Kayla Rye-Szabo
Lesson Focus: Learning how to determine what information is important
in relation to why the character is famous.
Grade Level/Number of Students: Third Grade
Time Duration: 45 minutes
Prior Assessment: Students started their chapter book and took notes on what
they read.
Standards: CCSS: RL 3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their
traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their
actions contribute to the sequence of events.
ELD: B. Interpretive
6. Reading closely literary and informational texts and
viewing multimedia to determine how meaning is
conveyed explicitly and implicitly through language.
Objective: Students will be able to understand what information is
important in relation to the climatic ending by reading
continuing to read their chapter book and taking notes.
Materials and Resources: ● biography anchor chart
● mentor text Who Was Harriet Tubman? by Yona
Zeldis McDough
● anchor chart with questions to answer about
mentor text to continue to add onto
● biography chapter book student started yesterday
● reader’s workshop notebook
● sentence starters on the whiteboard
Instructional Sequence:
Introduction (5 min): Teacher will ask, “Have you ever heard of information overload?”
Teacher will call on students to answer question. Teacher will explain that information
overload is when you learn a lot of information at one time. Teacher will say, “Raise a hand if
you have ever felt like you were learning a lot of information at one time.” Students will raise
a hand if they feel like they have felt this. Teacher will say, “Sometimes this can happen when
we read nonfictions texts. When reading your biography you might learn about how many
siblings the character has, where they were born, what pet they had, and so on. It can be really
hard to hold all of that information or even know what to write in your reader’s workshop
notebook.” Teacher will say, “The things that turn out to be important in the story not only
affect the past and present, but also the future. We will practice picking out the important
information when we read chapter two.”
Body of Lesson (15 min): Teacher will read chapter two of the mentor text. While reading
teacher will ask the students questions like, “Why would Harriet not want to be traded to a
more southern planation?” or “Why do you think her father taught her how to travel silently at
night?” Teacher will have the anchor chart on the board from yesterday. Teacher will ask
students to share what they thought was important from chapter two. While the students are
sharing teacher will write their answers down on the anchor chart. Teacher will say, “Now it is
your turn to practice. When you go back to your seat you are going to continue to read your
biography chapter book you started yesterday. While you are reading you’re are going to think
‘Why was this book written about this character and what did they do that was important?’ In
your reader’s workshop notebook you are going to write down something important that
happened to your character. There are some sentence starts on the whiteboard for you.”
Teacher will read the sentence starters on the whiteboard. Then teacher will ask if there are any
questions and will answer any that the students may have. Teacher will dismiss the students to
start reading their book.
Check for Understanding (throughout the lesson): After reading chapter two of the mentor
text teacher will ask students what they thought was important information. Teacher will
dictate their answers while they continue to fill out the anchor chart from the day before.
Assessment (5 min): As the students are working independently teacher will walk around and
conference in with each student individually. Teacher will ask students what they have learned
about so far and what information is important in understanding why the character is famous.
Teacher will also check in to see what they are writing in their reader’s workshop notebook.
Closure (3 min): Teacher will do an attention getter. Teacher will say, “Now we are going to
share out what we have learned so far about our character. You can tell us what you have
learned so far or something you thought was interesting or fascinating about your character.”
Teacher will call on students to share out.
Next Steps: Students will continue to read their chapter book. They will take notes on their
character. They will use these notes in order to fill out a biography poster that will be displayed
throughout the classroom.
Accommodations: Teacher will pull struggling readers to the back table to read a mentor text.
Students will continue to verbalize their answers while the teacher dictates their answers. Then
they will write the answers in their reader’s workshop notebook.
