Lesson Plan : The Johnstown Flood
Teacher Name: | Mrs. Shuris |
Grade: | Grade 6 |
Subject: | Literature Activities |
Topic: | Understanding A Text/Expository Non-Fiction |
Content: | Subject matter: In 1881 a dam was repaired in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It fails in 1889, leading to one of the worst natural disasters in United States history. Key vocabulary: levees, seeping, floodplain, reservoirs, yearned, awed, crested |
Goals: | General Goal(students with special needs): to develop and increase reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary identification, understanding, and usage. Specific Goal: to understand an expository non-fiction story by locating in the text (give page number/paragraph) specific answers to questions asked, order events, and summarize the main idea and details of the story |
Objectives: | -to summarize the main point of a selection and restate important information (Standard 8.22, 13.17) -to read and understand a text (expository non-fiction) -to sequence events of story in correct order (Standard 8.21, 13.15) -to gain background knowledge of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 -to develop understanding, identification, and usgae of new vocabulary from a non-fiction text (Standard 4.17) |
Materials: | overhead projector, transperancie: (1) vocabulary (word/visual), (2) story frame, (3) template-Everyone Read To..., various worksheets from intervention manual (pages 40-43) |
Introduction: | State purpose of lesson (goal/objectives)-- Introduce story (title/author) and type of text-expository non-fiction; Focus on illustration on page 79-What do you think is happening? Background Knowledge-What is a flood? dam? Have you ever heard of the Johnstown Flood of 1889? Define/identify new story words. |
Development: | Use "Everyone Read To..." template to fill in (question/answer) as teacher ask questions aloud; Teacher models first one- Everyone read to... find out the setting or where and when the story takes place? |
Practice: | Teacher and students (with teacher scaffolding)continue asking questions (ideas written out ahead of time)and answering them to analyze text together and to sequence events (main idea/details) of the non-fiction text. Reading strategies to discuss-adjust reading rate and reread to clarify. |
Accommodations: | Follow individual IEPs; Some students have trouble writing-accept oral responses and/or cut back on written work (less workshetts); Scribe for some students. Read test questions aloud; peer reading of story; peer editing of written work. |
Checking For Understanding: | oral reading; story discussion; written responses to story frame, questions, vocabulary context clues, and homework. Weekly assessments-phonics, vocabulary, comprehension- literal and inferential questions, both multiple choice and essay type. |
Closure: | Restate our objective to the lesson. Did we meet our goal and objectives? What did we learn about the Johnstown Flod of 1889? |
Evaluation: | Assessment of oral reading fluency and comprehension of questions being asked. Identification, understanding,and usage of new vocabulary words; Responses to questions and individual participation in class discusion; Homework (focus skill review)- summarize and paraphrase worksheet p.42 |
Teacher Reflections: |
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