Whole Group Shared Reading Lesson Plan Template

Name: Millie Kidder-Goshorn

Date: April 1st, 2015

Classroom Location/Teacher: Cumberland Middle School ;

8th grade ; Mrs. Blevins Marble
Curriculum Standards

Topic/Subject: Making Inferences

SOL(s):
8.5 The student will read and analyze a variety of fictional texts, narrative nonfiction, and
poetry.
b) Make inferences and draw conclusions based on explicit and implied information using
evidence from text as support.
Essential Question(s):
How do students make inferences when reading riddles and poems?
Lesson Objectives: A statement or statements of what the students will be able to do as a
result of the lesson. Need to be observable and measurable.(ABCD format)
The students will be able to make inferences while reading riddles and a poem, 80% of the
time.

Assessment of Objectives: Describe how you will collect evidence that individual students
have indeed met the lesson objective(s). These need to be tied to the degree or criteria from
your objectives.
The teacher will be observant and informally assessing students during whole group
discussions.
The teacher will be monitoring students and checking on understanding while working in
partners and individually.
BEFORE (Content, Viewing or Listening):
Teacher: Focusing attention, laying the groundwork, creating interest, sparking curiosity,
students understand the purpose the why (set a purpose, explicit explanation of
expectations, modeling)
Student: Strategies to obtain prior knowledge, similarities, connections, analogies, think
about thinking metacognition (discussing, organizing, writing, vocabulary)
Before the lesson begins, the teacher will introduce herself and make sure everyone is settled,
quiet and ready to learn. The teacher will ask the class if they know what making an inference
is. The teacher will have pre-made three puzzle pieces that fit together, each in a different
color. On one puzzle piece, a phrase will be written: background knowledge, another will have
authors clues and the third will have making an inference. I will explain how background
knowledge and authors clues mixed together allows for a reader to make an inference. I will
explain background knowledge and what authors clues mean if necessary.

Whole Group Shared Reading Lesson Plan Template

DURING (Content, Viewing or Listening): Strategies for active engagement with new
content, what are students doing while reading, viewing, or listening? (set a purpose,
modeling, discussing, organizing, writing, vocabulary)
The teacher will then redirect the students to the computer and begin an activity on
determining riddles:
http://www.philtulga.com/Riddles.html
Before beginning this activity, the teacher will have a pre-made chart paper with beginning
phrases that the students should use when making an inference. This will help guide the
students and perhaps fill in a gap or fear a student may have when first attempting at making
inferences.
I infer
I think
Maybe
My guess is
Probably
This website provides clues one click at a time. As each clue is shown, the teacher will guide
the student to take the authors clues and mix it with their background knowledge to make an
inference. The teacher will encourage the words to use the beginning phrases as they make
their inferences. The teacher will continue to a new riddle once they have determined the
answer of the present one. After a couple times that the whole group has answered the riddle,
the students will be able to see the whole riddle up until the answer and the teacher will ask
students to turn to a partner at their table and do a quick think-pair-share and will call on
students to provide the answer they think it is and give an inference as to how or why they got
that answer.
The students will then be instructed to work at their group tables. The teacher will pass out a
poem, without the title. The teacher will first ask the students if they know, what a stanza is.
The teacher will explain what a stanza is or restate an answer that a student has provided for
clarification. The teacher will tell the students that they will circle one or two lines in each
stanza and on the right hand side, make an inference. (The poem is on the left side, so lines
will be drawn on the right side for students to write their inference). The students will work
individually but the teacher will check in with the students after each stanza. The teacher will
be reading the stanzas aloud and asking for the students to follow along. At the end of the
poem, each student will have time to determine what the poem is describing and the class will
discuss. (This poem is about the month, January, or winter)

AFTER (Content, Viewing or Listening): How will students apply new knowledge? How will
students check their understanding? How will students be prompted to reflect on what they
have learned? How will students be prompted to reflect on how they learned it?
The teacher will give each student a piece of paper that is split in half. On the top half, the
students will be asked to draw a visual for inferencing. (Ex: puzzle pieces). The teacher will
propose and have students discuss what and why they chose that visual. On the bottom half,

Whole Group Shared Reading Lesson Plan Template

the students will be asked to write down their three favorite ways to begin an inference
statement.

Rationale: Why teach this lesson in this way? Why give these objectives, are these the BEST
strategies to choose and use? Explain why this sequence of activities leads to cultivating the
behaviors or performing the skills or displaying the knowledge called for by the objectives.
I have chosen to teach this lesson this way because I wanted to do a mixture of direct
instruction, a whole group activity, think-pair-share and an individual activity. I am expecting
to complete the entirety of this lesson in 35-40 minutes, so I think it is essential to model and
show the different ways that the students can interact directly with students, in partners and
individually.
I have chosen to begin with direct instruction because I want to bring the whole group
together and address the topic of making inferences. I want to make sure that they
understand what strategy we are working with. I have created a puzzle piece visual because I
think it is essential to making learning visual. I am also making sure to give the students
beginning phrases that they can refer to throughout the lesson. I want to make their learning
meaningful and it doesnt need to be stunted because they feel nervous or unsure of how to
start an inference statement. As they become more comfortable, these phrases can be taken
away, but for the first lesson, it is important to make this apparent and available.
After direct instruction, the students attention will be changed to the computer. This allows
them to break up their attention. I will be at a different board when I show the puzzle piece
visual and the inference statements. The students will then be working as whole group with a
riddle website. I have chosen this website because it provides clues by clues, with just one
click, it allows for students to see the authors clues directly on a line and then make an
inference. The whole group will complete two riddles together. The riddles are random, so I
never know which one is coming up next, so I will need to quickly gauge when it will be most
effective to ask for inferences from the students. After a couple of riddles together, I will begin
to show the whole riddle except the answer and have the students do a quick pair-share. They
are sitting in groups of four, so partner pairs will work well. If not, groups of three are fine as
well. I just want them to be able to interact with their peers and discuss what they are learning
about.
The students will then work individually with a poem about winter. I will first make sure the
students know what stanzas are. The stanzas will be labeled, 1-4, to be clear about the
stanzas. The students will then be instructed to make an inference for each stanza. I will
monitor the students as they work individually and stop between each stanza or so to make
sure we are doing well and give students a chance to share. At the end, I will ask the students
to tell me what the poem is describing.
Once this activity is completed, the students will be given the opportunity to create their own
visual and write down the beginning inference phrases. The teacher will monitor this and give
students a chance to socialize and interact. I will be continuously monitoring and observing
students and how they are taking in the information. This class is an inclusion class, so I plan

Whole Group Shared Reading Lesson Plan Template

to be aware and alert of that and modify whenever necessary.