Chris Van Allsburg Unit: LAP 2 - at Clark University...Chris Van Allsburg is an exceptional author, who does a fantastic job of showing not telling and being able to really paint a

Clark University Master of Arts in Teaching Program Learning Activity Plan

Chris Van Allsburg Unit: LAP 2 Casey Rothenberg

I. Content: Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content? During this lesson students will explore an important characteristic of Chris Van Allsburgs writing, which is his excellent usage of verbs. Students will learn about verbs and what they are used to describe. Students will analyze the verbs Van Allsburg uses is his book Jumangi, and determine if they think it is a strong or boring verb. Students must consider if a verb helps the writing become more specific and engaging, if it fits with what’s going on or if it could be replaced with another verb to make the sentence more powerful. II. Learning Goal(s): Describe what specifically students will know and be able to do

after the experience of this class.

Student will be able to: • Recognize Chris Van Allsburgs powerful usage of verbs. • Understand what a verb is and be able to recognize them in sentences. • Independently follow along the reading of Jumangi and highlight verbs • Understand the difference between and be able to identify a strong and

weak/boring verb • Understand that strong verbs help writers be more specific and help readers

comprehend and visualize better. III. Rationale: Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your Curriculum

Unit Plan learning goals. Chris Van Allsburg is an exceptional author, who does a fantastic job of showing not telling and being able to really paint a picture with words. His powerful usage of verbs strengthens his writing and the enjoyment of readers. Therefore it is important for students to really explore how he uses verbs to create a specific and realistic image the reader has while following the story. This helps further their understanding of Van Allsburg and his writing style. Also, all of this verb work in context will help develop students own writing abilities, specifically how they talk about action. Students will even create a visual resource for when they are trying to expand their verb usage during independent writing. IV. Assessment: Describe how you and your students will know they have reached

your learning goals. Most of this lesson involves informal assessments to make sure they comprehend the learning goals about verbs. Students will be responsible for independently highlighting verbs in the printed out pages of Jumangi. Also it is up to them to create a chart organizing the verbs, determining if they are strong or boring. These activities will not be graded. I will walk around the classroom and make sure students are doing what they are supposed to be. When students are done organizing their verbs, Josh or I will come over


and quickly check they did the work and did it thoughtfully. Beyond that the assessment will be drawn from participation in class discussion as well as table discussions. As a whole group we will be creating an anchor chart that can live in the classroom for students to reference when writing. Student’s participation while we create this poster will show if they comprehend the material. If students are able to successfully recognize if a verb makes the writing better, then they understand that strong verbs help writers be more specific and help readers comprehend and visualize better.

V. Personalization and equity: Describe how you will provide for individual student

strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each student and scaffold learning? How specifically will ELL students and students with learning disabilities gain access and be supported?

This lesson fits nicely with some of the language lessons Josh has been doing. Recently students went over what nouns, verbs and adjectives were, and practiced identifying them in different texts. This added background knowledge and experience will make sure that all students have some idea of what a verb is and when/how they are used. The video will provide students with an alternative median of learning and will help reinforce the crucial aspects of verbs they will need to reach the learning goals. Thoroughly modeling the process of highlighting every verb will students understand what they are responsible for doing. Two of our students, who don’t speak/read/understand English will be paired with another student during the highlighting process. Irene who speaks Spanish will most likely be paired with Natalia, a student who is also fluent in Spanish and has experience-helping Irene in activities. Even though these students most likely wont independently identify a verb, at least they will be part of the process and have a bunch of highlighted words they can copy into their chart. When students are organizing their list of words I will conference with them, checking to see if they are on the right track and providing prompting questions and answers when necessary. I will meet with a couple students who need practice speaking in class, and prior to creating a class anchor chart I will ask them to prepare one or two verbs to share out. This will allow them to find verbs they are confident about and meaningfully participate. VI. Activity description and agenda

a. Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of your class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path toward understanding.

Time Teacher will… Students will… Materials 5-7 min. -Review what a verb is

and how students can identify one. -Watch BrainPop Jr. video on verbs -Answer two or three question from BrainPop

-Listen, ask questions and provide input on what a verb is and isn’t -Watch BrainPop Jr. video -Help answer questions on BrainPop Jr. quiz

-projector -laptop or iPad


b. What particular challenges, in terms of student learning or implementing planned activity, do you anticipate and how will you address them?

5-7 min. -Review what a verb is and how students can identify one. -Watch BrainPop Jr. video on verbs -Answer two or three question from BrainPop Jr. quiz

-Listen, ask questions and provide input on what a verb is and isn’t -Watch BrainPop Jr. video -Help answer questions on BrainPop Jr. quiz


10 min. -Discuss Van Allsburgs use of verbs -Model on projector going through paragraph from Jumangi and highlighting all the verbs

-Listen and ask questions -observe process of following story and identifying/ highlighting verbs -share out if they think a word is a verb


10 min. -Read printed out section of Jumangi, slow enough pace that students can pick up on most verbs

-Students follow allow reading the printed out part of the story -Highlight every verb they can find

-copied pages from Jumangi for 22 students -markers or highlighters

10 min. -Read two-three sentences from story that has strong verbs. Read them again with boring verbs and discuss difference. Discuss how using action can be another way to show not tell. -Instruct students to copy down the verbs they highlighted into a chart that has two categories: strong verbs and boring verbs -Instruct students to discuss with table their verbs.

-Listen and talk about the differences they noticed in sentences -Go through highlighted verbs and sort them into categories if they are strong or boring. -Talk with other students at their table about similarities and differences in their lists

-sentences from Jumangi that have strong verbs

5-7 min. -As a class, discuss the strong and boring verbs students came up with, allowing other students to agree or disagree. -Create a class anchor chart of strong vs. boring verbs

-Listen and share out the verbs they found and whether they found them strong or boring

-poster paper with chart that has two columns


Some students may struggle keeping up with the story as its being read, and also highlighting verbs they are able to identify. Some of my students who struggle with literacy and reading may not be able to read a word and understand if it communicates an action. Hopefully in the table discussion afterwards students will be able to help other students and point out some verbs they discovered. Struggling students will then have a chance to get some words written down and an opportunity to participate in the class discussion. Our students writing abilities is very diverse, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some students take much longer to go through and write down the different verbs they highlighted. Students will only have a limited amount of time for this so that students wont be waiting on each other. VII. List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses. Speaking and Listening Standards 1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and

teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Writing Standards 9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. VIII. Reflection

a. In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose and learning goals, in what ways was the activity(ies) successful? How do you know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned differently another time?

b. What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your next LAP?

When writing my lesson plan I wasn’t sure how in depth students recognition of verbs

would be, so I figured having a quick lesson and video on verbs would be helpful.

However, when I went to teach the lesson I decided to skip the warm-up activity because

the class had been doing more work identifying verbs, nouns and adjectives. For times

sake and to avoid redundancy, we jumped right into Jumanji. I was happy that we

skipped the mini-lesson, because I could tell right away almost every student was capable

of identifying a verb within sentences. While I was modeling the process of following the

story while highlighting verbs, students were very eager to participate and help complete

the task. This acted as a successful I-do/we-do transition as most of the work fell into the

student’s hands, while I was constantly asking why or why not a word is a verb. By the


end of this activity students had solid comprehension that if a word is a verb it must be

some sort of action or movement.

I was pleased with student’s ability to act appropriately once given a highlighter;

especially because this was the first time we’d used them all semester. The read aloud

was successful, and from my observations every student was able to follow along with

the story, as well as highlight words they identified as verbs on their designated page.

Early on in the reading I realized that I had given two groups of students the same page,

but I quickly pushed through and it didn’t have any effect on the lessons outcome.

Students took responsibility for their job, and seemed to engage and partially enjoy the

process even though some thought I was reading too fast. Perfection was not my goal,

and I was fine with students missing some verbs and highlighting some non-verbs.

Because I knew once we made a collaborative list we would have plenty of quality verbs

to create an anchor chart with. From my observations, the majority of the class achieved

one of the most important goals of the lesson, which was working independently and

highlighting verbs.

Students did a good job acknowledging the difference in sentences when I replaced a

‘boring’ verb with a ‘strong’ verb. They utilized some academic language, mentioning

how the ‘strong’ verbs helped ‘show not tell’ and made the story more realistic and

enjoyable. By thumbs up or down, every student agreed they’d rather read the sentences

with ‘strong’ verbs. While making the anchor chart for the classroom, we had an

opportunity to decided if words were verbs or not. If someone shared a word that was not

a verb, I first allowed other classmates to decide if it was a verb or not. During this

process I only had to step in and correct any misconceptions a couple times. I was really

happy with most of the classes’ contributions, because they chose descriptive verbs that

really make a text more visual and enjoyable. After the lesson every student was

convinced of Chris Van Allsburg’s powerful usage of verbs, because they realized how

many can be picked out within one of his texts.


Every student was able to participate and engage in the activity, including ELL’s and

students on IEP’s. After checking their reader response journals, I was pleased to see

everyone had made a list with at least 10 verbs they pulled from their section. Numerous

students had the opportunity to participate to the class anchor chart, which helped

legitimize their hard work. I do wish I had written a little bigger because the chart is not

an effective classroom resource without students getting up to take a closer look, which is

why I decided not to hang it up.



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Chris Van Allsburg Unit: LAP 2 - at Clark University...Chris Van Allsburg is an exceptional author, who does a fantastic job of showing not telling and being able to really paint a