Sarah DesLaruriers' Portfolio

Sarah DesLauriers'
Portfolio

Hooway For Wodney Wat

This standards based lesson was taught to a group of 12 first and second grade students at Lawrence Barnes Elementary School during the spring semester of my junior year. This lesson was taught to help the students work on retelling stories and paying attention to details in the story. The students in this class vary in ability and in interest, however, this story seemed to interest them. These students had been practicing retelling stories at a few other points in the semester and I felt that they would be ready to try writing it down. The students in this class read at home at least once a week with their book bags and in small groups at school with the teacher.

TEACHER: Sarah DesLauriers
CLASS: Ms. D’s 1st/2nd grade.
DATE: April 11, 2003
CONTEXT: Language Arts
TOPIC: Wodney Wat Writing.
TIME: 30 minutes

OBJECTIVES:
Students will make predictions during the reading of the story.
Students will write three sentences about what happened in the story. (Beginning, Middle, End)

RELATED STANDARDS:
VT Standards 1.13: Students listen actively and respond to communications. This is evident when students ask clarifying questions, restate and respond through discussion, writing, and using art forms.

MATERIALS:
Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester
Worksheet
Pencils

TEACHING-LEARNING PROCEDURE:
• Teacher will have students come to the front of the room and sit in storytime.
• Teacher will tell students what they are supposed to do, “I’m going to read you …Wodney Wat, I want you to listen closely to what happens in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. I’m going to ask you to write something about them after the story.”
• Teacher will picture walk the book.
• Teacher will read the book to the students.
• On page 9, teacher will ask the students what they think the rest of the story is going to be about.
• On page 16 teacher will ask, “Who do you think it will be?”
• On page 19 teacher will ask, What is going to happen next?”
• After the story, teacher will ask what the students thought of the story.
• Teacher will ask the students what happened in the beginning, the middle and the end.
• Next the teacher will pull out the worksheet and explain to children what they need to do. (write a sentence about the beginning, middle, and end so that someone reading their paper will be able to understand what the story is about)
• Teacher will give students the worksheet and have then go to their seats to work on them.
• Teacher will walk around and help students who need help.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT:
I can assess students by looking at their writing and listening to their thoughts and their predictions during the story.

TEACHER ASSESSMENT:
I will know if I have been successful if the children write the beginning, middle and end of the story and if they seem engaged during the story.

This lesson was created so that the students could practice the literary elements of beginning, middle, and end. Many students needed more practice in this particular area.

This is an image of Stan's work. In the story Rodney Rat (often spelled Wodney Wat) is teased by his classmates and they pick on him about his speech problem, however, when Camilla Cabybara comes to school and gives everyone a taste of their medicine, they see what they did wrong. Wodney gets Camilla to leave during a game of Simon Says when he tells the group to go rest, and she ends up going west. Stan was able to remember small details, however, when you read the paper you are unable to get a clear idea what the story was about as you are told that Wodney gets teased, Camilla come to school, and the "he" says go west. Stan needs more practice in getting a point across in writing. I spoke to him and asked him what else he remember, but he was unable to give me more information. Later, I differentiated instruction (PC 2b) by taking him aside later that day and rereading the book with him. I had him retell me the story using words, this was much more successful for him.

This is an image of Andy's work. Andy is able to expand upon his ideas and in doing so was able to retell the story successfully. He used complete sentences and used enough detail to give a pretty good idea of what happened in the story. This child did an excellent job of retelling the story.

STUDENT/TEACHER ASSESSMENT
This lesson went pretty well. The student really seemed to enjoy the story and they did a pretty good job of filling out the worksheet. Some children really understood what I wanted and other had more of an issue. They couldn’t fill out the worksheet the way I wanted them too. I think that if I were to do this again I would ask some the students to fill out a worksheet on a shorter book that would have been easier to remember. The students all seemed to get the main idea of what I was asking them, some of the students just weren’t quite ready for that book.
I think I did a pretty good job for this lesson. While the students were working I went around to them and checked on their writing to make sure that they were all set, I also brought extra copies of the book so students could look back into the book to remind themselves of the story.
After doing this project I actually decided to do a small group retell using pictures and having students explain the pictures using sentences to explain what was going on. This project was Mr. Pak Buys a Story.I decided that trying this skill in a different way may help some students get the ability down.