonlinear presentation
tool that allows students to place text, images, and even videos in imaginative ways
and determine the path to display (Solomon and Schrum, 2014, p.152). This medium
of presenting information is a visual learning tool that allows its users to create maps
of text, images, videos, and graphics in an alternative way as opposed to clicking to
another slide. This is a great tool for diverse learners as information does not have to
be presented in one way. In todays lesson students will present their findings to their
classmates using Prezi.
The last tool that will be utilized in todays lesson is Socrative. Socrative is an online
medium which allows teachers to quickly assess their students understanding of a
topic/concept. Another definition shares that Socrative empowers you to engage and
assess your students as learning happens. Through the use of real-time questioning,
result aggregation, and visualization, you have instant insight into levels of
understanding so you can use class time to better collaborate and grow as a
community of learners (Socrative, 2016). This tool will be utilized during the
individual exit ticket that students will turn in in order for me to assess their
individual mastery of the objective at the end of the class period. Students will use a
Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a
foundation for this lesson? How can you find out if students have this foundation?
What difficulties might students have?)
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Students have been working on identifying tone and mood and providing evidence
to support in their World Literature English class. It is a standard that must be
covered in English and is foundational in the content in general. Although
students have been exposed to this concept before, a review of my students
performance on the World Literature SLO pre-test as well as their most recent
unit exam indicates that this is an area that most students do not have a firm
grasp of. I am privy to this information as I am the special education teacher in
their English class. I did not want to re-teach the concept in the same way that it
had been covered before so I opted to use song lyrics as opposed to the traditional
reading passage. I thought that this would heighten their interests in the concept
and further support their ability to demonstrate mastery especially since my list of
songs were culturally relevant and very familiar to my kids. I felt that once they
could practice with the skill using a medium they love (music), they would more
easily be able to translate the skill to reading passages. This was modeled during
the intro to new material of the lesson and was evident in the individual exit
tickets students submitted via Socrative at the closing of the lesson.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to

manage your students and the use of digital tools and resources. How and where
will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals, classroom, lab,
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etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while
completing this lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the
Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or trouble-shoot them? Please
note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and
work through the issues that occurred as you implemented and even after the
lesson was completed.
During this lesson, students will work in a number of configurations in order to show
mastery of todays objective. They will begin the day whole group while they are
following along with the intro to new material filling in their guided notes sheets.
They will then transition into small groups for a majority of the class period as they
work on laptops and/or iPads to work on their presentations. Since this is a resource
class reserved for students who receive special education services, there will be no
additional support from a co-teacher etc. The expectations for all transitions as well
as work time will be verbally stated at the beginning, middle, and ending of the lesson
and will be further supported through reminders provided in my Power-Point and in
their group stations.
Technology is utilized quite frequently in my classroom so students already have a
general understanding of the dos and donts as well as how to navigate each tool that
will be used. I also check each laptop/iPad being distributed before my students
arrive to class in order to prevent a technology issue disrupting the learning
environment; however, should that occur, my school houses an IT specialist who is
just a call away as he is down the hall. I have had issues in the past, but his close
proximity has always been beneficial in solving the problem. If for some reason this
was unsuccessful, I have on hand a hard copy of the lesson materials available for

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Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities Describe the researchbased instructional strategies you will use with this lesson. How will your learning
environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the students'
roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis,
evaluation, or creativity levels of Blooms Taxonomy? How can the
technology support your teaching? What authentic, relevant, and meaningful
learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build
knowledge and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to
communicate and collaborate with each other and others? How will you
facilitate the collaboration?

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The first evidence-based activity that will be employed in my lesson plan is a warm
up (do-now) activity. Since it is the first activity of the lesson, the warm up sets the
tone for the entire class period. Allwright (1984) states that warm up activities are
designed to attract students' attention, to help kids put aside distracting thoughts,
and to get them ready to focus individually and as groups on whatever activities
that follows. Utilizing warm ups arouses students curiosity and attention and better
ensures the learning process will take place. This was seen through my do-now
activity which aimed at connecting students background knowledge with the
material that was going to be covered. Students were readily able to answer the
question and were eager to share their answers. This served as a good opening for
the lesson as the students were hooked from the beginning.
The second evidence-based activity that I have used in my lesson plan is small
group practice. In a structured small group, teaching and learning is carefully
structured to allow deep understanding to occur. These groups consist of about four
students of varying abilities and achievement levels (Haager & Klinger, 2006).
Structured small group practice is ideal for classrooms that include students with
learning disabilities, English language learners, and culturally diverse populations.
All participants benefit from diversity: it is the differences among membersdifferences in their talents, skills, perceptions, and thoughts-that make a
cooperative group- such as small group practice- powerful (Johnson & Johnson,
1993). This was a major aspect of todays lesson as students had to work in
collaboration in order to identify the tone and mood of their assigned song. Specific
instructions were provided on how students should work together, the mediums that
should be used, as well as the expectation for their presentations.
The third evidence-based strategy that I will use within my lesson is modeling.
Essentially, modeling is think-alouds which makes learning processes explicit for
students- either verbally and/or in writing- (Kluth, 2010). Modeling is beneficial for
all students, but works especially well with students with Autism, intellectual
disabilities, and learning disabilities. Modeling was utilized during the intro to new
material and guided practice portion of todays lesson. I modeled my thought
process as well as how to complete the provided template in order to support their
inferences with support on tone and mood.
The last evidence-based strategy that will be used in my lesson plan is graphic
devices. Graphic devices are diagrams or pictures that can help students
Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to
accommodate various learning styles and abilities? How will you help students
learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to
provide?)

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According to Hobgood & Ormsby (2011) the practice of differentiating

instruction helps teachers address rigorous standards while responding to the
individual needs of students (p. 1). This concept is one that is very familiar to me
as my current role requires me to differentiate the very content heavy
assignments presented to my students so that they are able to receive the support
they need in order to keep up with a high school curriculum. Accommodating
various students in a classroom is not an easy task; it often takes years of
experience and trial and error to get it right. Differentiation allows teachers to
focus on essential skills in each content area, be responsive to individual
differences, incorporate assessment into instruction, and provide students with
multiple avenues to learning (Hobgood & Ormsby, 2011). I have found that one of
the biggest ways to ensure differentiation is occurring in your classroom is
through the implementation of technology which is evident in todays lesson.
In order to display their understanding of todays standard, students will present
their understanding of the tone and mood of their given song to their classmates.
This will be accomplished using the technology medium Prezi and should include
evidence from their lyrics in order to support their inferences. In order to ensure
differentiation as well as to set all students up for success, groups will be created
based on student ability. Each group will receive a song appropriate to their
current comprehension level, but will all be expected to demonstrate mastery of
this skill. I have included the groupings below for your review below:
Green Group: Average 8th Grade Comprehension Level
Song: Formation- Beyonce
T.S.- girl (Group Leader)
J.S- boy
J.R.
Yellow Group: Average 5th grade Comprehension Level
Song: Hello- Adele
B.J. (Group Leader)
K.E.
S.W.
J.S.- girl

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon
their work? Will students be asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself?
What will be your process for answering the following questions?
Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
In what ways was this lesson effective?
What went well and why?
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 What did not go well and why?

How would you teach this lesson differently?)
Overall, I would say that my lesson today went pretty well. Students were actively
engaged during the do-now activity which prepared them for the concepts we
reviewed today. Students followed along with my PowerPoint presentation and did a
great job of filling in their guided note worksheet. While walking around the room
during the mini-lesson, I was able to see that students were doing quite well
identifying the tone/mood of the various examples in addition to being able to
provide evidence to support.
Students enjoyed working in their differentiated small groups and demonstrated
mastery of todays objective evident in their group presentations as well as exit
tickets. Again, this was not new material for the students. It was a review of
content they have already learned in their English classes first semester. I looked at
the answers of my students exit tickets and their group presentations in order to
assess whether or not I was successful in my delivery of content. A review of the
exit ticket indicated that two of the students who were in the red group did not
exactly meet the objective. I will conduct a small group re-teach and will walk them
through this process using material aligned to their reading and comprehension
levels next class period.
Data was also used to group the students in todays groups; this was determined by
their reading comprehension levels. This ensured that all students would be able to
access the content and be successful in demonstrating individual mastery. All of the
students completed all assigned tasks without problem, volunteered to read and
answer my clarifying questions, as well as participate during their group
presentation. Students in my classroom understand that I have high expectations
for them as students and their work. They understand that disruptive behavior
wont be tolerated as it disrupts the learning environment. This information is
communicated at the beginning of every lesson and is always posted in the
classroom as a reminder. As a result, there was no need to enter into my behavior
management plan as a simple re-direction was all that was needed to get students
back on track.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned
and/or your experience with implementing this lesson. What advice would you
give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please provide a quality
reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.

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I really enjoyed being able to implement this lesson with my students and
seeing firsthand the benefits of using technology in the classroom. While it
takes additional planning, It truly heightened engagement from my students
also provided them the opportunity to interact with technology tools that they
might not have ever been exposed to. My biggest takeaway from this experience
is that the use of these tools truly made me feel like a facilitator of learning as I
watched my students navigate through their individual lyrics to make their
inferences on the tone and mood. Yes, they called me over to ensure they were
thinking about the songs in the correct way, but for the most part they did the
heavy lifting which is something that every teacher would like to be true of their
classrooms.
Before taking this class at Kennesaw, technology was a tool that was used with
my students but it wasnt something that I truly saw great value in. Sure we
used PowerPoint and iPads, but I wouldnt say that it was a practice evident in
my everyday practice. The source of this was a lack of understanding of the
various tools available to my students to master standards but could also assist
me in analyzing and making sense of data. As a special education teacher, the
opportunities to accommodate my students are endless; however, I didnt realize
that the same is true for students I support who dont receive special education
services. I am grateful for this experience as it has forced me to continue to
search for new tools to use with my students. My kids are more engaged during
lessons and even volunteer to use certain tools theyve been exposed to in order
References:
Allwright, R. (1984). The importance of interaction in classroom language
learning. Applied Linguistics, 5(2), 156-171.
Haager, D., & Klingner, J. K. (2006). Differentiating Instruction in Inclusive
Classrooms: The Special Educators Guide. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Hobgood, B., & Ormsby, L. (2011). Inclusion in the 21st-century classroom:
Differentiating with technology. Retrieved March 09, 2016, from
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/every-learner/6776
Kluth, P. (2010). Youre going to love this kid!: Teaching Students with
Autism in the Inclusive Classroom (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brooks
Publishing Co.
Lenz, B. K., & Deshler, D. D. (2004). Teaching Content to All: Evidence-Based
Inclusive Practices in Middle and Secondary Schools. Boston: Allyn and Bacon
Socrative (2016). Retrieved from http://socrative.com/
Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2014). Tools that make a difference. Web 2.0 Howto for Educators (pp. 255-328). Eugene, OR: International Society for
Technology in Education.
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