CLASSROOM LESSON 1:
Compare and Contrast
BOOK TITLE: The Report Card
AUTHOR: Andrew Clements
LESSON PLAN AUTHOR : Jennifer Stacy
GRADE
LEVEL: 4-5
LESSON DURATION: 45-60 Minutes
OBJECTIVE
- Students will express their own feelings about grades and tests and compare them to the feelings the characters in the novel The Report Card express.
- Students will identify the main characters of the novel The Report Card and tell characteristics of each one.
- Students will make predictions about what they will read on day two.
MATERIALS
- Fake or real progress report for each child
- A copy of the novel The Report Card for each child
MOTIVATION
- Before beginning the lesson the teacher will have a real progress report on each child’s desk. The teacher will observe the behavior of the students as they read over their reports. (Generally students ask each other what their grades are.)
- While the students are looking over their grades the teacher will pass out a school survey sheet in an envelope.
- Once all survey sheets are passed out the teacher will direct the students to take the sheets out of the envelope and to answer all questions without talking to a neighbor. The teacher will also tell the students NOT to put their names on the papers.
- After giving the students time to answer the questions, the teacher will collect the survey sheets, shuffle them, and pass them back out.
- The teacher will have the same questions already on chart paper. At this time the teacher will ask the question out loud and have students raise their hands to tell what answer is on the paper. The teacher will mark the responses with tally marks on the chart paper.
- After the chart is finished, the class will discuss how people felt about their grades and how they felt about sharing their grades. They will also discuss overall feelings about the type of work students do in school.
- At this time the teacher will introduce the novel The Report Card and explain how the activity the students just did relates to the story.
NEW INFORMATION
- We are going to start reading The Report Card by Andrew Clements today. While we’re reading we’re going to be talking about our feelings toward school. We will compare how you feel about school to how the characters in the book feel about school. We will also work on some reading comprehension skills. Today we’ll work on characterization. The teacher will ask the students, “Who remembers what that is?” (The teacher will then remind them what characterization is.)
- The teacher will give the students the following ideas to think about while they are reading:
- Think about how Nora feels about grades.
- Think about how Nora is different from other children.
- The class will read chapters 1-3 today. The teacher will need to choose how he/she wants the class to read. The students can take turns reading out loud with the whole class, with partners, or on their own. If the whole class reads together, the teacher will want to use the discussion questions (step 3) during reading, not after.
- Once everyone is finished, the teacher will pose discussion questions to the whole class. Discussion could also be given to the partners as a worksheet to be filled out by the partners as they read. If the students are reading on their own they could write the answers to the questions as they read as well. Then the class could come together and discuss what they wrote.
- After the discussion students are going to make character charts for the following characters: Nora and Stephen. Students will add information to these charts using Post-It notes as we continue to read the book over the next two weeks.
- The teacher needs to read aloud each trait. Discuss with the class if they agree with the character traits placed on each character chart. Have students give examples from the story that support each trait on the chart.
PRACTICE/APPLICATION
- Tell the students they need to start thinking about how they are like Nora and how they are different from Nora. Tell the students they are going to write a compare/contrast story in their writing journals that tells how they are like Nora and how they are different from Nora.
- The teacher will then model a compare and contrast story by telling how they feel they are the same and different from Nora. The teacher will be sure to include details from the story to support traits mentioned about Nora and detail from his/her to support details related to them. (See sample compare/contrast story.)
- The students will write their own compare/contrast story. When they are finished students will be invited to share their stories if they want to.
EVALUATION
- Informal evaluation will occur during the discussion question activity. The teacher will be able to determine if students read the story based on their answers. If the teacher wants a more formal evaluation, the discussion questions can be passed out as a worksheet and collected and graded.
- Informal evaluation will occur during the discussion of the character charts. The teacher will be able to determine if further instruction on character traits needs to be done based on student responses.
- Formal evaluation will be done when the writing journals are collected using the writing journal checklist. Since this isn’t a writing lesson, this will be a small portion of the total assessment.
CLOSURE
NCTE STANDARD 3
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
NCTE STANDARD 5
Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
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