CBUP Lesson Plan Template: DAY 5

Week 2 of 4; Plan #5 of 12; [90 mins.]

Plan type: __X__Full-Detail ____Summary

Content Requirement Satisfied: Writing instruction: Language Concept

(Note: Refer to the list in the document called “Concept Unit Lesson Plans”)

Unit Learning Objectives (numbered) [from my Backwards Design Unit Document],

followed by Specific lesson objectives (lettered) being taught in this lesson:

Cognitive (know/understand):
4. Students will know how to ask questions that elicit deeper understanding
a. Understand that questioning is a way to learn about themselves and others

Performance (do):
7. Students will be able to create questions that elicit a deeper understanding of themselves
and others.
a. Know the difference between level 1, 2, and 3 questions
b. Identify the appropriate type of questioning for different purposes

Affective (feel/value) and/or Non-Cognitive:

8. Students will be able to listen actively to their peers.

d. Students will be able to listen while others are talking

SOL’s: [List with numbers portrayed in the SOL document]

7.1 The student will participate in and contribute to conversations, group discussions, and
oral presentations.
a) Communicate ideas and information orally in an organized and succinct manner.
b) Ask probing questions to seek elaboration and clarification of ideas.

CCS’s: [List with numbers portrayed in the CCS document]

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and
teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others'
ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Methods of Assessment:

Diagnostic Formative Summative

 Title of assessment tool:
Do Now
Students will demonstrate
what they already know
about Developing questions
to deepen their understanding
by generating questions in
response to an image
Criteria: Two Questions
How data will be used: This
will show me a base line to
measure growth in their
questioning skills.
How students will receive
feedback: They will work in
pairs to evaluate and change
their questions towards the
end of the lesson
Obj: 4a, 7a, 7b
Title of assessment tool: Title of assessment tool:
Reworked Do Now Final Project Interview
Questions
Students will show their
progress toward Developing Students will ultimately be
questions to deepen their assessed (today or in a future
understanding by revising the lesson) on their ability to create
questions they wrote in their questions that elicit a deeper
Do Nows understanding of themselves
and others by developing
Criteria: Transformation of interview questions to help
each question into the other them learn about their peers’
two types. identities
Criteria: see summative
How data will be used: This assessment document.
data will help me track their
growth and see places where
students are struggling and I
may need to review with them.
How students will receive
feedback: Feedback will occur
during the whole class
reflection where I will have
time to verbalize the issues I
saw and work with students to
develop strategies for
improvement.

Obj: 4a, 7a, 7b, 8d

Differentiated Instruction to accommodate one or more of my profiled students:

Student Readiness Interest Learning Environment

Name
Nilofar Nilofar is advanced, and
often shouts out during
instruction to share her
ideas. I’ve built in
collaborative activities that
will allow her to vocalize
her ideas while also
listening to her classmates
in a productive manner.
Maria Maria reads and writes
below grade level and
often has difficulty
focusing during extended
instructional time. I have
 built in a lot of peer talk
opportunities so that she is
able to use verbalization
to help her organize her
thoughts and get
clarification in low
pressure situations.
Alex
Kamal
Alex is reluctant to engage
with material they do not
feel connected to. The
image I’ve chosen for the
do now has many elements,
some of which appeal
specifically to their
interests. This will help
them generate more
meaningful questions, as
they will have genuine
curiosities to build on.
Due to his feeling of
isolation in our classroom,
Kamal often does not
engage with classmates on
his own. I’ve built in
opportunities for structured
peer talk that will aid him
in building relationships
with peers and engaging
with content in the process.

Procedures/Instructional Strategies
[Note: Any words that represent what I would say directly to students appear in italics.]

Beginning Room Arrangement: Students will be seated in their usual base group seats. They
will all have retrieved their writer’s notebooks from the class bins at the start of class and will
have them on their desks. I will be standing in the doorway to greet each student by name and
give them a little elbow bump. I will be able to see the hallway as well as the classroom. The Do
Now is projected on the Smart Board with an image and the prompt: Create three questions that
would give you more information about this image. The following quote is written on the board:

“Once you have learned to ask relevant and appropriate questions, you have learned how to
learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know” – Neil
Postman and Charles Weingartner

1. [ 5 mins.] Welcome/greeting/Do Now

[Students will be working on their Do Nows in their Do Now notebooks, which are composition
books that they keep in a basket in my class.] Good morning class. I see that you’re all already
hard at work on your Do Nows, thank you for coming in and getting right to it. As we get closer
to the culminating project for our unit, we’re going to be taking some time to make sure that we
know how to elicit information that helps us understand things better. So let’s take about 2 more
minutes responding to the Do Now, then we’re going to share with our elbow partners. [As
students are writing, take attendance. Walk around and check in with individual students who
look like they’re finishing up. Call out when one minute remains.]

Alright it looks like everyone is just about finished, so let’s move to classroom meeting and we’ll
revisit these as soon as we finish.

2. [10 mins.] Classroom Meeting

[For this routine, students move into a circle on the floor. It lasts for 10-15 minutes and a
different student leads the circle each day. They begin with a greeting (handshake, high five, fist
bump, etc.) that gets passed around the circle. To give their greeting, they must look the people
on both sides of them in the eyes and say their names.

Example:
Student: “Hi Ms. Bishop! (fist bump)
Teacher: “Hi Student A! (fist bump)” turn to the other side “Hi Student B! (fist bump)”

The greeting is then followed by a “share” that changes each day. It can range from personal
goals and accomplishments, to something on their bucket list, to what they ate for dinner last
night. They get excited regardless of what the share is and it gives them some time at the
beginning of class to socialize and refocus for the rest of the period. This really helps the
classroom feel more like a community, as students get to know themselves and each other a little
better each day.]

3. [10 mins.] Bridge and/or Hook to lesson

Alright, let’s get back to our seats. Go ahead and turn to your elbow partner and share with
them the questions you wrote about this picture for your Do Now. Start examining and talking
through the depth of each question.

[Utilize the “If you can hear me clap once” routine established on day one to bring attention back
to the front.] We will revisit these questions later in the lesson, but for right now, I’d like to talk
briefly about why we ask questions in general. What do you guys think? [Call on raised hands.
Likely answers include:
 to find out more information (deepen understanding)
 to understand when we’re confused (clarify)
 to know more about a person or situation (further inquiry)
make sure they hit on at least the tree listed above.]

Absolutely, questions help us better understand the people and world around us in a variety of
different ways.

As we keep these purposes in our minds, let’s brainstorm some ideas about what makes a good
question. What kind of structure helps us gain valuable information from the person or text we
are asking? I’ll be writing these ideas on the board and I’ll compile them and put them on
Google Classroom so you’ll be able to access them when you start writing your interview
questions next week. Alright, let’s hear some ideas. [Call on students and type their brainstorm
responses into the slide. Likely responses include:
 more than just yes/no answers
 using why and how
  lots of room for answers
 helps us really know more
make sure they touch the importance of using words that ask for meaningful answers. Use this as
an opportunity to push their thinking in the direction of intentional syntactical arrangement of
sentences as a way to elicit deeper meaning.]

4. [15 mins.] Direct Instruction

As we begin generating our own questions, I want to make sure we all understand the different
levels of questioning and how the mechanics and grammar we choose to use impact the depth of
answers we’ll receive. There are what are called Costa’s Levels of Inquiry—there are three
levels or types of questions that serve different purposes. There are times when each level is
appropriate, but we want to understand them well enough to be intentional about how and when
we employ each type.

Slide change
Level one is the most basic type of question. These are useful for gathering facts like names,
experiences, and feelings. These will be the questions that can be answered off the top of your
head. They ask you to remember or show understanding. An example of a level one question that
I generated from our Do Now is…

What do you notice about how this questions looks and sounds? What is it asking for or
requiring from an answer?

Did anyone else have a level one question written down from our Do Now? [Though later we
will be beefing up level one questions to practice creating higher level ones, I want to validate all
responses here so students know that all questions are valuable sometimes. It will provide space
to build towards asking questions for specific purposes. If students offer up level two questions I
will ask them how they might turn them into level one questions.]

Slide change
Level two is a step up from level one, so it makes sense that the wording and depths will look a
little different. Level 2 questions try to gather information to make sense of something. They ask
us to use understanding and examine. They try and get at the underlying cause or effect. An
example of a level two question that I generated from our Do Now is…

What do you notice about how this questions looks and sounds? What is it asking for or
requiring from an answer?

Did anyone else have a level two question written down from our Do Now?

Slide Change
And finally level three questions. These are the highest level questions we will be asking, and
their purpose is to gain evaluative or analytical information. They ask for answers that stretch
beyond a predictable answer, providing the person asking the question with more insight and
deeper understanding.

An example of a level three question that I generated from our Do Now is…

What do you notice about how this questions looks and sounds? What is it asking for or
requiring from an answer?
Did anyone else have a level three question written down from our Do Now?
What questions do you all have about these before we move on to practicing with them? [Paused
for raised hands, providing ample wait time in case students are still thinking through the
material and formulating their thoughts]

5. [ 5 mins.] Modeling – I do

So now we’re going to practice identifying and creating these types of questions. This will follow
the same structure as our Do Now, but we’ll be using a different picture for reference. I will start
by modeling what this process looks like and then we will do a few of them together. Alright, who
can remind me what a level one question is? [Pause for raised hands] Awesome, yes. So a level
one question I could ask this image could be “What emotion is shown on the woman’s face?”
When might a question like this be useful? What can we gain from it?

Now I’m going to alter the structure of the question to turn it into a level two questions. Who will
remind me of what a level two question is? [Pause for raised hands] Wonderfully articulated. Yes,
so I can alter my initial level one question into a level two question by rephrasing it to be “What
is causing the emotion this woman is showing?” What do you notice about how I changed what I
already had to make it require something different from an answer? When might a question like
this be useful? What can we gain from it?

And finally, we’ll tweak it again and turn it into a level three questions. Who wants to explain to
me what level three means? [Pause for raised hands] Right, so the transformation I’ll make here
is “If you were in this woman’s position, how would you feel and why? “How has what this
question is asking changed throughout this process? What do you notice about how I changed
what I already had to make it require something different from an answer?

6. [15 mins.] Guided Practice – We Do

Really insightful responses, I love how deeply you are all thinking about how the structure and
phrasing of questions impacts the type of answers we’ll receive. Grasping this will be essential
for you as you begin writing questions for your final projects, so we’re going to practice
transforming some sentences like I just did as a whole class.

Let’s get a few examples of level one questions up here on the board.

[2 mins.] Think

Alright, hold up a 1, 2, or 3 on your fingers to decide which sentence we want to work with as we
develop level two and three questions. Looks like number __ has the most votes, so take about
two minutes to come up with a level 2 question from the level one question on the board. []

[3 mins.] Pair

Alright, turn to the person across from you and share two things: first, the sentence you
developed, and second, the steps you took to get there. I’ll be calling on a few people to share, so
make sure you’re remembering our norms for active listening and paying attention to what your
partners are sharing.

[2 mins.] Share
Okay, let’s hear some level two questions and the processes you used to create them. [Call on 2-
3 students. I let them know in advance that I would be asking them to share, so they should all
have something prepared. If the questions shared are not actually level two questions (above or
below), use those moments as an opportunity to have peers clarify again the elements of each
type]

[Repeat Think-Pair-Share steps for level three questions.]

7. [15 mins.] Student Application – You do

I really appreciate how engaged you’ve all been throughout this lesson, and I’m very pleased
with the work you’re putting into understanding the material. We’re going to use the remaining
time to practice this independently. In your notebooks, I want you to rework the two questions
you wrote for your Do Now. If you wrote level one questions, turn them into level two and three
questions. If you wrote a level three question, try it as a level two and level one. Are there
questions about this before we begin [] Alright, will someone repeat the instructions back to me
before we begin?

Great, if finish before we come back together to reflect, you may start looking over the interview
question requirements posted on Google Classroom. Go ahead and get started.

8. [5 mins.] Reflection

Slide Change:
If you can hear me clap once… I heard some great things from those of you I was able to meet
with during that short time, and I’m very excited to see the types of meaningful questions you
come up with in your projects. I want us to take some time now and revisit our initial questions
with out elbow partners from the beginning of class. I’ve put some questions up on the board that
I’d like you to discuss.
1. How did your sentences change?
2. What did those changes do to change what the question was asking for?
3. What does the process of questioning with different purposes feel like?
Take about 5 minutes for this and then we’ll come back together and discuss as a whole class.

9. [5 mins] Closure

[Slide Change: Questions for whole-class reflection]

1. Who would like to share what their pair talked about?
2. Did your partner feel or think differently about the process?
3. How has your perception of questioning changed?
4. How will these skills impact your work on the final project?

Materials Needed (list):

1. Google Slides
2. Smart Board
3. Do Now Image
4. Direct Instruction Image
Materials Appendix: (e.g., supplementary texts, Ppts, overheads, graphic organizers,
handouts, etc.)

Appendix A: Google Slides

Appendix B: Do Now Image
Appendix C: Direct Instruction Image