Anna Fowler

09/15/15

Teaching Reading: Mini Lesson Format (Calkins, 2001)

Targeted Literacy Strategy or Skill: Visualizing to fill in missing information
Grade level: 1st grade
Objective: The student will be able to infer meaning through visual images and create meaning out of
visual images and the missing images they create in their mind.
Common Core State Standard/ PASS Standard: Visual Literacy: The student will interpret, evaluate,
and compose visual messages. Standard 1: Interpret Meaning The student will interpret and evaluate the
various ways visual image-makers including graphic artists, illustrators, and news photographers represent
meaning.
2. Respond through talk, movement, music, art, drama and writing in ways that reflect understanding of a
variety of stories and poems.
Prior knowledge: (What students already know) The students have seen wordless picture books and
understand how they work. They understand illustrations and how they tell a story as well.

Observations/Rationale: (Before Lesson) What did you notice in your students work that let you
know this lesson was necessary? (This will be an approximation this semester.) I noticed that students
were not inferring when reading picture books or looking at illustrations.

Materials Needed: Good Dog Carl, by Alexandra Day. Paper, pencil, marker, crayon
Lesson from (Name your source including page number) Strategies That Work- Strategy Lessons:
Visualizing. Pg. 133
Mentor Text: Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, Good Dog Carl, by
Alexandra Day
Materials:
Student Groups (whole/small group/partners): Whole group to individual
Mini Lesson Format:
Connect (AKA~ Anticipatory Set, Engagement/Pre-reading): Good morning class! Will everyone
please join me on the rug? Raise your hand if you have ever been reading a book and when you
turn the page, it seems like you missed something or the author skipped something that happened
in the story? When that happens, the author wants you to decide in your mind what happened. It is
easy to make something up but we want it to make sense and fit with the rest of the story.

Teach (Model/Explain) Read the book Good Dog, Carl when we come across a page that calls
for visualization and inferring ask the students what they think happened. What do we think
happened between these two pictures?

Active Engagement (AKA~ Check for Understanding: students try it out, teacher observes):
Students go back to their seats and work individually. They each get a piece of paper. Okay
remember when I asked you what you think happened between these two pictures? What do you
see in your mind happening between these two pictures? At the top of the page I gave you I want
you to draw what you think happened between these two pictures. At the bottom I want you to
write a sentence about what you drew. Then share their visualizations with the class to show that
it is okay to infer different things as long as it is practical and makes sense in terms of the story.

Link (AKA~ Closing the Lesson [with accountability for the skill/process]) Now that we have all
shared our drawings, does everyone see that it is okay to picture different things? We all think
differently so we probably wont all see the same things in our minds. Now that we have learned
how to fill in missing pictures in our minds, I expect you to do this in every story you read!