Kutztown Lesson Plan

Teacher: Ms. Lisa Rhyner Date: 2/06/17

Group Size: 22 Allotted Time 20 minutes Grade Level: Fourth

Subject or Topic: Narrative Writing Lesson 3 Section 935

Character Development

I. Performance Objectives

A. Standards
CC.1.3.4.C
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a
story or drama, drawing on specific detail in the text.

B. Learning Objectives
1) The students will be able to describe a character
in a story in depth by drawing on specific details in
the text as well as create an in depth character
description of themselves for their personal narrative
essay.

II. Assessment
1) Formative
Students will be assessed formatively on their ability
to develop a written character and themselves
through the completion of the character trait graphic
organizer.
2) Summative
Students will be given a summative assessment at
the end of the unit in the form of a personal narrative
essay that they will write.
III. Instructional Materials
A. Teacher
Model Characterization chart
My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother book pages 4-5
Whiteboard with a cartoon boy drawn onto it.
Character description graphic organizer for youtube
video characters
Projector
 Computer for links
Abraham Lincoln Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjYG1Tyaos
George Washington link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lXnfitSoYw
John F. Kennedy Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=97yVZJg2v5A&t=5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjA4mtnCkM4
(first 30
seconds)

B. Students
22 narrative writing booklets
22 pencils
IV. Subject Matter
A. Prerequisite Skills
Students should know how to organize their ideas.
Students should know how to use graphic organizers.
B. Key Vocabulary
Character: a person in a story
C. Big Ideas
Students will learn how to create and develop
characters in their personal narratives.
D. Content
Students will learn how to develop a character by
creating a physical appearance, behavior, and
speech pattern of the character or characters in their
personal narrative.

V. Implementation
A. Introduction
Bring the students to the front of the class to sit on
the carpet in front of the whiteboard.
Review with students from the anchor chart:
Narrative and personal writing definitions,
brainstorming, and authors crafts.
Ask students for an example of each authors craft.
Tell the students that today they will be learning
about characters and how to develop a character.
We need to be character detectives and look for
three specific things in a character!
Physical Appearance (what they look like)
 Behavior (how they act)
Speech (how they talk, what they say)
Tell the students that you are going to read them a
few pages from the book and that they need to be
character detectives regarding the little girls brother
in the story.
B. Development
Continue the read aloud from My Rotten Redheaded
Older Brother until the book is finished.
Ask the students if they could describe the brother
character from the story.
(Draw a character on the whiteboard before class)
Wait for responses.
Prompt the students
Start with physical appearance. What did he
look like? How do you know?
He had read hair (In the title, described
in the book, used in the simile: hair like
wire to give you a comparison.
Move to Behavior, how did he act? How do
you know?
He annoyed his sister, acted like a good
boy around his grandmother, always did
things better than his sister.
At the end though, he cared about her
and helped her.
Lastly, talk about speech. How did he talk?
They fought and yelled, he did not
always speak truth, he spoke jokingly.
Character Activity:
The teacher will divide the students into partner
groups. Use the same partner groups as from the
book scavenger hunt the previous day.
Give each students a character description handout.
The teacher will show a Youtube video of the
character Abraham Lincoln on the overhead
projector.
Ask each partner group to work together to write the
three topics (physical, behavior, speech) for Abraham
Lincoln
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIg6rz6EPwY
Show 60 seconds of video
Possible answers:
Abraham Lincoln
 Physical: Tall, dark hair, big hat
Behavior: tried to help our country, was
kind, hard worker, was not spoiled (poor
growing up), self-motivated (taught
himself), helped end slavery
Speech: Determined, probably had an
accent, he was kind in his speech.
Ask the students to describe George
Washington
Ask each partner group to work together to
write the three topics (physical, behavior,
speech) for George Washington
George Washington
Physical: White hair/wig, war outfit.
Behavior: Responsible at a young age,
war commander,
Speech: encouraging, kind, commanding,
serious,
Ask each partner group to work together to write the
three topics (physical, behavior, speech) for John F.
Kennedy.
John F. Kennedy
Physical: dark hair, suit
Behavior: president, smart, was in the
army, determined, hard working
Speech: kind, had an accent.
Students will be told to turn to the Characterization
page in their Narrative Writing Booklet.
So now that we have our topic for our personal
narrative from the brainstorming session we did, we
need to start writing. In order to start writing about
our story, we need to know who our characters are.
Today we are focusing on the main character in the
personal narrative story, which in a personal
narrative is YOU.
Each one of you has two character pictures in your
booklet. Pick one of those characters to be you and
create a character profile of yourself first (remember
to be a character detective!)
Tell the students they may work in partner groups to
help each other with their character descriptions
(remind them to be kind to each other and not to say
mean or hurtful things about other students, to try to
 acknowledge the good things about their
classmates).
Remind the students to try to use authors crafts in
their character description as well. Remember the
sentence the little girl used to describe her red
headed brother? She used a simile to say his hair
was like wire- that really made you picture how his
hair looked. She used an authors craft to describe a
character!
Allow students 15 minutes to fill out their graphic
organizers pertaining to the characters in their story.
C. Closure
3 minutes before the end of class tell the students to
wrap it up and gather their thoughts.
Bring the students together and ask for volunteers to
read their character descriptions.
D. Accommodations
1. For Struggling Learners
o S.P, W.S, and H.M will be put in a group near
the front to be closer to the teacher so the
teacher can monitor them more closely
throughout the lesson. These students will
need direct monitoring when creating their
characters.
2. For Accelerated Learners
o A.D., M.M., P.J., C.B., and any other student that
completes the handouts easily will be asked to
create another character description or to
create a character description of the teacher.

VI. Reflective Response

A. Report of students performance in terms of stated
objectives
All students completed their handouts
B. Personal Reflection
1) How can I improve this lesson?
I think that I expected too little of my students. I could
have gone into more detail with describing the characters,
specifically if I had done inner traits instead of just
behavior. They kept asking me what behavior meant and
I told them it was personality and the inner side of a
character. If I were to teach this lesson again I would
change it to inner traits and try to explain it better that
way.
 2) What additional assistance, supports, and/or resources
would have further enhanced this lesson?
Individual whiteboards. I was really thinking about this and
I wish my classroom had whiteboards. I think it would be an
easy and effective formative assessment of the students
and would also allow me to cut back on my paper handouts
for things in these lessons.
Pictures of the students. I think it would have been really
good for their narrative writing booklet if I could have
gotten a hold of the students school pictures to copy so
that they could legitimately have a picture of themselves
to describe.
3) Were the student productively engaged?
The students really liked describing characters. I allowed
the students who were finished to describe me on the
whiteboard. They are very observant and noticed very
interesting things about me. This lesson also allowed my
students to evaluate themselves and see what kind of
person they are personality-wise. While prompting the
students during the independent activity I was able to
learn more about them as well.

VII. Resources
1) Dawn, B. (2015, May 1). John F Kennedy Biography for Kids
(Educational Videos for Students) Learning Cartoon Network.
Retrieved February 25, 2017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97yVZJg2v5A&t=5s
2) School, F. (2015, March 14). Biography of Abraham Lincoln For
Kids: Meet the American President for Kids-FreeSchool.
Retrieved February 25, 2017, from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjYG1Tyaos

3) School, F. (2015, February 12). Biography of George

Washington for Kids: Meet the American President-FreeSchool.
Retrieved February 25, 2017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IXnfitSoYw