Lesson plan
Who Was Alvin Ailey?
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to analyze a text and formulate questions related to the text.
Introduction
(5 minutes)
- Begin the lesson by asking the students to identify someone that they admire.
- Tell your students that authors sometimes write biographies about people that they admire.
- Explain that bio means life and graph means to write, making a biography the written life history of a person.
- Tell them they are going to read the biography of a man that many people admire.
Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling
(10 minutes)- Pass out the Star graphic organizer.
- Tell your students that when they read, they should be asking who, what, where, when, and why about the information in the text.
- Instruct your students to come up with additional questions based on the information in the text.
Guided Practice
(15 minutes)- Read aloud the Clara Barton text.
- As you read, ask the 5 W questions. Have the students use the Star graphic organizer to record the sample questions.
- Using the subheading on the worksheet, point out Clara Barton's role as the founder of the American Red Cross. Explain that this answers the "who" question.
- Come up with an example question based on that fact, such as: Who was the founder of the American Red Cross? What else did Clara Barton do?
- Continue to guide the students through the remaining questions.
Independent working time
(20 minutes)- Tell the students that they are going to use specific details from the text about Alvin Ailey to formulate questions.
- Inform them that once the questions are complete and are apporoved by you, they are to switch papers with a partner and correctly answer the questions.
Differentiation
- Enrichment: Instruct your students to write a summary paragraph based on the answers to the questions.
- Support: Have your students answer the 5 W questions without creating additional questions.
Assessment
(5 minutes)- Check the answers that were given to the students' questions.
Review and closing
(5 minutes)- Have a student go to the front of the class and pretend to be the teacher by asking the class the questions that she created.
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