I.     Overview of the Lesson:

A.    10/13/2011

B.    15-20 minutes

C.   Sienna Mae Heath

D.   First Grade, Reading, Comprehension/Summarizing

II.     Big Idea (major understanding): Comprehension requires and enhances critical thinking and is constructed through the intentional interaction between reader and text.

III.     Essential Question: How do we think while reading in order to understand and respond?

IV.     Pennsylvania State Standard: Demonstrate listening and reading comprehension / understanding before reading, during reading, and after reading through strategies such as think aloud, retelling, summarizing, connecting to prior knowledge and non-linguistic representations.

V.     General Objective: Essential ideas, details, and literary elements inform meaning.

VI.     Behavioral Objective: Identify main idea, characters, topics, events, setting, and/or plot.

VII.     Instructional Materials

A.    Bemelmans, L. (1997). Madeline's rescue. New York, NY: Penguin Group: Puffin Books.

B.    Graphic Organizers (SWBS)

C.   Teacher Copy of Graphic Organizers

D.   Note Cards for Group Division

VIII.     Vocabulary

A.    Summarize

B.    Characters

C.   Motivation/Goal/Events

D.   Problem

E.    Solution

IX.     Procedure

A.    Introduction:

a.    This lesson will teach students how to summarize a story using the SWBS strategy. The teacher(s) will explain the SWBS strategy and its importance.

B.    Motivation:

a.    The teacher(s) will show an excerpt of a video of Madeline’s Rescue. (2:40-3:40)

b.    What elements did you notice in the video?

C.   Development:

a.    Prior to the lesson, students will take slips of colored paper that each has the four words of the SWBS strategy.

b.    The teacher(s) will ask the students to predict what each word stands for.

1.    If the students do not predict correctly, the teacher(s) will explain the parts of the strategy and how they relate to a story as follows: the “S” stands for “Somebody” (characters), the “W” stands for “Wanted” (events/goal/motivation), the “B” stands for “But” (problem), and the “So” stands for (Solution).

c.     The teacher(s) will then introduce Madeline’s Rescue as the focus for the lesson. The teacher(s) will ask students to be aware of the different literary elements of the story while they are listening to the story.

d.    The teacher will instruct students to sit on the floor in a semi circle.

e.    The teacher will read the book to the students.

f.      The teacher(s) pass out the graphic organizers to the students, so that the students will have an organized way of following Madeline’s Rescue as it’s being read.

g.    The teacher(s) will ask students to split into groups that correspond to the word on their card.

h.    The teacher will re-explain the SWBS strategy, using the graphic organizer on the Doc-Cam.

i.      The teacher will acknowledge that the students may have more than one response.

j.      The students will work collaboratively in each of their groups.

k.     The teacher(s) will walk around, guiding the students in the activity.

l.      If time permits, the teacher will write some of the students’ answers in each column of the graphic organizer on the Doc-Cam.

m.  In order to model the strategy effectively, the teacher(s) will instruct the students to verbalize a word from their part of SWBS in order for the whole class to make a sentence, which summarizes part of the story.

n.    The teacher(s) will instruct students to write down one summary sentence, fitting each word in the appropriate column of the graphic organizer.

o.    Students will submit their SWBS charts at the end of the lesson to be graded.

D.   Strategies for diverse learners

a.    For English Language Learners

1.    Students of different linguistic backgrounds will collaborate their vocabulary in order to complete the chart.

b.    For students with disabilities

1.    Students with ADHD can focus on one aspect of the story instead of summarizing the whole story.

c.     For diverse learners in general

1.    Students can draw pictures in order to prove their understanding and knowledge of the activity.

2.    Students who need more assistance in expressing their findings with words will be given additional practice while the other students are silently reading or completing other activities.

3.    The lesson incorporates different modalities of learning, including visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

E.    Summary and Closure

a.    Students will work as a class to form a complete sentence that summarizes part of Madeline’s Rescue.

b.    Students will return to their seats.

c.     “Why is this activity important for reading?”

F.    Assignment

a.    No homework assignment.

G.   Assessment

a.    Students will be assessed through observation of cooperative group work, IE: equal sharing of ideas and enjoying helping other classmates.

b.    After the students hand in their graphic organizers, the teacher(s) will grade them for completeness and accuracy.

X.     Reflection and Self-Evaluation (Instructional Strategy: WHERETO)

W: The teacher(s) will explain at the beginning of the lesson the basic definition of the SWBS strategy and that it’s important for learning how to summarize a story. The teacher(s) will say that they will walk around the make sure that each of the students understands the activity.

H: The teacher(s) will show the video and motivate students’ thinking in order to prepare them for the rest of the lesson.

E: The teacher will demonstrate how to complete the graphic organizer and guide the students in their understanding of how to summarize the story.

R: By having students share their responses collectively as a group, students will be able to see the differing responses of their fellow classmates and will be able to think of the different ways a story can be summarized.

E: By completing the SWBS chart, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the strategy. Through the formation of a complete sentence summary, students will be able to engage in meaningful self-evaluation by seeing if their sentence fits within what they wrote in their chart.

T: For English Language Learners: Students of different linguistic backgrounds will collaborate their vocabulary in order to complete the chart. For students with disabilities: Students with ADHD can focus on one aspect of the story instead of summarizing the whole story. For diverse learners in general. Students can draw pictures in order to prove their understanding and knowledge of the activity. Students who need more assistance in expressing their findings with words will be given additional practice while the other students are silently reading or completing other activities. The lesson incorporates different modalities of learning, including visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

O: During the first part of the lesson, the teacher will demonstrate to the students how to successfully utilize the strategy in completing the chart. After the demonstration, the teacher will give students the opportunity to practice the strategy independently in their groups. Although an assignment was not given for this lesson, if needed, the teacher could assign a reading selection for homework and ask students to complete a SWBS chart for that particular reading.

Citations

(2010). In Pre-writing (K-2): Storytelling in the Classroom. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from http://hubforteachers.discoveryeducation.com/storytelling-in-classroom/pre-writing-k-2.cfm#title1

Bemelmans, L. (1997). Madeline's Rescue. New York, NY: Penguin Group: Puffin Books.

Creating Strategic Readers / Teaching Techniques for the Primary Grades (video). 2008. Access via www.blackboard.moravian.edu.

Fitzell, S. (2011, September). In Somebody Wanted But So Strategy for Improving Reading Comprehension. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from http://responsetointerventiononline.com/2011/09/somebody-wanted-but-so-summary-strategy-for-improving-reading-comprehension/

MacOn, Bewell, & Vogt. (1991). In Adolescent Literary Instruction. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from http://www.learningpt.org/literacy/adolescent/strategies/butso.php

Preszler, J. (2007). More Strategies to Guide Learning. In South Dakota ESA. Retrieved October 7, 2011, from http://www.sdesa6.org/content/docs/MoreStrategiesToGuideLearning080808.pdf

How SWBS Strategy is Connected with PDE’s SAS

            The strategy inspires the students to think more critically and in depth about the text, while discussing it with their fellow classmates. As they are reading, they are thinking about the graphic organizer in their heads, so this strategy makes them conscious of their metacognition and to become aware of the main idea of the story, and its themes, details, events, setting, and literary elements such as plot, characters, etc. All of these literary elements further students’ understanding of the story and makes the activity more meaningful. Therefore, they both understand the story and respond verbally after the story is read.

The strategy aids in the students’ ability to comprehend through various modalities, which include the elements of the Four-by-Four Model: listening, speaking, reading, and viewing. This is occurring constantly, before reading, during reading, and after reading. With this strategy, the students are required to summarize the story, which is an important aspect of the Pennsylvania State Standard for reading comprehension.