LESSON PLAN 1: Mae Jemison - Read Aloud

Learning Segment Focus or Big Idea:

This lesson plan is part of a 5-day unit for Mae Jemison. The big idea is for students to learn about Mae
Jemison and how she persevered in her life goals to achieve her dream of becoming an astronaut. After
attaining her dream, she continued to dream bigger and accomplish other goals. The big idea is for
kindergartners to be exposed to the concept of hard work, determination, and setting goals for themselves.

This lesson plan is for Day 1 of the 5-day unit. The main learning focus for this particular lesson plan
involves comprehension and understanding key points and supporting details in a nonfiction biography.

Grade: K Content Area: English Language Arts and Social Studies

Time Allotted: 30 minutes Classroom organization:

Whole group instruction begins on the carpet for read aloud; doc camera is
positioned so that teacher can sit close to students and students can see
the book on the screen clearly.

After the read aloud, students go to their seats to write on post-its to give
feedback and stick on poster.

Resources and materials:

Chart paper for KWL poster, markers, doc camera, pointer
At round tables in shared caddies: Post-its, fine-point markers

ae Jemison. North Mankato, MN: Capstone

Book referenced for this lesson plan: Colins, L. (2014). M
Press.

Suggested books:
Calkhoven, L. (2016). You Should Meet Mae Jemison. New York, NY: Simon Spotlight.
Colins, L. (2014). Mae Jemison. North Mankato, MN: Capstone Press.
Shepherd, J. (2015). Rookie Biographies Mae Jemison. China: Childrens Press.

You can use any of the suggested books or other biographical books about Mae Jemison that is at the right
instructional level for your students.

Content Standard(s):
HSSCS. K.1.2.: Learn examples of honesty, courage, determination, individual responsibility, and
patriotism in American and world history from stories and folklore.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.1: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in
a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.2: With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a
text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.3: With prompting and support, describe the connection between two
individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.8: With prompting and support, identify the reasons an author gives to support
points in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.2: Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally
or through other media by asking and answering questions about key details and requesting clarification if
something is not understood.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.3: Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify
something that is not understood.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.4: Describe familiar people, places, things, and events and, with prompting
and support, provide additional detail.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.6: Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.

Specific Academic Learning Objectives:

What do you want students to learn in this lesson? Students will learn:

Students will learn who Mae Jemison is and the key events in her life that led her to become a doctor and
an astronaut.

What should students be able to do after the lesson? Students will be able to:

Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the key details in an informational text through
speaking and writing. Students will be able to identify 2 or more important facts or events in Mae Jemisons
life. Students will be able to identify a picture, word, or sentence from the text to support one of the facts
they stated.

In terms of differentiation, the table below identifies what I expect students will be able to do after this
lesson:
What all students will be able to do State verbally 2 major facts about Mae Jemison and be able to
identify at least 1 supporting detail (text based evidence)

What most students will be able to do State verbally and in writing or drawing, 3 major facts about
Mae Jemison and be able to to identify at least 1 supporting
detail from the text

What some students will be able to do State verbally and in writing more than 3 facts about Mae
Jemison and be able to identify more than 1 supporting detail
from the text

Prerequisites:
What skills, knowledge and prior experience do students need for this lesson?

Students will need to be able to sit on the carpet and actively listen during the read aloud. Students will
need to conform to appropriate carpet behavior and expectations. Students should know the difference
between fiction and nonfiction text. This unit is intended for the 2nd or 3rd trimester, so students should
have been previously taught about fiction and nonfiction. Students should also know what a biography is
based on previous exposure to reading short biographies about Sacagawea, Sitting Bull, George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ruby Bridges and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Students will need to know what a KWL chart is for this lesson. In our class, I use the KWL chart differently,
K is for what they students already know (background knowledge, tap into their interests, see what
connections they can make). The W column is for what students want to learn. Students can add their
own comments or questions under the W column because that is what they are interested in and want to
know more about. Additionally, under the W column, I write down the learning target for what we want to
learn from this lesson. This column is prefilled with an I can statement. For this particular lesson, the
learning target will be written as: I can tell 3 important facts about Mae Jemison. I can find a picture, word,
or sentence from the book to support one of my facts.

We have been using this version of the KWL chart for about 3 months now so this will not be a new strategy
for the class. Additionally, students will need to understand the concept between fact vs. opinion. This was
addressed in Writers workshop as we did a unit on opinion writing with supporting details. Students will also
need to have background knowledge of phonemic awareness, phonics, and understand the concept of
words in sentences.

How will you determine whether students have these?

Carpet behavior and expectations are fundamental skills taught on the first day of kindergarten and are
reinforced throughout the school year. Consistency and firm reminders for behavior and expectations
should be routinely monitored by the teacher and reinforced. To determine whether students understand
between fiction and nonfiction, the 1st trimester assessments involved asking students to explain what
fiction and nonfiction meant. If students did not meet this expectation for the 1st trimester assessment,
small groups were pulled for reteaching. Phonemic awareness and phonics are taught daily and should be
assessed formatively and summatively throughout the school year to make sure students are able to write
letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).

How will you connect to students' interests, backgrounds, strengths and needs, including their
cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic differences?

One way in which I can ensure recognition of students' contributions is to use the KWL chart as described
previously. At the beginning before the read aloud, I will ask students what they know about Mae Jemison;
the simplest way to do this is to brainstorm a multitude of associations with the topic. As a next step, the
class can discuss (and connect with lines) making a web of relationships on the K column of the KWL chart.
I can also ask students what they want to know and add those comments to the W column on the KWL
chart. Although I will have my pre-filled I can statements under the the W column, we can still add to it if
students come up with their own questions. Students' questions can serve as guides for research. Students
are more likely to be interested when they begin with their own real questions. Those real questions lead
them on an ever-widening path of investigation. Using the KWL chart in this different manner will help to
connect to students backgrounds and interests as they will be given the opportunity to share their thinking
and background knowledge prior to the read aloud.

Academic language demands:

What academic language is used in the lesson? (Vocabulary, language structure and conventions,
genres, symbols, etc.)

Genre: Nonfiction, biography

Convention: Students should be able to write letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds
(phonemes).

Vocabulary:
 Word Definition

astronaut Person who travels into space in a spacecraft

astronomy Study of space and objects in space (such as the moon and stars)

crew Team of people who work together

doctor A qualified person of medicine who takes care of people

experiment A scientific test to see the effect of something

NASA A U.S. government agency that does research on space

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

professor A teacher teaching in a college or university

scientist A person who studies or investigates a field of science and does scientific work

Strategies to help students understand vocabulary:

Visual cues for vocabulary
Students act out meaning of certain vocabulary words
Students explain the word to each other:
Students are explicitly taught the definition and then will need to restate the meaning
chorally, and verbally in pairs
Mentor texts and examples in previous lessons

Students have been exposed to some of these vocabulary terms in previous lessons in social studies and
science (scientist, professor, astronaut, experiment), as well as the concept of fact vs. opinion, and how to
support an opinion with examples. We will also do a vocabulary work in the morning prior to this lesson
about the vocabulary terms.

What are the language demands of the task? Please address receptive (listening, reading) and
productive (speaking, writing) skills.

Students will use both receptive and productive skills in this lesson. They will need to be active listeners
during the read aloud and may choose to read along if there are words that they can decode easily
(receptive). Students will need to respond orally either through choral response, raising hands, or
Think-Pair-Share and write on their own post-its about what they learned after the reading (productive).

Accommodations (to ensure all students have access to the curriculum):

How will you make the academic language accessible to all students?
How will address the specific needs of your English learners?
How will you address the specific needs of your students with special needs?

In the morning, we will do a word work activity that focuses on the vocabulary terms used for this lesson. To
ensure all students know the academic language, I will write the words on the whiteboard, project a visual
cue and define the term. This will also help English learners to hear the verbal definition and see a visual
cue. Additionally, we will add body movements (TPR) for the words: astronomy, hardworking, and crew.
This will address the specific needs of all students and those with special needs as it involves whole brain
teaching with kinesthetics. English learners will also sit closer to the teacher on the carpet and their table
seats are closer to the front of the classroom.
Assessment:
What evidence of student learning will you collect?

Formative assessment: During the read aloud, I will ask questions about the key events in Mae Jemisons
life and students will get a chance to respond through Think-Pair-Share, raising hands, and choral
response. This will serve as a quick on the spot way to know if the students are able to identify 3 facts about
Mae Jemison.
Another assessment done at the closing of the lesson will involve students writing on their post-its while at
their seats and then going to the poster to stick their post-its under the L column on the KWL chart. English
learners who are still struggling to write phonemes may choose to draw a picture to express their thinking.
Drawing will also be an option for special needs students who are below benchmark but are able to express
their learning through pictures and/or verbal communication.

How will you use this evidence?

I can read the post-its to check for understanding. Latter on the during the day, we can sort and classify the
post-its into categories so that it serves as a sorting and classifying activity while helping students to review
and retain the information from this lesson. I can also see where there are gaps in understanding and
address them during the afternoon while we do the sorting and classifying post-it activity together.

What criteria will you use to interpret the evidence?

Since the information involved in this lesson is nonfiction, the evidence will be straightforward in terms that
the important information about Mae Jemisons life that the student chooses to write about must be:
Factual / true
Based on text evidence from the book, such as a picture, word, or sentence

How will the evidence affect your next steps in teaching?

If students are having difficulty with connecting their fact with a supporting detail, I will continue to model the
strategy and explicitly demonstrate how to use text based evidence to support my fact about Mae Jemison.
I will also model how to use text based evidence to support my opinion as an extension to the lesson if all of
the students demonstrate the learning target in a short amount of time.

Instructional Sequence:

Set or introduction:
Time How will you begin the lesson? How will you engage and motivate learners, connect to prior
experience, activate prior knowledge and/or share learning outcomes?

5 mins
[Students are sitting on carpet, I will sit next to them displaying the book on the doc cam.]
I will begin the lesson by showing the students the cover of the book and do a picture walk. I
will ask students to look at the pictures and think what might this book be about?

[KWL chart will be hanging on whiteboard, markers are accessible]

I will ask students what they know from looking at the pictures. This will give students a chance
to express their background knowledge and engage them in oral sharing. I will note their
comments under the K column and share the pen with students who are ready to write
phonemes and letters for sounds they hear. We will also add any questions students want to
learn under the W column.
15 mins Developing Content/Body of Lesson: What instructional strategies and learning tasks will
you use in the main part of the lesson?

[Read the book and display the book under the doc cam so that all students will be able to see
the words, follow along, and see the pictures.]

1. This is the front cover, this is the back cover, this is the spine
2. (Back to the front cover) The title of this book is Mae Jemison
a. Point to each word as you read aloud
3. Written by Luke Colins
a. Point to each word as you read aloud
4. (Turn to title page) This is the title page
5. Look at this page, it is the Table of Contents
a. It can help us quickly find information if we do not have time to read the whole
book
b. But today we are reading the entire
6. Im excited to learn about Mae Jemison
a. I wonder if we can remember at least 2 important facts about her
b. Lets keep count on our fingers
c. At this point, pull in an appropriate comment that students added under the W
column and say, I wonder if we will find our answer about XX
7. Lets activate our listening powers
a. Both hands to ears and do the ear cup signal
8. I can learn 2 facts about Mae Jemison, thats our learning target. Does this mean we
cant learn more? Thats right, we can always add one more if we really focus but lets
make sure *everyone* remembers 2 important facts about Mae Jemison at the end of
this lesson.
9. Whos ready to get started on our reading adventure? Lets read carefully like detectives
and uncover why Mae Jemison is important.

Read pages 5-11.

10. Look at this picture, is this Mae Jemison? Lets read this caption. Its a box with a
description of the picture.
11. I understand now, its a picture of Sally Ride, and look at this sentence here [...first U.S.
woman] and read this sentence after it carefully.
12. Why do you think the author included something about Sally Ride when this biography is
about Mae Jemison?

[It is important that you point this part out because you will ask a critical thinking question about
this information for the independent practice.]

Have students do a Think-Pair-Share. Listen in on students dialogue. Make sure for the share
part that the partner says what the other partner said.

13. Look class, do you notice something here? [Point out the timeline that runs across from
pages 10-11] Take 2 hands if raised.
14. Yes, its called a timeline. It shows the year when something important happens in
Jemisons life. [Read the 3 descriptions]
 15. The author put the year and the information on the timeline. Do you notice its not every
single thing that happened to Jemison? Why do you think theres just three here?
[Clearly explain that the timeline has important milestones/events in Jemisons life. Make
connection with students using inquiry to arrive at the conclusion that the timeline helps
the reader to identify key details]
16. So students, maybe we should pay extra attention to this timeline. What do you think?

Read page 13 and point out the timeline again. [Note that depending on your students, some
may see the pattern that when a new year is added to the timeline the box is blue. I have 2
students who are very acute with recognizing patterns and I know one of them will raise their
hand here] If your students do not notice this pattern, then explicitly point it out and explain it to
the students.

Modeling:
17. Oh thats interesting. Let me read that part again, She was not chosen at first...tried
again.
18. Wow, so she wanted to be an astronaut but was a doctor first. She had to apply to the
NASA program twice because she was not selected the first time. Did she give up on
her dream?

Discussion with students about determination and following through with actions to accomplish
goals.

19. So I think that is a *big* fact about Jemison. See the blue box for the year 1987? Lets
read that information together, becomes astronaut at NASA
20. So that is 1 important fact that I want to remember about Jemison
21. Lets all say this together: Jemison trained to be an astronaut
22. That is an important event in Jemisons life. Everyone show me 1 finger. Now lets say
that together again: Jemison trained to be an astronaut
23. She didnt just suddenly become an astronaut once she was accepted. She had to train
and practice. She had to work hard to be an astronaut.
24. I see here in this sentence [point to the sentence: In 1987 Mae was picked by NASA.]
Ok, so I see that sentence supports the information here [point to timeline] about
Jemison becoming an astronaut.
25. Do you see how I can say one important detail about Jemison, Jemison trained to be an
astronaut. See how I can show you *right* here [point to the timeline and the 2
sentences while talking] where it tells me this in the book? The text here supports my
statement, Jemison trained to be an astronaut.
26. Im going to write down that fact that we learned here on our KWL chart under our L
column so show that we learned that, Jemison trained to be an astronaut.
27. Since this is going on our chart, Im not going to write a complete sentence, Ill just write:
Trained to be an astronaut
28. And to be extra safe, Im going to write down the page number next to that so if I am
asked how do I know this, I can go to the page and point to the timeline and the
sentences.

Do all of this and model exactly how to write on post-it note, adding the page number, and
sticking the note under the L column on the KWL chart.
Read through the end of page 15.

Guided Practice:
29. Do you think this part is important? Should we read this again? ...became the
first...woman...space
30. Who thinks we should put up another finger? Ok, lets show 2 fingers. We found
another important event in Jemisons life!

Inquiry process with students so that they can come up with a fact in their own words.
Suggestion: Jemison became the first African-American woman to go into space.
Choral response the fact that the class agrees upon.

31. Can someone tell or show me how you know this?

Student can answer verbally, or come up and point to the timeline box, picture, or the sentence
on page 15.

32. Who can show me or tell me differently how you know this fact?

Student can answer verbally, or come up and point to a different evidence on the page. This is
to demonstrate one more reinforcement for students to use text based evidence. [This strategy
has been shown 3 times now.]

33. That was great readers! You are really studying the pictures, the timeline, and sentences
to make sure your fact is true and that you can show to someone how you got that
information. Great detective work, reading sleuths!
34. So we learned something new, what should we do next? [Gesture to KWL chart to help
students]

Student should answer we add another post-it to the chart.

35. Yes! What should I write on the post-it. [Take acceptable versions, note it does not
have to be a complete sentence]
36. Did we need to add anything else to our sticky?

Student should say the page number(s) for text based evidence but if the whole class forgot,
remind them by asking: What should we add to our post-it if someone asks you, hey, how do
you know that?

Add the page number(s) on post-it and point to the text based evidence that the other 2
students orally or physically pointed out earlier.

Finish reading the book. Pause for inquiry process if students raise hands to point additional
facts.

37. Wow, that was an interesting biography about Mae Jemison. How many facts did learn
about her? [You should everyone show you at least 2 fingers on their chest]
38. You know how we always do a picture walk when we do a read aloud? Well, this time,
Id like to do another quick picture walk to review the facts we learned.
 Pause on pages 10 and 11 and point out the picture of Sally Ride and the last 2 sentences.
Remember, you are setting up students for success for the Independent practice. Pause and
point to the text based evidence for the 2 facts you identified as a class.

39. Reading sleuths you did great detective work. Now you will go to your seats and do one
more search from our reading.
40. Lets do careful high knee lifts when we walk quietly back to our seats. Lift those knees
high like youre reaching for the sky!

10 mins Closure:
How will learners summarize or reflect on what they learned (for example, share work, share a
strategy, share a process, discuss what they learned, raise a new question)?

Collaborative / Independent Practice:

Students are at their seats and will each get one post-it and a marker from the caddy in the
middle of their round tables.

Project the book and show pages 10 and 11 on the screen. Students may work collaboratively
or independently (their choice) to answer the following question:
Jemison went to college to become a doctor before she became an astronaut. What happened
to help Jemison realize she wanted to travel into space?

Students may talk and collaborative with their tablemates. Teacher should circle around the
class and listen and check for understanding. Every student will need to write or draw on the
post-it and come up to the front of the class to stick on the L column of the KWL chart. Teacher
use sand timer so that whole class can see and keep track of time and make sure to stick their
post-its on the chart in time.

Teacher will read students answers and have quick whole class discussion of key ideas and
details. Ask for supporting text based evidence. Call out if students remembered to put the
page number. If whole class forgot to add the page number or reference a text based evidence,
ask students to identify and assist accordingly.

5-10 Extension (at a later time in the day, after recess or end of day)
minutes
Sort and classify post-its from the KWL chart

Teacher and students read the post-its together and try to find common answers to group
together on the chart.

The emphasis is to read the post-its and make connections to figure out how to sort the
responses into appropriate categories.

This is a great way to review content learned and also to help students think deeper into their
answers and find similarities and differences.