Who did what and why?!

Jonquil Davis
Second Grade/ Language Arts

Common Core Standards:

Key Ideas and Details
RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate
understanding of key details in a text.
RL.2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central
message, lesson, or moral.
Craft and Structure
RL.2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the
story and the ending concludes the action.
RL.2.6 Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different
voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate
understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.

Lesson Summary:
This lesson will address the main components of a story such as who, what, when where, why, and how,
characters, setting, plot, and overall structure of a story. Students will watch a cute fable The Gruffalo
followed by a class discussion to identify the above mentioned components. After some homework practice
there will be in-class group activities where small groups will create their own stories using Storybird.com
followed by a class presentation that requires them to read their stories to the class in character. Following each
reading students will identify the major components of their story. A post assessment will follow.
Estimated Duration:
The duration of this lesson plan will be just over 4 hours which will be broken up into five class periods lasting
50 minutes each, for a total of about 250 minutes.
Commentary:

Since little ones attention span is quite limited at times, the five day fifty minute schedule could seem
daunting; however, the initial silly movie will hook them right away. I will create a silly book with the class to
show them how Storybird.com works and encourage them to be as fun and creative as they like when creating
their own stories with their classmates. Acting out their subsequent stories will also keep the class lively and
entertained. To account for differences in learning, I will arrange the groups into children of different skill
levels to allow students to guide each other through the process.

Instructional Procedures:
Day 1:
First 5 minutes: I will identify the key concepts of a story (who, what, when, where, why, and how), and tell
them that every story has a beginning, middle, and end and briefly explain how all of these interact with each
other. I will tell them they are going to watch a movie followed by a short quiz on the elements I explained,
and then a group discussion. I will inform them that they may take notes if they like for memorization during
the movie, but that it is not required.
25 minutes: As a class we will watch The Gruffalo via smart T.V. or any other platform that allows us to
view Netflix.
10 minutes: Students will take a brief quiz that is only meant for assessing their initial skillset to distribute
them into their later groups.
Last10 minutes (could run over a bit): I will ask the students to describe what the beginning, middle, and end
of the movie entailed, ask them the essentials of who, what, when, where, why, and how, all while recording
their answers on a smartboard in grouped columns. I will then explain to them that the who is the characters
of the story, where is the setting, and the events that happened in the story, are the plot. I will send them
home with my pre-assembled list from the movie.

Day 2:
First 5 minutes: I will assemble the children that I have chosen to work together into groups of 4-5 for a class
size of 16-20 children. Take into account class size or allow for more time for a larger class when forming
groups because the more groups you have the longer it will take for later presentations.
25 minutes: I will use a smart T.V. with web-browsing capabilities to access Storybird.com. By this point I
would have pre-chosen the art I would like to use but show them exactly how to do so for their own books. By
looking at the artwork we will, as a class, compile a story together.
5 minutes: We will briefly discuss, again, all of the elements of the story we have just compiled.
Last 15 minutes: Each group will be given an iPad signed into Storybird.com and a set of instructions for
length and parameters of their story, and expectations of their later presentation to the class. Children can begin
exploring artwork and discuss their ideas for their stories.
Day 3:

50 minutes: Children will start the day in their designated groups and work on their story keeping in mind that
each student will present at the end. I will circle the classroom observing to make sure that everyone in each
group is participating. I will answer questions as well as ask them to make sure they are thinking about the
components of their stories.
Day 4:
50 minutes: Children will continue to work on their stories and finish them up with presentation practice by the
end of the 50 minutes. During this time I will continue observing and pull children aside individually who do
not seem to fully grasp the concepts for a one-on-one instruction. If all groups finish early presentations can
begin on this day.
Day 5:
First 28-35 minutes: Each group will present their story with each child taking a turn reading aloud, in
character. They will have approximately 7 minutes to read their story and briefly point out who, what, when,
where, why, and how as well as identifying which are the characters, setting, and plot of their story.
Last 15-22 minutes: Children will take a final assessment on their understanding of the overall components of
a story.

Pre-Assessment:
Pre-Assessment will take place while I am explaining the key words and concepts of a story just by
questioning them if they know what who, what, when, where, why, characters, setting, and plot are. After
watching the movie The Gruffalo I will give them a quick quiz on these terms as they connect to the movie.
This initial quiz will tell me which students have a good grasp on this knowledge and which ones may need
more attention and help.

Scoring Guidelines:
The initial quiz will be comprised of 10 multiple choice questions. I will not base these on a percentage
scale, but rather on tiers to comprise groups accordingly and from there I will also determine if they
need one-on-one instruction before group activities. For instance, a child who misses most to all of the
questions may get individual instruction and then be placed into a group with a child who missed zero
to one question to allow for peer advising. Groups should be made up of multiple skill levels from
those who have mastered the concepts, to those struggling. Later, during group activities, I will assess
how well each child is participating through observation and coax out the involvement of the teacher
students and learner students.

Post-Assessment:
The post assessments of this lesson plan are the evaluations of the group presentations and the subsequent
multiple-choice quiz that I will comprise from a short story that I write or a book that I have assigned as
homework. These two together will allow me to see how well the class did as a whole, as groups, and
individually.
Scoring Guidelines:
The criteria for scoring the post-assessment will be a combination of the group presentation and the
quiz. There will be 10 key concepts that I expect the group to recognize: who, what, when, where, why,
how, characters, setting, and plot; as well as total group participation. The students may also be asked
what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of their story.10 points will be deducted for each
concept missed. Discretion can be used as to whether certain students may not receive the same grade
on their group project because of an unwilling child as far as participation goes; however, they should
all be able to identify the concepts as a whole. The quiz will address the first 9 concepts as above with
10 questions and the same point scale on a story of my choosing. The two scores will be combined and
divided by two to get the final mean grade.

Differentiated Instructional Support

Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated
students:
During this lesson plan accelerated students can master their skills by peer tutoring struggling students. You
can urge them to explain the concepts in further detail and give examples to other students. If they have
mastered these skills they will most likely also be able to give the meaning and moral of the story. Have these
students dissect the stories in the class presentations further than the average student for practice.
Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material:
Along with peer coaching, students who are struggling may need direct individual instruction by the teacher.
They may benefit from matching terms and quizzes as well as sites like ABCmouse.com which asks questions
about all of the details of a story repetitively for memorization.

Extension
Below are, first, a handout with pictures of the 5 W words and H with pictures depicting what they stand
for and second another handout with each of the words in a blank square for students to fill out after reading a
story. These could help students with memorizing the terms and what falls into each category:
http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards/files/questions.pdf
http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/graphic/5wsmap.html
The next set of links is to interactive sentences and stories for practicing the concepts, which could greatly
improve writing and reading comprehension skills. The first two are basic for the average learner while the
third is a little more advanced for mastery learners.

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=6909
http://www.quia.com/pop/9496.html?AP_rand=973360238
http://www.learner.org/interactives/story/test.html

Homework Options and Home Connections

The homework that I would like to see take place is reading the book Worst of Friends: Thomas Jefferson,
John Adams and the True Story of an American Feud with a parent, followed by discussion, and filling out a
handout on the Ws and H as well as characters, setting, and plot. One way in which I could make this
technology based is by making the book downloadable to the parents and creating a pre-determined list to drag
and drop into the categories so that the student could attempt the assignment as many times as it takes to get all
of the answers correct.

Interdisciplinary Connections
Although the interdisciplinary connection is not made until my homework assignment, reading my suggested
book ties in History in a hysterical and unforgettable way.
During their time on Storybird.com students will also explore the whimsical world of art by connecting
artwork to thought and writing creations.
The social sciences are also addressed in a large way because much of the work in this lesson plan involves
group work and cooperation.

Materials and Resources:

For teachers

Smart T.V. with built-in web-browsing, Netflix subscription, Storybird.com teacher

account for yourself and students, e-mail account, smartboard, printer, computer with
internet, downloaded copy of Worst of Friends: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and
the True Story of an American Feud

For students

iPads (one per each group of students), notebook, pencil, 1 copy of Worst of Friends:
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the True Story of an American Feud if no home
internet access, e-mail account for student or parent

Key Vocabulary
Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, Characters, Setting, Plot, Beginning, Middle, End

Additional Notes
While home internet access is not a requirement it would make the lesson plan go much smoother and make it
easier for parents to help their children succeed in learning. If children do not have this access at home they
can arrive early or stay a bit late to do the homework drag and drop and utilize the other learning sites as well.
If parents wish to do these activities at home, the teacher will need provided with email addresses for
communication and supplemental materials.