Problems and Solutions

Grade/Subject: 3/ELA

Unit: Story Telling

Lesson Duration: 1:30

OUTCOMES FROM ALBERTA PROGRAM OF STUDIES

General Learning Outcomes:

Understand techniques and elements

Specific Learning Outcomes:

Include events, setting and characters when summarizing or retelling oral, print or other media
texts.
draft ideas and information into short paragraphs, with topic and supporting sentences
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Students will identify the problem and solution in animated shorts.

ASSESSMENTS
Observations:
Observation of students awnsers during
class discussion.
Observation during students work time.

Key Questions:
What are the four main elements to a
story?
Character, Setting, Problem, Solution.
Why is it important to have a problem in a
story?
Why is it important to have a solution?

Products/Performances:

LEARNING RESOURCES CONSULTED

Resource #1: Pinterest
Resource #2: http://education.alberta.ca/media/450519/elak-9.pdf

MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT

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SMARTboard
Computer

PROCEDURE
Introduction (__min.):
Attention Grabber:
Today we are going to watch some short movies.
Assessment of Prior Knowledge:
What elements are needed to make a story?
Expectations for Learning and Behaviour:
Students will remain silent through the videos.
Students will participate in classroom discussions
students will write silently during writing activity.
Advance Organizer/Agenda:
Discussions
Videos
Writting
Transition to Body:
After you have gotten a semblance of character, setting, problem, and solution put them on the board and
explain that we are just going to focus on problem and solution.
Body (__min.):

Learning Activity #1:

Ask what a problem is, in a story?
Explain that a problem can be as small as being hungry or as big as the end of the world.
Why is it important to have a problem in a story?
Because otherwise it would be boring.
What is a solution?
The end of a problem.
Why is it important to have a solution?
Because it brings conclusion to a story.
Ask who has seen Finding Nemo.
Explain that now we are going to watch the trailer, and that you want them to look for the problem and a
possible solution.
Put The trailer on the smartboard, ask for silence, turn off the lights, play the trailer.
Ask students what the problem was in the video.
Ask students how they solved it.
Ask what would happen if there wasn't a problem in the video.
Assessments/Differentiation:

Observe Student answers during discussions.

Learning Activity #2:

Explain that now we are going to do the same thing but with some of Pixar's animated short films.
Put on the power of teamwork video.
Pause between each thirty second clip.
Turn on the lights
Ask what the problem was for each, and how the characters solved it.
Turn off the lights.
Explain that now we are watching a video called Kiwi, which will be a little harder to pull the problem out of.
Put on Kiwi.
Turn on the lights
Ask students what the problem was?
How did the kiwi fix it?
Assessments/Differentiation:

Observe Student answers during discussions.

Learning Activity #3:

Explain that for the next video, we are going to do a little writing activity.
Explain that the things they should be looking for are the problem, the solution, and the step to get there.
Turn off the lights and play the video Partly Cloudy.
Turn on the lights
Ask students what the problem was.
How did they know?
Ask students what the solution was.
On the board put down the following criteria:
A topic sentence describing the problem
At least 3 supporting sentences telling us how they knew it was the problem
A conclusion sentence telling us the solution.
On the SMARTboard write an exemplar which will be written on the stop to allow students to see you
editing.
Explain that once students have finished their rough draft they should edit it then bring it to me for myself to
edit before doing the good copy.
Allow students to work on paragraphs till the end of class.
Assessments/Differentiation:

Good copy of paragraphs

Closure ( __min.):
Consolidation/Assessment of Learning:
Today we learned about problems and solutions.

Feedback From Students:

Why do we need problems?
Who thinks they can find a problem in their day to day life now?
Feedback To Students:
Thank te students for their insight in finding the problems in those videos.
Transition To Next Lesson:
Next lesson we will continue working on storytelling.

Reflection
This is the lesson in which I've gotten the most engagement from students. I think this is
because of the kid culture which I incorporated. Students were very excited when I mentioned the
movie Finding Nemo, and were excited to participate in the learning activities surrounding these
videos. Furthermore, I felt that students were very happy to participate in the discussions arround the
videos, they were eager to answer questions. I think that this was an effective and fun way of
introducing problems and solutions. I think I might have lost some students when it came time for
writing, this has been a common issue of mine. A future strategy which I will have to try is to give
students a time limit on writing so they feel pressure to finish.
I could tell students had learned what I intended them to. This is mainly because of their
responses to the Partly Cloudy video, but also due to their discussion surrounding the other videos. I
think that without the writing activity my students would not have absorbed the material and just
remembered the videos. Thus although the writing activity made some of my students lose interest I
feel it was essential in order to increase understanding. I think that I will be able to check for
understanding further in future lessons when products are being created by students. I also liked how
my writing activity touched on the subject which we had been covering previously letting my students
apply this knowledge again.
For this lesson I didn't have to change much. My original lesson plan ended up going almost
like planned, with minimal changes. I was hoping students would have a chance to finish their
paragraphs, but they didn't have time, this was not something which I had to change but rather
something which didn't go according to plan.
If I had to do this lesson again, I would make my expectations of behavior more clear to
students before watching the videos. In the excitement some of my students began talking during the
videos, this could have been avoided with some clearer directions. One of the other things which I
would do different is I would put either a time limit on the writing activity, or invite students to present
once they were finished. I think this would motivate students to finish faster.
Over all this was a good lesson. Students paid serious attention to the videos, and it was well suited for
the end of the week when students are overly rambunctious.