Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level/Subject: First Grade

Central Focus: Students will be able to read a story and
determine what the moral or lesson of the story is.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective: With guidance
and support from adults, recall information from experiences Date submitted: N/A Date
or gather information from provided sources to answer a
taught: March 22, 2016
question
Daily Lesson Objective:
Performance: Students will be able to read a story and accurately relay the moral or lesson of
what they read.
Conditions: Working as a group, students will read a story, working individually students will
analyze the text.
Criteria: Students are expected to listen to The Magic Fish and then accurately answer the
assigned question.
21st Century Skills: Critical Thinking Academic Language Demand (Language Function and
Vocabulary): Students will interpret the moral of the story as we
and Problem Solving- Students will
learn the importance of paying attention to details authors include in
be required to use critical thinking
the story to help figure out who the what the moral of lesson
and analyzing text to determine
actually is. This will better help the readers understand the reason
the moral of the story.
behind the author writing a piece of work. .Vocabulary- moral, infer,
Initiative and Self Directioncharacters, predict, plot, setting, visualize
Students will be required to display
time management and work
individually in order to complete
the assignment.
Prior Knowledge: Students must be able to actively listen and follow along in order to
comprehend what the moral of a story means. Once the students understand the definition of a
moral, they will then be able to analyze the moral of The Magic Fish.
Activity
1. Focus and Review

Description of Activities and Setting

Can someone raise their hand and tell me what finding the
moral of the story means? (Let a couple of students answer.)
As students are giving their opinion of what they believe
finding the moral of story means, I will write them in list
format on the white board. After writing just a couple of
different ideas on the board, I will ask students to vote on
which answer best describes the word moral. The children will
be asked to raise their hand for which definition they most
strongly agree with. After the voting I will then explain to the
students that finding the moral of a story means to figure out
what lesson was learned by the characters in the book and
what we took away from the story as individuals. There may
be many different answers to what a moral really means;
because one person may take away something entirely
different than the person sitting next to them. Then we will

Time
Five
Minutes

put all the definitions we got together to form one strong

definition for what the moral of a story is.
2. Statement of
Objective
for Student

3. Teacher Input

4. Guided Practice

5. Independent
Practice

6. Assessment
Methods of
all
objectives/skills:

Today we will read The Magic Fish collectively as a class and

One
then you will each go back to your desk and write down what
Minute
you believe the moral of the story is.
This afternoon I will read The Magic Fish to you all. As I read I
want you to pay close attention to what is going on in the
story. After I finish reading the book, you will return to your
seats, take out your student notebooks, and write down what
you believe the moral of the story is. Everybody
Fifteen
understand? Then I will begin to read the book to the class.
Minutes
As I am reading the book to the students, I will occasionally
stop and ask questions. The reason for doing this is to ensure
all students are following the story. I want the students to
focus on certain areas in the story so they may retain the
information.
Now who can tell me what the book was about? This will
ensure we all are on one accord and understanding the story
as a group. After a couple of students answer the question I
will send them back to their seats with a copy of the book. I
will assign each student a partner before leaving the carpet
area. Students will began to reread the book with their
Ten
assigned partner. At this point I will begin to pace the room to
Minutes
answer any questions the students may have. I will also be
assessing if any child is having difficulties understanding the
objective of the lesson. While students are going over the
book they should be looking for what they believe the moral
of the story is. I want the children to be creative and yet, gain
a true meaning of the moral.
Everybody stop where you are. Its time to put your book
away. Now take out your pencils and notebooks. Students will
independently begin to write the moral of the story. Once
everyone is finished, I will collect the papers to grade as an
assessment. Following the assessment we will go back to the
Five
carpet and discuss what we all think the moral of The Magic
Minutes
Fish is. The goal is that no child be incorrect, but have a
sound basis to why they made the decision they did.
Hopefully this will encourage others to think in a manner they
had not before.
For this lessons assessment, the students will be given an index card
and on this card they must write what they believe the moral of the
story is. The purpose of this assessment is to give students the
opportunity to show that they understand what moral of a story means
and how to find it. Students who state what the moral of the story is and

gives examples or supporting text will receive full credit (100%). A

student who simply states the moral of the story with no supporting
evidence will receive partial credit (75%), and students who dont
understand the moral or even attempt to provide evidence will receive
no credit (0%).

7. Closure

Great job today everybody. Now that we have completed

todays lesson, its time to review. Ask questions about
todays lesson. Allow the children to talk openly about the
story and the morals which could affect them in their personal
lives at home. I want to encourage the class to think outside
the box and be creative in their thoughts. Allow students to
express how they feel about the moral of the story, as well as
their opinion of the book. Ask the children to describe the
many things the lady had requested. Did she ask for too
much? It seems as if a little was not enough. Do we know
anyone like this today? What advice could you give them so
the same thing will not happen to the person you know?
What could she have done differently than she did.
Sometimes we just have to stop and think about what we are
doing and how we react in situations. Do you have any
suggestions for her? How about yourself? Is it hard for you to
just take one and walk away; or do you continue to ask and
even ask again?
Fifteen students received full credit at 100%.
Eight students received partial credit at 75%.
Two students received no credit at 0%.

8. Assessment
Results of
all
objectives/skills:
Targeted Students
Modifications/Accommodations:
Down Syndrome: For my student with down
syndrome, I would meet with him one on
one. We would read a lower level book and
we would find the moral of the story
together by talking through what is going on
in the book.
Materials/Technology:
The Magic Fish
Index cards

Five
Minutes

Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations:
Students who need modifications or
accommodations would meet with me in a small
group to go over what the moral of a story means.
After that we will then break the text into smaller
pieces in order to allow students a better
understanding of The Magic Fish.

References:
Reflection on lesson: I thought the overall lesson went rather well. The students really seemed to
enjoy the reading, which after taking READ this semester I understand how important that piece

is. I was surprised with how many students actually received full credit because on most other
assignments they would simply give the bare minimal for an answer. On the index cards they
actually took the time to find supporting evidence from the book. One thing that I think that
didnt go well was that we ran out of time and so I never got the to go over what the actual
moral of the story was.