Being Afraid: My Brother's Afraid (8.09)
Plan Author: Mathew Needleman Date Created: 3/17/2003 7:17:53 PM PST
School: Saturn Street
Grade Level: 1
Students: 15 students. 7 boys and 8 girls. 7 English only or IFEP, 8 ELLs. One student is receiving resource services.
Subject Area(s): Language Arts (English)
Goal(s): Students will read the story "My Brother is Afraid of Just About Everything" and engage in higher level thinking in response to it.
Concept(s): Students will practice making predictions, inferences, character assessment, and critique the literary attributes of the story compared to other literature they have read.
Standards: CA- CCTC: Aligned CSTP's and TPE's • Standard : CSTP: Standard for Engaging and Supporting all Students in Learning TPE: C. Engaging and Supporting Students in Learning CSTP Description: Teachers build on students? prior knowledge, life experience, and interests to achieve learning goals for all students. Teachers use a variety of instructional strategies and resources that respond to students? diverse needs. Teachers facilitate challenging learning experiences for all students in environments that promote autonomy, interaction and choice. Teachers actively engage all students in problem solving and critical thinking within and across subject matter areas. Concepts and skills are taught in ways that encourage students to apply them in real-life contexts that make subject matter meaningful. Teachers assist all students to become self-directed learners who are able to demonstrate, articulate, and evaluate what they learn. • CSTP Key Element : Engaging students in problem solving, critical thinking and other activities that make subject matter meaningful.  Question : encourage all students to ask critical questions and consider diverse perspectives about subject matter? CA- California K-12 Academic Content Standards • Subject : English Language Arts • Grade : Grade One • Area : Reading • Sub-Strand 2.0: Reading Comprehension Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They draw upon a variety of comprehension strategies as needed (e.g., generating and responding to essential questions, making predictions, comparing information from several sources). The selections in Recommended Readings in Literature, Kindergarten Through Grade Eight illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. In addition to their regular school reading, by grade four, students read one-half million words annually, including a good representation of grade-level-appropriate narrative and expository text (e.g., classic and contemporary literature, magazines, newspapers, online information). In grade one, students begin to make progress toward this goal. • Concept : Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text  Standard 2.2: Respond to who, what, when, where, and how questions.  Standard 2.5: Confirm predictions about what will happen next in a text by identifying key words (i.e., signpost words).
Objective(s): After reading and discussing the story "My Brother is Afraid of Just About Everything" students will demonstrate their understanding by answering evaluative and inferential questions about the literature with words and/or pictures in their journals and be able to support their answers orally and/or on paper with seventy percent accuracy.
Prerequisite Background Skills/Knowledge: Students must remember a time when they were afraid of something in order to understand the feelings of the characters in the story. Begin by having students discuss some of their fears and how they go over them--if they have gotten over them.
Vocabulary / Language Skills: From the story: thunderstorm, lightning, and beard. The weather terms can be taught through pictures of stormy weather. "Beard" can be taught in relation to the body.
Materials: Student Anthologies Journals
Classroom Management: When journaling students must be reminded to use six-inch voices and to stay on task.
Procedure: Open Begin with a discussion of fears by introducing the unit, "Being Afraid" and asking students if they have ever been afraid of anything. Invariably some students will say no and explain that it takes a brave person to admit being afraid. The teacher will share a fear experience to decrease anxiety about sharing. Leo the Lion puppet may share as well. Allow students to share their fears with a partner. Then do a whip around and make a list of "Things We've Been/Are Afraid Of." Body Introduce the story, "My Brother is Afraid of Everything" and before beginning point out to students that some fears are for good reason and some don't make sense. Read the story to the children, pausing to allow students to make predictions to partners and ask questions about things they don't understand. After finishing, ask students to respond to the story in their response journals. Students may do a quickwrite or draw a picture. Students will choose how they wish to respond, however, the suggestion will be made that students write advice for either the brother or the sister as to how they can get over their fears. As students write, the teacher will circulate and begin responding by writing questions in their journals designed to stimulate higher level thinking and model correct spelling in the process. Close Journals are collected and the class shares some of their new discoveries from their thinking about the story in their journals.
Assessment: Students will complete their reaction to the story in their journals and demonstrate their understanding by being able to answer a follow-up question requiring higher level thinking with evidence from the story orally and/or on paper with seventy-percent accuracy.