Character Lesson & Reflection
Name: Britany Lynch
Lesson Title: Character Traits (Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia)
Grade level(s)/Course: Second Grade Reading
Date taught: Tuesday October 2nd
GENERAL CONTEXT
District, school or cooperating teacher requirement or expectations that might influence your planning or delivery of instruction.
The cooperating teacher expects my lesson to be aligned to the skills that students need to learn according to their Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) results.
Amount of time devoted each day or week in your classroom to the content or topic of your instruction.
My classroom spends approximately 2 and half hours every day on reading.
Describe how ability grouping or tracking (if any) affects your planning and teaching of this content.
The group of students that I will be teaching this lesson to were chosen because they are at the same reading level.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE LESSON
Content Strand – found within the Wisconsin Academic Content Standards
Reading Standards for Literature-Grade 2
Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. (2.RL.3)
Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting or plot. (2.RL.7)
Enduring Understanding and/or Essential Question
What are the traits of main character?
Outcome(s)
Students will be able to describe the main characters personality.
Students will be able to draw a picture depicting the main characters.
Students will be able to describe what the character does in the book.
Students will be able to describe how the book reminds them of something in their life. (Text to self relationship)
Academic Language related to the lesson
personality
“Land sakes”
plopped
plumb
tarnation
Prior Learning/Prior Thinking
Students have encountered character traits when working with other books. They might have some difficulties with the figures of speech if they haven’t seen or read about them before so it may need to be explained throughout the book.
LESSON IMPLEMENTATION
Anticipatory Set/Elicit Prior Knowledge
To get students ready for the lesson I will ask them who their favorite character is from a book, and what the character is like. We will then take a picture walk through the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia, and I will ask them what they think the character Amelia Bedelia is like.
Focus/Purpose Statement
The purpose of this lesson is to learn about character traits, and what characters do.
Procedures
1. First students will discuss their favorite character’s personality and take a picture walk.
2.Then, as a group we will read the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia.
a. Throughout the reading I will make sure students understand the figures of speech used in the writing.
3. After reading the book students will complete an activity about the character.
a. What is the character’s personality?
b. What did the character do?
c. What does the character look like?
d. The book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia reminds me of…
4.Students will then share their pictures of Amelia Bedelia and give one trait of the main character.
Differentiation
The five students in the group that I will be teaching were grouped together by their reading ability and by skills that they need to focus on according to their STAR assessment, because of this there won’t be any differentiation within this group.
Closure
To close the lesson I will ask students to share their drawing of Amelia Bedelia to their classmates, and I will ask students to give me one trait of Amelia Bedelia’s personality.
Materials and Resources
6 copies of Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
Copies of the character profile sheets (attached)
Classroom Management/Democratic Practices
While engaging in discussion I anticipate that all the students will want to share what they think about Amelia Bedelia. To prevent a loud and out of control discussion I will allow each student to say one thing that they think about the character and ask them to write their other thoughts on the back of their activity sheet if time permits.
ASSESSMENT
Before the lesson
Prior knowledge of students and the STAR testing results are what were used for pre-assessment of the students in the group.
During the lesson
I will observe student reading to make sure that they understand what they are reading. I will also ask the students if the understand the figures of speech used in the story.
At the end of the lesson
Students will engage in a discussion about the character Amelia Bedelia. They will work together to complete an activity in which they will describe the characters personality and what the character does. They will also draw a picture of what the character looks like and write about how they can relate to the character and/or book.
Lesson Reflection
As I began teaching my first lesson, there were a million things running through my mind. I was both nervous and excited. The students seemed to be really excited about working with the “other teacher” so it made it all a little better.
I started by asking students about their favorite character. The students loved that they got to share something that they loved. This made the learning personal for the students. After we discussed their favorite characters, we took a picture walk of the book Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia. I think taking the picture walk got the students excited to read the book. The pictures are just as funny as the words in Amelia Bedelia books. The students wanted to start reading so they could find out exactly what happened.
After we finished reading we talked about character traits. We discussed the traits of the main character, Amelia Bedelia, and completed an activity about her. There were three writing parts, and one drawing part. We worked on the writing first, but unfortunately didn’t have time for the drawing. The lesson that I had planned, didn’t fit in the time allotted for the lesson, and because there wasn’t enough time none of the students got to draw their pictures of Amelia Bedelia. The students were excited about that part, so they were upset when they didn’t get the chance to draw. It also meant that my objectives were not achieved. Mrs. Gorgen told me that they could work on them during Finish-up Friday if they had time. Only some students were able to finish their activity on Friday. Because of an insufficient amount of time, students weren’t able to learn all the information they needed to (based off their STAR assessment).
During the lesson I also had a problem with some of the students being distracted. For instance one student asked if it was going to rain. When I redirected his attention back to the activity on hand, he said that he wanted to know if it was going to rain because he wanted to know if they would have recess. I think that keeping students’ attention is something that I could learn from my cooperating teacher. I would also consider changing the activity to go along with the reading. If students aren’t engaged, then maybe the activity was boring or too complicated for the student.
If I were to do this lesson over again, I would do one of three things. One thing I could do is pick a shorter book. A large portion of our time was spent reading the book. The students in my group were at a higher reading level, which made the book a little longer. Although this would solve the problem, I don’t think this would be ideal because we want the students to be challenged. They wouldn’t learn if I chose a book that was too easy for them. My other two options are allowing more time for my lesson or shortening the lesson. By allowing more time for my lesson, students would be able to finish the activity that I had planned, and by shortening the activity, we would be okay with time.
To build on this lesson, I could split my activity that had planned for this lesson into two different lessons based on two different Amelia Bedelia books. After that I would do a similar activity but choose a book that didn’t have such a predominant main character. The purpose of the lesson was to learn about character traits, students need to learn those traits not only for one main character, but other important characters as well.
Overall, I think my lesson went well, but it needs some adjusting. The students seemed to love the Amelia Bedelia book, but didn’t have time to finish their activity. The next time I teach a lesson I will need to work on the timing of the lesson.