Objective The student will be able to identify the author s purpose as inform, entertain, or persuade.

Transcription

1 Kari Thaxton March 22, 2011 Subject/Grade Level 4 th grade Language Arts Author s purpose Objective The student will be able to identify the author s purpose as inform, entertain, or persuade. SOLs 4.4The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of fiction. a) explain the author s purpose. b) describe how the choice of language, setting, and information contributes to the author s purpose. ACEI Standards Standard 2.1: Reading, Writing, and Oral Language Candidates demonstrate knowledge of language development and reading acquisition and the variations related to diverse populations. Several of my students have only spent a few years in the United States, therefore, have less exposure to the many different types of literature that can be found here. In order to ensure the students have been somewhat exposed to a variety of literature types before their standardized tests, I included a grab bag activity for students to complete as a class. The students grab from a bag, and sort the type of literature they pulled. Students at their desks then write this piece of literature into the appropriate column for the purpose of the writing, either to inform, persuade, or entertain. This allows those students who are less familiar become more exposed. Candidates teach the conventions of language needed to compose oral and written text for a range of purposes and audiences. Candidates demonstrate knowledge of ways to promote a critical stance toward the analysis and interpretation of texts that encourages multiple perspectives. In this lesson, the students and I were discussing, practicing, and being assessed on author s purpose. The author has a purpose for every piece of work he or she completes, and deciding which purpose best fits the literature is a necessary tool that fourth graders need in order to decide this purpose. Throughout this lesson the students physically sorted the different pieces of literature, they have decided after reading a specific passage, and they have also written passages to a specific purpose. Through this writing activity, I have challenged the students to think critically when creating their own pieces of literature.

2 Standard 3.4: Active engagement in learning Candidates use their knowledge of individual and group motivation and behavior among K-6 students to create supportive learning environments. I began the lesson with a fun video and song about author s purpose. This goes through what each purpose was, and what kinds of literature could fall into each category. This was a great way to grab the students attention for the remainder of the lesson. The grab-bag activity really created a motivational environment for my students to get up out of their seats, draw a piece of literature out of a bag, and sort it on the board. All of my students wanted to participate, and did not have to be asked twice when it came to their turn. In fact, they all wanted to go next! I closed the lesson with a sort of their own to complete individually. In this sort, I included pieces of literature that they had seen in the grab bag, but also new pieces of literature, in order to decide whether students could decide on an author s purpose on their own. Standard 4.0: Assessment for instruction Candidates know, understand, and use formal and informal assessment strategies. Candidates demonstrate their knowledge of and ability to use assessment strategies to strengthen instruction. Throughout the lesson, I used a variety of formal and informal assessments. For example, I completed a check sheet of the students as they grabbed a piece of literature from the bag, and sorted it on the board. I included any vocabulary the students used when explain their reasoning behind their decision. I had a variety of written pieces of literature that the students were asked to read and then decide the author s purpose. This was completed individually. I also asked the students to complete a sort of their own, and then create their own piece of literature for a specific purpose, which was drawn randomly. All of these assessment strategies were used to alter and strengthen the lesson throughout, and then for follow up lessons, too. Pre-Assessment The students have been working on identifying the author s purpose. In previous activities completed based on author s purpose, I have noticed that the students are not able to correctly identify the purpose of the passage, and simply circle an answer without reading or knowing. Based on what I have seen done in the classroom and the performance of the students, I have decided these students need additional instruction and strategies in this important language arts skill.

3 Materials YouTube clip - Cheat sheet charts Grab-bag literature items Author s purpose headings Author s purpose sorting Author s purpose worksheet Narrative Description Introduction Whole Group I will begin my lesson with a short clip from YouTube. This video is a song that tells about the author s purpose. It tells what the purpose is, and the five different types of writing the author might engage in. I feel like this will be a good hook for my students to begin the lesson with. It is also a song that is catchy and gets stuck in your head. I am hoping that this video connects with those students who otherwise have trouble connecting with lessons and remembering the meat of the lesson. We are going to start this morning with a short video of what we are going to talk about today. This video is from YouTube, and will help lead us into our lesson. Everyone needs to be sitting in their chairs with their desks clear and their hands in their lap. Remember to pay close attention to the video so you will be able to help me remember a few of the details about each purpose. (3 minutes) Instruction/Activity So this video talked about..? (Author s purpose) Great, and what IS the author s purpose? (why he or she wrote the story) Exactly. The author s purpose tells us WHY he or she wrote the passage we are reading. This is very important for all readers to know and understand the author s purpose because it lets us know why we are reading! I am going to give you guys a little study sheet that we are going to fill out together, and you will be able to use forever! At the top of this page, you will see the three main purposes that we are going to be talking about. The first one is Inform. Who can remember a detail about pieces of writing that inform from the video clip? (Facts, nonfiction, real) Exactly! When the author s purpose is to inform, he or she wants to tell us something. They want to give us TRUE facts about a subject or topic. Now, are these texts going to be fiction or nonfiction? (nonfiction) That is exactly right! Passages that inform are going to be NONfiction texts. Make sure you are filling in your cheat sheet charts! (5 minutes) Next, we are going to talk about pieces of literature that were written to entertain their audience. Who can remember some details from the clip, or that you already know, about when the author wants to

4 entertain their audience? (fiction or nonfiction, tells a story, makes you laugh) Great! When the author is writing to entertain, one goal is to tell a story. I can be either real or made up, funny or sad. He or she can also describe different places, characters, events, or challenges. Again, let s remember to fill in our charts! (5 minutes) The last purpose we are going to talk about is when the author is using persuasion. When writing to persuade, the goal of the author is to get the reader to agree with the author s opinion. What is an opinion? (When someone thinks or believes one thing, and not everyone else thinks or believes the same thing.)this type of writing may provide facts and examples to support his or her opinion, but doesn t always have to tell the facts. Make sure you are filling in your charts! (5 minutes) Some passages might be a little tricky to figure out the purpose of, so make sure to use your process of elimination skills to help you. Ask yourself questions like, Does this passage give me facts about the subject? Is this text fiction or nonfiction? Is this passage funny? Does this passage tell a story? Does the author want me to agree with him or her? Is this the author s opinion? (3 minutes) Next, we are going to move into a really fun activity that will get you guys up and moving around! I have this grab bag full of different examples of literature. One at a time, you are going to come up, pull one piece of literature from my bag, tell your classmates about it, and then decide which category it should go in; inform, entertain, or persuade. Be ready to answer some questions about your decision! Once the helper decides the category, and we, as a class, agree, you will write this type of literature in the chart on your paper under the appropriate category. (15 minutes) Each student will be called up to the front of the room individually. They will reach into a grab bag, and pull out one piece of literature. They will tell about their choice to the class, and decide which category it will fit in. The class will decide if they agree or disagree, and the type of literature will be recorded in their charts. Next, the students will complete a categorizing activity. They will be given a chart, and miniature pictures, much like the grab bag activity we have just completed. Some of the pictures will be similar, but others will be different. The students will need to categorize these pictures, and glue them in the appropriate column. This will be collected and evaluated for accuracy. (10 minutes) Small Group: There are two different levels of reading groups in this class. The first reading group focuses on fluency, and this portion of the lesson will be modified to fit the particular needs of this group. For the individual practice activity, the four students and I will choral read each passage. I will give the students time between each passage to answer the question. If they are not sure of an answer, I will suggest they skip it, and return at the end of the practice activity. At that time, I will remind them how they could use process of elimination to figure out the author s purpose of writing the passage. When this

5 group finishes with their independent work, and while I am working with the other reading group, these students will move onto their second station, and will log onto computers and complete their monthly evaluation on I Station. (15 minutes) The next group focuses on comprehension and is encouraged to read passages to themselves. During this activity, they will be reading the passages and completing the questions on their own. They will also be encouraged to skip a question if they are unsure of the answer at first, and come back to it at the end. At this time, I will also encourage these students to use the process of elimination strategy they know and practice frequently. Before this group comes to work with me and while I am working with the other reading group, these students will be logged onto the computer to complete their monthly evaluation on I station. (15 minutes) Closure As a closing activity, I will ask the students to write down the three categories on a blank sheet of paper. Once they have written these author s purposes for writing a passage, I will ask them to give me one example of each. I will be expecting responses such as history book for inform, comic for entertain, and advertisement for persuade. There are many different answers they could give that would be correct. This will be given in an exit slip format, and will be the last thing the students do during this Language Arts period. (5 minutes) Assessment Objective 1: The student will be able to identify the author s purpose as inform, entertain, or persuade. The students will complete a matching activity in which they will be given multiple pictures of different types of literature. They will have to categorize these pictures into what the author s purpose is in each of the pieces, similar to the group practice we completed as a whole group. I will collect and evaluate this activity from each student and identify whether they are able to pick out the author s purpose based on a pictorial representation of the literature piece. I will use the table below to organize the information collected from this activity. (See Learning Evidence, table 1) In order to assess my student s learning and knowledge about this subject, I have created an activity for the students to complete on their own. This activity includes a variety of passages that the students must read, and then identify the purpose, either to inform, to entertain, or to persuade. This will be in a multiple choice format, much like they will see on weekly reading tests and the standardized test in the upcoming months. This assessment will also tell me which students still need additional instruction and practice with the different author s purposes. (See Learning Evidence, table 2)

6 Evaluation The last time I taught a formal lesson in Language Arts, I really struggled with keeping everyone paying attention, engaged, and participating. During this lesson, I want to focus on keeping my students engaged and learning with the lessons I have planned. I believe I have planned activities that will keep them excited about completing all of the tasks and learning the material that I am teaching them. During the last Language Arts formal lesson, I also had students that were very disrespectful and challenging for me as the teacher of the classroom. I have since then discussed these things with a few students, and am hoping that they are seeing me more as a leader of the classroom. My lessons can be fun and engaging, but it is more challenging to keep a positive attitude when disruptions and disrespect. I will also work on praising those students who DO follow directions and remain engaged throughout the lesson.

7 Post-Lesson Evaluation Learning Evidence Table 1 Student Inform Entertain Persuade 1 4/4 5/5 4/4 2 4/4 5/5 4/4 3 3/4 5/5 4/4 4 4/4 5/5 4/4 5 4/4 5/5 4/4 6 4/4 5/5 4/4 7 4/4 5/5 4/4 8 4/4 5/5 4/4 9 4/4 5/5 3/4 10 4/4 5/5 4/4 As you can see from the table above, the students did very well with this sorting activity. They were able to correctly match and categorize the different pieces of literature. There were a few who got one or two confused, but were able to find their mistake when I asked them to look over it. This activity definitely showed me that the students were paying attention and learning from the grab bag activity. Table 2 Student Mastery 1 7/7 2 7/7 3 7/7 4 7/7 5 6/7 6 7/7 7 6/7 8 5/7 9 7/7 10 7/7 As you can see from the table above, my students also did very well with this activity. The students were able to pick out the author s purpose from a variety of different passages, with the exception of a few. The passages varied in difficulty, some being obvious which purpose it was, and some causing the children to search a litter harder. Overall, I was very pleased with my student s performance on these activities. I have also included some samples of my student s original pieces when they were assigned a specific purpose to represent. They had a good time with this activity, and I think they benefited from it, understanding what to look for in certain pieces of literature.

8 Reflection I thought this lesson was a very successful one. I am really getting the hang of being in front of the students, and being the leader of the classroom, and while still challenging at times, it is becoming much more enjoyable. The students really seemed to enjoy all of the activities I had planned for them to complete, and after the fun ones, didn t mind doing a little reading and multiple choice questions. I really enjoyed interacting with the students, and getting them out of their seats, moving around the classroom, and thinking and analyzing what they know about a piece of literature and where it might fit in our categories of author s purpose. I really enjoyed the video I used at the beginning of the lesson, and the students did too! I can see how it really grabbed their attention, and tuned them into the lesson at the very beginning, and throughout the entire thing! One thing that was a little problematic was one student s behavior. This child confuses me a little bit, because he seems to be very disrespectful while I am trying to teach whole group, but runs to my side while they are working in small groups or independently. It is definitely frustrating when he acts out, not only disrupting me and my thought process, but the thinking of the other students as well. This student is also a client of the behavior team that is located within the school, and I believe he has gotten used to the fact that if he acts out, he gets to leave the class. It is hard, as a student teacher, to come into a classroom halfway through the year and into another person s classroom. I feel that if it were my classroom, the students would not see their behavior issues as a way to get out of class, listening, and the work. I have learned the importance of compliments, praise, and rewards for those students to participate and respect me and their fellow students, and I hope this student, in particular, climbs on board soon. I believe the students interacted very well with me and their peers. They were all paying very good attention to the entire lesson, and I believe the short video/song at the beginning of the lesson really helped to pull their attention in. All of the students wanted to be next in the grab bag activity, to pick a piece of literature, and sort it into the correct author s purpose. The students remained engaged throughout the entire lesson by being required to categorize the pieces of literature while being sorted by their classmates. Next, the students completed a picture sort on their own, sorting many pieces of literature into the three categories. Finally, students had to read different types of passages and figure out which purpose the author had when writing it. The students were very busy throughout the lesson, and had little time to act out or sit without anything to do. I believe this Language Arts lesson went a lot better than the last lesson I taught. I was able to plan activities that kept all of the students engaged and participating throughout the whole lesson. I really think that the video at the beginning of the lesson really helped with pulling all of the students in. In this lesson, I had some behavior issues from one particular student at the beginning, but the rest of the class was able to keep it together and actively participate. I have talked to this student again since this lesson, and I am really hoping that the behavior issues change soon. During this lesson, I really made sure to praise those students who were working hard and getting correct answers when being assessed on their knowledge of author s purpose!

9 Student Learning Evidence

10 Writing activity with an author s purpose