Explicit Instruction Implementation Log

Time Frame of Implementation Study: Fall 2012 Name: Heather Creighton Grade Level/Role: Demonstration

Lesson Focus/Goal: Comprehension-Making Inferences

Instructional Technique:
Briefly describe the instructional technique, strategy, or activity you will be using.

Proficient readers read between the lines to get the authors unstated meaning. Readers need to make informed guesses based on clues provided in the words and pictures (text features). Readers actively build meaning based on prior knowledge combined with new text information. Students use prior knowledge to make inferences about the text that they are reading. Inferences are evidence-based guesses. They are the conclusions a reader draws about the unsaid in a passage based on what is actually said by the author. Inferences drawn while reading are much like inferences drawn in everyday life. Students make inferences throughout their school day based on their peers actions, speech, or based on their teachers facial expressions, and body language. Students need to be taught how to transfer these skills and strategies to their interactions with text. Lesson Introduction: Include an introductory statement about what students will be learning to do and a brief explanation of how this strategy will be useful to them as readers. Today we are going to learn how to make inferences while reading any type of text. Inferential thinking is often called reading between the lines. Its like mathematics in a way, because the answer is not given in a math problem. We have to figure out the correct answer from the information or clues that are given to us. Making inferences in reading and in life itself is figuring out answers from the facts that we have access to. We use prior knowledge (what we already know) to make inferences about the text that we read. Inferences are evidence-based guesses. They are the conclusions we draw about what is NOT said in a passage based on what IS actually said by the author. Inferences drawn while reading are much like inferences drawn in everyday life. We make inferences throughout the school day based on our peersactions, speech, or based on teachers facial expressions, and body language.

Instructor Models and Demonstrates: (I do) Include key statements you will use to model I am going to share the way I figured out HOW to make inferences by using cartoons. I will explain how I think about what I already know about the topic. Then I will search for the clues or information the author DOES give me and what I have to then figure out on my ownby making an inference. We have been reading about the concerns about the global warming in books, magazines, and the newspaper. Today, I am going to reveal my thinking to you as I make an inference about what the cartoon says about global warming. I read the caption (cartoon #1), Good news! At the current rate of global warming we should be able to just swim over there and eat him in under five years. When I saw the guy on the island, he looks like he is struggling, fishing for his food, a tad disheveled. I can infer global warming is causing land to go away. Guided Practice: (We do it) Include opportunities for students to engage in guided practice with the instructional task. Now lets try one together. Since we have background knowledge from science about our planet, lets look at what the next cartoonist did and share our thinking about what information the cartoonist is giving us in the cartoon and what prior/background knowledge we need to use to understand it. This cartoon (cartoon #2) has some similarities to the first one. Share your thoughts with a partner and then well infer the authors purpose.

Collaborative Learning: (You do it together) Include opportunities for students to engage with a partner or triad while teacher observes small group interaction and understanding of Make a T chart with two columns: Cartoonist/US. With your partner, list all the things the cartoonist shares with you. Then list your background/prior knowledge. Make an inference about the cartoons topic. Independent Practice: (You do it alone) Include opportunities for students to engage in independent practice with the instructional tasks.

Now it is your turn to share your thinking with making an inference. Using your T-chart, fill in what the cartoonist shares with you and then your own prior/background knowledge. Then share the inference you made by combining your background knowledge and the authors message. Slide 1 Slide 2

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