clark university master of arts in teaching program...of harris burdick iii. rationale: explain how...

Clark University Master of Arts in Teaching Program Learning Activity Plan

Chris Van Allsburg Unit: LAP 6 Casey Rothenberg

I. Content: Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content? This is the last lesson of the unit, so the class will be finalizing the author study anchor chart on Chris Van Allsburg and creating a copy that can be displayed in the classroom. Students will also be playing the role of an author, and create their own mystery stories that follow the pictures and captions provided in Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. In order to create their own stories, students will be carefully analyzing the text and illustrations and recording their various observations, questions and inferences. II. Learning Goal(s): Describe what specifically students will know and be able to do

after the experience of this class. Students will be able to:

• Carefully analyze the photos and captions found within The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

• Create an OQI chart on one of the short stories within The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

• Create ideas about a story that builds off of an illustration and brief caption • Create a personalized mystery story that follows a short story from The Mysteries

of Harris Burdick III. Rationale: Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your Curriculum

Unit Plan learning goals. Throughout the unit the class has been working on an anchor chart all about Chris Van Allsburg’s writing style and characteristics of his stories. So far we have created a rough draft, where students have been continuously adding to the chart after each reading. As a class we have discussed if previous additions to the chart are reoccurring throughout his stories or make a one-time appearance. Now it is time to wrap up our rough draft and copy over the most important characteristics to a new anchor chart, which will act as the final copy. Chris Van Allburg’s writing can be complicated, mysterious, rather strange and anything from straight forward. During and after reading his books, students have been developing their analytic and inference making skills. All of which has helped them decipher some of the deeper meanings within the stories. This lesson will continue pushing students to think deeply about what is provided in the text and illustrations, and what the author is trying to convey to the reader. This lesson will also have students take the reigns as author, and do their best Chris Van Allsburg imitation by creating a mystery story. Not only will they be encouraged to incorporate characteristics from the anchor chart and strong verbs from an anchor chart based on Jumangi, but also they will be following a template pulled directly from one of Van Allsburg’s texts.


IV. Assessment: Describe how you and your students will know they have reached

your learning goals. The main assessment will be student’s mystery stories they create. In order to achieve the learning goals, they must first carefully analyze what is occurring in the illustration and caption. Next they must brainstorm ideas about what is happening in the story and how it could be continued. Finally they must create a final script that expands on the starter provided by Van Allsburg, while also incorporating their analysis and ideas. Students will be informally assessed on their abilities to follow along the different short stories and participate thoughtful comments that can be added to our OQI chart. Student’s additions to the chart should generally follow the model I will work through in the beginning. Each student will be responsible for contributing to the class OQI chart and need at least one: observation, question and inference. Afterwards students will be informally assessed on their abilities to brainstorm ideas for what they are going to write about. V. Personalization and equity: Describe how you will provide for individual student

strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each student and scaffold learning? How specifically will ELL students and students with learning disabilities gain access and be supported?

The majority of this lesson will provide a look into how proficient readers dissect and analyze text that is ambiguous, and eventually add their own opinion and twist to the story. Stories constantly require readers to develop personalized interpretations of how the story is unfolding. This is a great quality for every student to have in his or her repertoire, and is part of what makes reading so special and engaging. ELL’s and students who struggle with literature will be able to witness and participate in this process throughout the lesson. I will explicitly model how a reader would analyze one of the short stories from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Afterwards, students will be replicating this procedure within a meaningful context, so they can use their analysis and interpretations to create their own story. There will be constant sharing of ideas from students, which will help scaffold the learning for students who might at first might struggle finding appropriate observations, questions and/or inferences. Eventually all students will be required to provide some analysis/interpretation of a short story. However, this will occur in a low stress situation, where contributions will be anonymous and read by the teacher. I anticipate that at least three of my students (Katianna, Eniel and Washington) will need some personalized attention during the three writing stages (i.e. writing sticky notes for OQI chart, brainstorming ideas, writing story). Josh and I will attend to these students needs by prompting them with questions about what we read in the text and looked at in the pictures. Having a collection of observations, questions and inferences, as well as having some students share out brainstorm ideas will help catalyze others creative juices. Also, expectations for how long and in-depth stories are will be modified for lower ELL’s.


VI. Activity description and agenda

a. Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of your class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path toward understanding.

Time Teacher will… Student will… Materials

5-7 min. -Discuss how Van Allsburg frequently writes stories that contain some type of mystery or an unknown element. Now it is our turn to act as the authors and write our own mystery’s building off starters provided by Van Allsburg. -Read the introduction to The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

-Listen and participate ideas about how the theme of mystery is involved in Van Allsburg’s stories. -Listen to the introduction and think about the mystery of Harris Burdick.

-Text: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

5-7 min. -Flip to the ‘story’ and demonstrate how I would complete an OQI chart by looking closely at the photos and the short description. -Ask for students to help me continue completing the chart

-Listen and watch the teacher walk through the process of analyzing an illustration and its caption to fill out an OQI chart. -Listen and participate appropriate observation, questions and inferences.

-Text: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick -OQI chart

10 min. -Add any final thoughts or critiques to our Chris Van Allsburg anchor chart draft. -Create final Chris Van Allsburg anchor chart using what the class thinks is most important from our draft.

-Listen, ask questions and participate new information that needs to be added to the chart or reasoning for why something should be removed from the chart. -Decide what the most important features from our draft are, and collaborate on creating our final author anchor chart.

-Chris Van Allsburg anchor chart draft -Final Chris Van Allsburg anchor chart


10 min. -Project another ‘story’ on the board and put a new OQI chart up -Tell students they must complete at least three sticky notes addressing an observation, question and inference about the new ‘story’ -Briefly read out what students posted on the board.

-Listen to the caption and analyze the illustration. -Copy down on sticky notes at least one: observation, question and inference about the short story. -Go up to the board place sticky notes in the correct column on the OQI chart. -Listen and ask questions about what other students shared.

-at least 66 sticky notes, so every student can use at least 3. -Text: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick -OQI chart

5 min. -Explain that we will all be continuing this story and creating our personalized mystery. -Demonstrate how to come up with ideas to write the story about. Reference our poster.

-Listen and ask questions about the process of idea planning and what their mysteries should look like.

30 min. -Give students time to quickly jot down ideas and create rough draft of their stories. Call on a few students to hear their ideas. -Handout template and ask students to continue the story. Explain that students should continue the story, and then provide a one-two sentence summary at the bottom to explain what is going on. -Walk around monitoring and assisting students.

-Come up with ideas on how to continue the story and what is going on in the story. -Use ideas and notes as a rough draft, and create the story on the template. -After finishing one story, students will go and grab another template and repeat the process of planning and then writing a final draft.

-22 story templates of a short story from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick -A collection of other templates students can use when they finish their first story.

b. What particular challenges, in terms of student learning or implementing

planned activity, do you anticipate and how will you address them? I anticipate that some students will have difficulty brainstorming ideas for a story that builds off of the caption and image found within The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. A selection of students have had difficulties in the past being able to independently develop


topics, themes and details to write about. I am hoping that my modeling and the whole class contributions will help scaffold and accelerate this process for students. Afterwards, it will be up to Josh or I to keep these students creative juices flowing as they write their stories. We both will be circulating around the classroom and helping students who are stuck by asking them questions to prompt ideas. VII. List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses. Reading Standards for Literature

2. Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

Writing Standards 3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. 9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

VIII. Reflection

a. In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose and learning goals, in what ways was the activity(ies) successful? How do you know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned differently another time?

b. What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your next LAP?

Overall I thought this lesson went well, based on student’s engagement and output. I was

happy this lesson allowed students to really focus on and analyze illustrations, because

they are such a crucial element of Chris Van Allsburg books. I wasn’t sure how to

introduce the book, because it is so unique and each page is a new unrelated story. After

reading the introduction, we quickly went through a couple of the stories and then

focused on two. I encouraged students to read the rest of the mysteries on their own time,

and I left the book at the front of the classroom. Ideally, I would’ve liked to have students

preview all of the mini-stories prior to the lesson, just to get a general understanding of

the format and sequence.

Students were intrigued by the introduction and interested in finding out what was going

on in each story. The majority of students struggled understanding that each story was

unique and not related to any others within that book. This was a very new and strange

concept for some of them and a couple continued referencing previous stories and


ignoring what I had instructed them. However, I was pleased with students abilities to

continue making notes on observations, developing potential questions and possible

explanations for each scenario. Initially, using the story titled The House on Maple Street,

I modeled the process of thoroughly analyzing the blurb of text, the illustration and the

relationship between the two. Students were not interested in observing the ‘I-do’ phase

and were eager to contribute their own thoughts and ideas. This was okay, because I

continued to direct attention to every possible detail that can be observed.

Students were keen on jumping to the inference section and proposing some creative

scenario the text and photo outlined. I dissuaded this approach and encouraged students

to take their time and first collating a list of observations and questions. In some instances

I asked students to transform their inference into a question. After applauding one

student’s observation of a very minute detail, I was flooded with participants offering

very specific comments. I realized my mistake, and discussed how paying attention to

some small details can be helpful, but creating a list of only small details will waste time

and space. It is crucial to be balance a small-picture and big-picture approach when

making inferences.

Overall, I was pleased with the rough OQI chart the class created. Our observations and

questions addressed the main parts of the text and illustration. After a quick vote on

students favorite story, I projected Uninvited Guests and students filled out sticky notes

with observations, questions, and what they think is going on. Every student was able to

write at least three sticky notes, which was the goal. For future references I would’ve

liked to ease the transition of students coming up to the board and posting their sticky

notes onto the poster. Walking around with the poster might’ve alleviated the crowing

and disruption from one-two tables coming up at time. The content of the sticky notes

was appropriate for the story even thought there were a fair amount of repeats, which I

had expected. In the ‘we think’ part of the poster, the thoroughness of student’s responses

varied. Higher academically achieving students responses delved into who was behind

the door and what was going on. While other responses simply stated the house was

being robbed.


Do to time constraints, students did not receive ample amount of planning and

preparation time to develop their ideas into stories. Because of this, a lot of the stories

were short and strayed from remaining on topic. Some students wrote very lengthy

pieces, but incorporated random connections from texts they were independently reading

or other classroom work. Originally I was happy about the connections, but I would’ve

liked students to remain within the mystery mindset presented by the Van Allsburg’s

mini-story. In order to successfully support students for this goal, I should’ve provided

some sentences structures and key elements that needed to be incorporated. All of which

would’ve necessitated more time, possibly making the lesson a two-day event.

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