Teacher Candidate:

Betzabeth Montoya

Date Taught:

10/28/15

Cooperating Teacher:

Sherry Stephens

School / District:

Morrill Math & Science/SC 299

Grade:

6th/7th

Field Supervisor:

Unit / Subject:

Middle East / ELA

Lesson Title / Focus:

Stand Up: Your Voice Matters/ Writing-Main Idea

Time Required

1-2 days (1 -2 hours)

I. Lesson Rationale (Why?)

Learning Goals and Focus (What students will be able to do):
Students will be able to produce a piece of writing from four to six sentences that elicit the main idea of an informational text.
Students will be able to highlight and prioritize evidence to support main ideas.
Common Core State Standards:
Reading:
CCSS.ELALITERACY.RI.6.1
Citetextualevidencetosupportanalysisofwhatthetextsaysexplicitlyaswellasinferencesdrawnfromthetext.
CCSS.ELALITERACY.RI.6.2
Determineacentralideaofatextandhowitisconveyedthroughparticulardetails;provideasummaryofthetextdistinctfrompersonalopinionsorjudgments.
Writing
CCSS.ELALITERACY.W.6.1.A
Introduceclaim(s)andorganizethereasonsandevidenceclearly.
CCSS.ELALITERACY.W.6.9
Drawevidencefromliteraryorinformationaltextstosupportanalysis,reflection,andresearch.
How this lesson connects to students cultural, personal, and/or academic backgrounds:
Academic backgrounds:
Students have recently learned how to use reading strategies to find the main idea of a text. Students have practiced taking notes for nearly two weeks with informational texts,

video media and images. Although many students have been taught how to find the main idea, many still continue to struggle in the composition of writing that elicits their
thinking through connections and support of their claims. This lesson will help students understand what a good piece of writing for a main idea looks like.
Personal:
Recent events in the lives of our students have spurred the need for advocacy in our daily lives. The recent death of a former Morrill student and the actions of the school to
send students home right after the event, have prompted students to think about whether staff have student safety considerations. Many students had concerns they felt
necessary to express and share with the principle to better the outcome of extreme events such as nearby shootings. In addition, students have recently learned about the
convictions against former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Students had a whole class discussion on the power of a few versus their needs as students and how they are being
considered by upper administrations. All of these events have a common theme that promotes student advocacy in their daily lives. Much of the media and text that will be
used in this lesson will also have this theme. Students will see how advocacy is can be done individually, on a larger scale through the city-wide events such as Louder Than A
Bomb poetry slam, and through a state/country wide effort.
Cultural :
Students have begun to make the transition from quarter one centralized on stereotypes and assumptions on the Middle East to quarter two big ideas on colonization and power
struggles in Latin America. The article that students will read, To Keep its Gold, El Salvador Challenges a Global Mining Company, will help dismantle
stereotypes of Latin American land as a barren land without treasures. It will also show how Salvadorian people unite through the views of a
well known environmental activist, Francisco Pineda to advocates for peoples rights to make decisions for their own communities instead of
allowing corporate companies and foreigners to decide for them. This lesson will open students eyes to how American companies act on
other countries.
Targeted Academic Language Function (e.g. identifying main idea, recording multiple ways to solve problems):
1. Identify central ideas of an informational texts
2. Examine the appropriateness of evidential support
Targeted Academic Language Demands (Vocabulary- every day, general subject specific words, and subject specific word meanings/ Syntax- organizing words and phrases
into structures- graphs, sentences, formulae):
Tier 1 Words (in the text)
1. controversial
2. Latin America
3. Activism
4.
Tier II Words
1. Identify
2. Introduce

3.
4.

Interpret
Conclude

Tier III Words

1.Central Ideas/Main Idea
2. Supporting Details
3. Evidence
4. Connect

II. Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks (How?)

Align with learning focus and state standards

Align with student learning needs of individuals and whole class
Specify differentiation approaches that will be used
Align with student academic development, social/emotional development, experiences and/or interests
Align with the language demands of this lesson
Create a progression of learning through which students can monitor their own progress toward the learning focus

Time

[Estimate
time to
complete each
activity]

4 mins

Learning Activities- What learning activities do you have planned

for the students? Describe what may transpire during the
scaffolding of the lesson. How will you hook the students into
the lesson? How will you model, and provide opportunities for
guided, shared, and independent practice?

**Students should be seated in their small groups

Hook/ Attention Getter
The teacher will play a Spongebob Squarepants video clip that demonstrates
how the main character Spongebob struggles to write after an exaggerated
amount of time. The teacher will ask students to guess what they believe the
purpose of days lesson will be based off the video they watched. Students will

Questions Posed: What questions do you want to ask of the

students, and what do you anticipate they will ask /raise as
their own questions and answers?

T: What do we think the main idea of the video we just

watched is?
S: It was about writing?
T: That is a great starting point. What specifically about
writing can we conclude? And provide evidence from the
text.
S: Students struggle to write essays, because we have a hard
time thinking about what to write. Spongebob was taking too

then write down the days objectives in their notebooks.

long to write and we thought he was going to have this great

essay but all he wrote was the word, the.
T: Do we think that is an appropriate response? I think the rest
of the class should decide if they feel the same way?
Students agree with the statement
T: Lets take a minute to write down the days objective which
is
1. I will be able produce a piece of writing that identifies
a main idea.
2. I will be able to evaluate textual evidence to best
support my claims
T: I also want us to think about why we are going to practice
writing. As one of your teachers, every time we do an activity
Im looking to hear how you contribute and make meaning. I
see that many of us are able to express ourselves through our
whole class discussions. Maybe Im wrong, but I think its
harder to express your complete (emphasis) thoughts through
writing. If it is harder, why are we even doing this if the
easiest way is to express yourself is through speaking?
S:
T: As we will see in videos from today, writing is the behind
the scenes work of public announcements, of speeches, of
song writing, commercials etc. We dont get to see
transcriptions or scripts of actors or speakers, we just hear the
words come out.

5 mins

After students have identified the objectives, they will do a quick four corner
activity where students will stand up and move to the side of a room as they
respond to the following statements/questions:
1. A good question to ask myself when finding the main idea is What is this
text pointing to? True-students should be on the left side
2. Looking at the sentences in the middle of the text, is a strategy I can use to
find the central idea. False- students should be on the right side and identify
first and last sentences
3. Authors purpose is another term for finding what the message the
writer/author of a text wants to get across. True
4. Ms. Montoya showed us 2 secret strategies to find the main idea?
False- There are atleast five, looking at the title or subheadings, reading the 1st
and 2nd lines of the text, looking at the pictures, looking for repeated words

The left side of the room is true. The right side of the true will represent the
statement being false.

12-15 mins

This will serve as formative assessment and identify background knowledge on

strategies they have learned for identifying the main idea.
Modeling/ I do:

T: Good writers support their claims with factual evidence or

statistics. Experiences may be an example of evidence as
long as it is free bias. Only stating the events that happened,
not opinions. Good writers also use evidence and truthful
statements.
Im going to show you how to look for these things and how
to pick from your notes what evidence will maximize your
claims

At this point the teacher will model how write an effective main idea. The
teacher will take notes on the video of Nates poetry slam performance. The
teacher will model the notes that they took. The teacher will think aloud as they
create emphasis on reading strategies for the main idea. In the modeling, I will
think through how I used repeated words and using the first and last lines of the
text.

The teacher plays the video and takes notes on the white
board as the video plays. (Make sure to take notes on the
specific strategy you will use)
T: I am going to look closely at the first and last sentence of
my text. I wrote down Everybody has something to say
about poetry, shedding light on unspeakables.
I also wrote Poetry is deathless, so be our savior and poets
breathe with me now.
I m going to break down my first line. Ok so the first part
that says, everybody has something to say about poetry is
pretty straight forward. But this next part shedding light on
unspeakables, I think is telling me a lot. I know that to be
speakable, you are able to speak. To be un-speak-able, these
are the things people dont want to talk about. Un is the same
as not, speak is another word for talk and able, is like ability.
So not having the ability to talk.
The last line says , poetry is deathless I know that people
can die, animals, and plants pass away. What about books,
and videos do they suddenly just stop being popular? No,
Shakespeare is a really popular writer but is hes not alive. I
know Romeo and Juliet and there are still a lot of movies that
do spinoffs.
This other part, breath be our savior, tells me that words
have a lot of power if it can be our savior and it can get things
done and has the ability to give hope.

I will have a chart paper labeled main idea, support one, explanation,
concluding sentence. I will color code each sentence I make. As I make

Now I can start making my paragraph.

1st sentence I have to state what the central idea is.
On blue paper: The central idea of Nates poetry entry is that

sentences I will fillout a closed paragraph that will serve as support for ells and
struggling readers.

Main Idea:

Identify

Neon yellow

Textual evidence:

Introduce

Neon Green

Explanation/Analysis : Interpret/Connect

Neon Orange

Concluding sentence:

Neon Pink

Conclude

10 minutes
Guided Practice/We do:
Students will watch the first five minutes of a Ted talk video focused on
activism for gun control in Latin America. Students will take notes as they
watch the video. Support for ELLs, captions in Spanish will be displayed if
available. The video will be replayed for struggling readers. Students will also
share their notes with their groups to provide peer support. Tell groups what
they will be responsible for before you write play the video.
Main Idea sentence will be done by struggling readers/writers and ELLs
Textual Evidence will be provided by group average readers
Analysis Sentence will be done by advanced readers.
Conclusion sentence will be made by struggling readers/writers and ELLs.
Students will have a that was easy button in each group when they are
finished each group will push the button so that the teacher knows when to bring
everyone in. Students will share their group response. The teacher will serve as

poetry and self-expression is powerful.

On green paper: During his performance, Nate says, the
poetry is deathless, and that it sheds lights on
unspeakables.
On orange paper: Poetry being deathless and shedding
light on unspeakables means that through poetry, people can
talk about controversial things (heated topics) for a long
time.
On pink paper: In the end, Nate poetry is shown to be as a
powerful way to communicate ideas.

T: Every table will be responsible for writing one of these

sentences for your group so make sure every one is
participating.
T: Now were going to practice together. Everyone choose a
reading strategy and takes notes. We will watch only the first
3 minutes.
Students are given 2 minutes to share their notes.
Student will share their notes in a whole group. The teachers
will work as the scribe to make a collective note sheet
Provide students with time to make their contribution
sentence. Work with student responses.
T: What sentence did group one make?
S: The main idea is that Brazil needs drug and gun control
T: Does that seem like a reasonable central idea?
Continue until all groups have shared.

scribe and write each response in a color coordinating with the modeling of the
I do on the white board

Scaffolding Questions
What strategy did you ask yourselves when you made this
sentence?
What text evidence did you look at or focus on?
Is that an appropriate response for that section?
Should we make any changes
Any changes that happen during whole group discussion
should be done in black marker.

Individual Implementation/You do:

Students will take out notes they have already begun on the article, To Keep
its Gold, El Salvador Challenges a Global Mining Company.
Students can be given time to review the notes they have already begun or add
more with help the help of their peers. Students will then work individually to
practice writing a paragraph that consists of 4-6 sentences with all the
components of the lesson.

Conclusion
Students will be asked to share what they learned today. Students will also finish
the day off by completing an exit slip. Students will respond to a single question
that allows them to demonstrate their knowledge on one of sentences they
worked on in todays lesson.

T: Now its your turn to try it on your own. Use all your notes
to help you as you practice this on your own. Also, make sure
to use your peers for help or questions.
Teacher makes her way around to all groups to see how they
progressing. As you visit groups take notes of questions and
comments.

T: In your eyes what was main idea of the lesson?

S: learning how to write for the main idea.
T: Complete your exit slip and turn it into the instructional
managers of your group.

III. Assessment (How do you know?)

Assess learning (product and/or process) during lesson

Encourage students to self-assess their own learning
Assess learning (product and/or process) at end of lesson
Identify next steps/future lessons based on assessment data

Formative Assessment:
Students will be assessed formally through a series of methods. One of the ways in which students will be assessed will be through four corners activity. This activity will help
me understand where students are with the foundation of reading for a main idea. I will use a checklist to see where are regarding implementation of the strategies that were
previously taught. If students are found to have trouble in a certain strategy, I will change the strategy I use during the modeling portion of the lesson to help students reexperience how the strategy should be used.
Additionally, students will be informally assessed through the guided practice. I will be looking for student to say some of the tier III words that will be emphasized during the
modeling portion of the lesson. Teachers will scaffold or re-asked until they verbally use the vocabulary terms such as central idea, supporting text, interpretation, analysis,
identify, introduce, conclude. I will also, use probing questions to after students share the sentences their group made together to make sure that students understand the
composition of their sentence and its purpose in main idea. If students can, respond appropriately to these questions, then they will be ready for independent work. However, if
students seem unsure, clarifying misconceptions or other questions may be required before moving forward. Groups with the most questions will be focused on during the
independent practice.

The final formative assessment will be the exit slip. This exit slip will, ask students to display their knowledge of at least two sentences that were discussed upon during the
lesson. It is expected that students will explain the sentence they mastered during guided practice and one more. This will serve as an indicator the activities students will do the
next day.
Summative Assessment:

Students will be graded on their main idea paragraph through a holistic rubric. The rubric will be based on students ability to include all four components of the paragraph: main
idea, textual evidence, analysis and concluding sentence. Another category that students will be graded on is their ability to select appropriate evidence for their main idea.
Sentences must be written with grammar considerations such as punctuation and spelling. The final component for grading considerations will be based on students logic and
ability in connecting analysis and text evidence back to main idea.

IV. Instructional Materials, Resources, and Technology (What)

What materials will you need in order to teach this lesson?

What materials will students need?

Supplies:
White Board
Dry Erase Markers (4 different colors + 1 black)
Filler paper or notebook
Pencil/Pen
Colored Paper (4 colors: neon yellow, neon orange, neon green, neon pink)
Permanent Marker
Anchor Charts
Technology:
Elmo
Projector
Speakers
Connection cords (HDMI cord)
Computer
Texts:
Newsela differentiated texts articles:
4th grade level : https://newsela.com/articles/elsalvador-gold/id/5793/
5th grade level: https://newsela.com/articles/elsalvador-gold/id/5773/
7th grade level: https://newsela.com/articles/elsalvador-gold/id/5771/
8th grade level:
https://newsela.com/articles/elsalvador-gold/id/5769/
Max: https://newsela.com/articles/elsalvador-gold/id/5769/
Worksheets:
Graphic organizer: Main Idea graphic organizer
Video Media:
Attention Getter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZxpGj5SIbs
Modeling Video: http://www.louderthanabombfilm.com/about-the-poets.php
Guided Practice: https://www.ted.com/talks/ilona_szabo_de_carvalho_4_lessons_i_learned_from_taking_a_stand_against_drugs_and_gun_violence#t-144828

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