LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

A. The following information should be included in the header of the lesson plan:
Meghan Tomasi
March 22, 2017
March 15, 2017
TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON
Comprehension Lesson

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
Learning cause and effect is the next comprehension lesson in their curriculum. Students are
also reading Rump, which is a book about Rumpelstiltskin that is from a different viewpoint; it is a
different version of the story altogether. Because of this, I thought it would be appropriate to read the
original Rumpelstiltskin story to students for this lesson so that they can also learn about the different
perspectives stories in which stories are told.

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand what are the broad
generalizations the students should
begin to develop? (These are
typically difficult to assess in one
lesson.)
Students will begin to understand
what cause and effect means and
how to recognize cause and effect
relationships while reading.
Know what are the facts, rules,
specific data the students will gain
through this lesson? (These knows
must be assessed in your lesson.)
Students will know how to define
cause and effect and apply these
definitions to their reading.
Do what are the specific thinking
behaviors students will be able to do
through this lesson? (These will also
be assessed in your lesson.)
Students will listen to my read
aloud of Rumpelstiltskin and be
able to determine different cause
and effect instances in the story.

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
My assessment of students will be their contribution to the discussion after the read aloud. I
will observe which students participate in the discussion the most effectively and will see, through
their own observations and conclusions of the story, which students can correctly identify and explain
cause and effect situations within the story.

E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL STANDARDS if required)

4.4.a) Use context to clarify meanings of unfamiliar words.
4.4.d) Develop vocabulary by listening to and reading a variety of texts.
4.4.e) Use vocabulary from other content areas.
4.5.j) Identify cause and effect relationships.
4.5.k) Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension.
4.6.f) Draw conclusions and make simple inferences using textual information as support.
4.6.g) Distinguish between cause and effect.
4.6.j) Identify new information gained from reading.
4.6.k) Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension.
F. MATERIALS NEEDED
The book Rumpelstiltskin Retold and Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (provided by me)
Optional:
The book I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson (provided by me)
The book Newt by Matt Novak (provided by me)
The books If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff (provided by me)

G. PROCEDURE
This lesson is designed to take only 15-20 min. The optional books included in Section F of the
lesson plan were made optional because this lesson is very flexible in both how it is conducted and in
 its length. The book Rumpelstiltskin can be traded out for any of the optional books listed (or any
others the teacher would like to use as a substitute), and the optional books can be added to the end of
this lesson plan to extend the lesson, so as to provide more examples of cause and effect
comprehension within books for either the class as a whole or a small group of students.
Preparation of the learning environment (if required)
No preparation is required for this lesson
Engage -Introduction of the lesson
To begin the lesson, I will take only a couple of minutes to explain to students what cause and effect is.
I will present students with the words cause and effect, and ask students to define this concept/these words to me; if
students answer correctly by saying that cause is an event that happens and effect is what happens next because of
that event, then I will continue by giving an example. If students are unable to provide the correct answer, I will give
them the answer before providing an example
An example could be:
o Cause: I am thirsty
o Effect: I get a drink of water
Another way to explain cause and effect to students is to put the cause and effect in one sentence:
Because I am thirsty, I will get some water.
o cause comes before what happens next
Implementation of the lesson (specific procedures and directions for teacher and students)
The main part of the lesson is simply a read aloud of Rumpelstiltskin
Closure
To close the lesson, I will have a discussion with students about what we just read. I will go through each page (or
paragraph depending on the amount of cause and effect instances brought up throughout the story) and have students
point out to me what event on that page/paragraph could be considered cause and effect, and then to explain which part
is cause and which part is effect.
o example: on the second page first paragraph, the CAUSE is that the miller wants to impress the king and the EFFECT
is that the miller tells the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold
o example: on the second page second paragraph, the CAUSE is that the king has a passion for gold and the EFFECT is
that the king orders the miller to send his daughter to the castle
We will do this until we reach the last page of the book
Clean-up (if required)
No clean-up required

H. DIFFERENTIATION
This lesson has many ways it could be differentiated to fit all students. Because the students I
will be working with are at a large range of levels, my main differentiation to the lesson will be to
either slow down the lesson or to add more to the end to extend it; this is to fit the time allotted me for
the lesson. Sometimes these students fly through my lessons and I need to come up with something for
them to do with remaining time left, and sometimes what I have planned is too much and we backtrack
in order to fully understand the concept. For this particular lesson, either we will extend the discussion
after the read aloud to take the entire time so that students can fully understand cause and effect events
within just one book, or if students are quick to understand, I will choose one of the other optional
books listed and we will repeat the activity with a different book. This will allow students to rethink
about what they have just learned with the first book and change their train of thought to fit the events
that occur in a completely different story. Out of all of the books listed in Section F, Rumpelstiltskin
is the most challenging to read and apply cause and effect to. This was done on purpose because the
main lesson will then present students with a challenge; extending the lesson with an easier book will
allow students to quickly recognize what they may have had more difficulty recognizing with the first
book. At the beginning of the lesson students are more engaged and willing to participate, so by
having a challenge at the beginning that is more difficult but very possible to overcome and then
having an easier book at the end for students to finish off with, students will get the most out of the
lesson.
Another part to the lesson that could be added on or could be used to replace the read aloud of
a second book is to use the two books by Laura Numeroff in a group activity; this would work better
in small groups rather than with an entire class. Students could be split into two groups with each
 group getting one of the two books (either If You Give a Mouse a Cookie or If You Give a Pig a
Pancake). The groups could then work together to both read the book and make a list of cause and
effect situations that occur in the book, such as the cause being giving a mouse a cookie and the effect
being the mouse wanting a glass of milk. This activity would depend on the level of understanding by
students on this subject matter.

I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Students may not be able to connect cause and effect with the book Rumpelstiltskin; if
students are truly struggling with this first book in the beginning of the discussion, I will skip the rest
of the time for discussion on this book and move right into an easier book. This way, the time allotted
for the first book can be transferred to the second easier book and students will have more time to talk
about what they see and understand.
 Lesson Implementation Reflection
As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, think about the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to
guide your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why you made
them.
This lesson went much more successfully than my word study lesson; I learned rather quickly from the
previous lesson that if I over-prepared then I would not have as much trouble with the timing in my lesson.
Because of this, I really did not have to change anything and things went according to my plan. I did use a
lot of my extra planning to fill out the time of my lesson because it ran a little longer than it should have
again, but because I had my extra planning I was able to keep the students busy for the entire amount of
time.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student learning? Did they learn?
Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that your conclusions are valid?
My assessment was solely observational; I observed students as they contributed to our discussions
and listened as they worked with each other using the books I had provided. Again, my lesson was more of
a review than an introduction of new concepts, but the students went above and beyond in their reasoning
of cause and effect. They found more causes and effects on each page I read them than I had expected, and
many of their examples were ones that I had not thought of myself. They were very engaged throughout
the entire lesson and did not want to stop reading when time was up. One student had a small amount of
trouble in the very beginning of the lesson because she considered the summary of the page to be the cause
and effect; this way of thinking was partly true because something would occur and then something would
happen because of that occurrence, but because of this, she would end up combining multiple cause and
effect instances into one. By the end of the lesson, however, she better understood what made up a cause
and its effect and was able to provide good examples from the books we were reading.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more thorough
way if you were to teach this lesson again.
One way I could have adjusted my lesson to be more PBL would have been to have students find their
own books to read and then work with one another to find the causes and effects within their own books.
They could then create some sort of short presentation or product from this activity by explaining to others
the examples they found in their books, or they could even write their own short stories that include cause
and effect situations, share their stories with their peers, and then let the peers find the cause and effect
situations within the story.

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom teacher?
Maybe summarization of a story could come next. Because one of the students struggled near the
beginning of the lesson with the difference between a cause and effect situation and the summarization of
the page/story, the next lesson could be on what exactly a summary is and how it differs with cause and
effect.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young children as
learners?
I had the fact reinforced that if students are not constantly busy with an activity or discussion, they are
much more likely to get distracted or out of control. Compared to my word study lesson, this
comprehension lesson ran much more smoothly because I always had something for the students to think
about or work on. Because I over-prepared, the students were not left with too much down time to get off
topic or begin misbehaving. I also picked activities (books) that were more interesting and engaging with
the students so that they wanted to pay attention and were not trying to get off topic.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching?
I had the fact reinforced that students are always going to surprise you with their ways of thinking or
their conclusions/answers to your questions. Students are able to contemplate material in ways I would
 never think of and I am constantly learning new ideas or concepts from them that I can then use later to aid
future students that may be thinking the same way. I did not realize how many different causes and effects
there were on just a single page of the story until I began asking for students to contribute to the discussion
and give their cause and effect answers. While I had a few different possible answers I thought of that
students might have, they used up all of my answers and continued to come up with more; many were
much more creative and took into account details from the book(s) that I had not even noticed. This just
proves that teachers can learn just as much, if not more, from their students, that students learn from their
teachers.

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about yourself?
I always learn after my lessons that there is so much I want to add or so many ways I want to improve
the lesson I just led. I always go into the lesson thinking that Ive finally come up with something perfect
to do with my students; I go in thinking that what I have come up with needs no more improvement and
that it will work exactly like I have planned. Every time I finish a lesson I am proven wrong. No one truly
knows how a lesson will go until they actually teach it, and even if they teach the same lesson a thousand
times to thousands of students, the lesson could go differently each time because so many variables go into
how a lesson will turn out, such as who the students are you are teaching, the materials you have available,
even something as simple as what day of the week/year it is can affect how the lesson will turn out. I learn
time and time again that even though the lesson may go well or even perfectly, there are always changes I
want to make to them at the end of the day to make them even better.