CLASSROOM LESSON 4:
Descriptive Paragraphs Using Sensory Details

BOOK TITLE: The Report Card
CHAPTERS: 10-12
AUTHOR: Andrew Clements
LESSON PLAN AUTHOR : Jennifer Stacy

GRADE LEVEL: 4-5
LESSON DURATION: 60-75 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 continue to identify traits of the different characters in the novel.

• Students will make predictions about what they will read on day five.

MATERIALS

• Chart paper

• Post-it notes

• A copy of the novel The Report Card for each child

• Discussion questions: Download PDF

• Writing journals

• Writing checklist: Download PDF

MOTIVATION

• Have students summarize the main events of chapters 7-9 from yesterday.  Have a student record those events on chart paper.  Review the predictions they made yesterday.

• Have students make predictions about the role Mrs. Byrne might play in the story now.

NEW INFORMATION

• The class will read chapters 10-12 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.

• While you are reading you need to think about the following:
• Is Nora able to avoid having attention placed on her?  Why or why not?
• What do you like to do to have fun or not think about school for a while?

• 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 and 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.

• The students will also add any new characteristics they can think of to the character charts.
• In chapter 11 Nora describes her love of soccer.  The teacher will reread this section to the class.  Discuss the different descriptions mentioned.  Tell how she became interested in soccer.  Describe how she relates things in soccer to math.  Explain why Nora doesn’t mind being a talented athlete the way she does being a talented student.

PRACTICE/APPLICATION

• The teacher will tell the students they are going to write a description in their journal of something they do that they are good at or enjoy.  Remind them of the description the author used in chapter 11.  Encourage the students to tell how they first started doing the activity they are describing.  The teacher may have the students brainstorm sensory words to help with the description.  The students should find sensory details in Nora’s description.  Tell the students they need to help the reader get a picture in their mind of what they are describing.  The teacher may want to model a story about something he/she enjoys doing.  The teacher may want to provide a graphic organizer for this activity.

•  When they are finished students will be invited to share their stories if they want to.

EVALUATION OF STUDENT LEARNING

• Informal evaluation will occur during the discussion questions.  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 occur when the writing journals are collected. (See attached writing check list.)

CLOSURE

• The teacher will review the discussion questions of chapters 10, 11, and 12.

• The students will verbally make predictions of what they think will happen when they read on Day 5.  Predictions will be recorded on chart paper and reviewed at the beginning of Day 5.

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.