Planning Instruction and Assessment

Curricular
THIS LESSON PLAN FORMAT WAS APPROVED BY M454 PROFESSOR,
GWYNN GIBBS.
Name: Mr. Brown
Lesson Title: The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Grade: 10
Type of Lesson:

Introductory
Practice/Review
Mastery

Date of lesson: Spring 2015 INTRO

Content Area: English LA
School: Seton Catholic High School

Multicultural Goal (integration and

assessment):
(1) Cultural Consciousness
Inward - students realize that they have
culture even if they aren't the minority

Monday, Tuesday

-This will be accomplished when students

are writing their own biographies in
preparation for sharing them with the class.
(2) Intercultural Competence
outward - students become competent in
another culture
-This will be accomplished when students
listen to the biographies of others who are
of different cultural and racial backgrounds.
Learning Goal(s):
(1) Analyze and
interpret a biography.
(2) Compose a
personal biography.
(3) Analyze authors
ideas and make
connections of the
ideas and text.
(4) Generate
predictions over the
course of a text

Assessment Task(s):
(1) Teacher will
informally assess
student knowledge
about written
biographies.

Assessment Tool(s):
1) Popcorn Reading Strategy when reading the
biography of Mitch Albom.
(2) Written Biography on self
(3) Exit TicketInterest Level In Book

(2) Teacher will assess

students using the exit
ticket to determine
interest in novel.
(3) Teacher will assess
students abilities to
connect points from a
text to a secondary
text.

Assessment Criteria:
(1) Students will use the Biography Graphic
organizer if they feel the need for help in
constructing their personal biography.
(2) Students will complete an exit ticket telling
me what they think of the book thus far and
their interest level in this novel.
Evidence of Mastery:

(1) 85% of students will effectively connect

points from Mitchs biography to that of the
back of the book.
Academic Standards/Professional Standards (Include a sentence or phrase, not just the
standard number.)
Primary focus (most students will be able to):
9-10.RN.3.3 Determine an authors perspective or purpose in a text, and analyze how an author
uses rhetoric to advance that perspective or purpose
9-10.SL.2.2 Examine, analyze, and reflect on ideas and support or refute points under discussion,
by providing specific evidence from materials under study and other resources.
9-10.SL.3.1 Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media and formats
(e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.
9-10.SL.3.2 Evaluate a speakers point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric,
identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.
9-10.W.3.2 Write informative compositions in a variety of forms
Differentiation (content, process, product):
(Process) When reading the biography as a class, students who struggle with reading or have
anxiety reading aloud in front of others will be allowed to pass.
(Content) Students will also be asked to write down aspects in the biography that connect with
their own beliefs or stand out for whatever reason.
Accommodations:
Student on an ISP will have a Biography Graphic Organizer to help her through the
process of creating a personal biography.
Prior Learning:
(1) Students will brainstorm and compose a
biography that describes and teaches the class
about themselves.
(2) Students will orally present their personal
biography to the class.
(3) Students will analyze the biography of
Mitch Albom and connect what they read to
what they read on the back of the novel.

Prerequisite Skills:
(1) Students should also be able to cite textual
evidence that most strongly supports an
analysis of what the text says explicitly as well
as inferences drawn from the text.
(2) Students should be able to write narratives
to develop real or imagined experiences or
events using technique, relevant details and
well-structured event sequences.

Vocabulary development:
1) Mitch Albom
5) Arthritis
2) Biography
6) Nimble
4) Pier
Anticipatory Set:
As soon as my kids come in for class, I will ask them all to put their work down, stand up and
form a straight line. I will then describe our Line game strategy. Similar to The Freedom
Writers after being asked a question, students will come stand on the line if they answer yes to a
question or if that question is relevant to them or their life. I will ask the following questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Who is having a good morning today?

Who would rather read a real life story rather than a sci-fi style novel?
Did someone make a difference in your life this morning?
Did you make a difference in someones life today?
Think about your prior years, everyday before today, what difference have you made in
the world?

Asking these questions will lead into our novel, The Five People you Meet in Heaven, its
themes, symbols, and motifs. I will then lead into introducing the novels author.
Procedures (model; instruct (with explicit connection to Blooms Taxonomy); samples; guided
and independent practice; monitor progress, etc.):
To introduce The Five People you Meet in Heaven students will start off with bell work, like
they will every day when coming into class. On the overhead there will be instructions, which
will include Please write a 1 page biography on yourself. You may write about anything that
you want. Think about what people may want to learn about you or important facts you feel they
should know. You may skip lines if you would like but you do not need to. Students will have
the first 10 minutes of class to prepare these and write down what they feel is most important.
We will have some students who want to share their biographys share with the classroom. If
students do not share theirs I would read mine out loud and have a small discussion on what we
feel is important in a biography.
I will be passing out Mitch Alboms biography. I will explain who Mitch Albom is to the class
and why he is going to be important for the next couple of days. Explaining that we are going to

reading his book over the next couple of days, I will not be giving away what book it is yet or
anything about it.
Once the biography is passed out to everyone then I will start with the first paragraph and just
continue on with a popcorn style of reading. Popcorn Reading Strategy is where student A
reads however much they want, then calling on their choice of Student B. Student B will read
however much they want, then will call on their choice of Student C, etc. We will start at one end
of the classroom and students will read a paragraph then go onto the next person. If one student
called on does not want to read they may say, pass once for the day.
(I will have a checklist of those who call pass to ensure they do not do it more than once)
Once completed, students will get with their groups (which for today we will be discussing with
our tables about 5 students per table). I want students to pick out important facts about Mitch
Albom. What they feel is important to know about him before reading a book that he wrote.
Students will write down these highlights on a separate sheet of paper. (1 paper per group)
We will all come back together as a class and reflect on what we felt was important and why.
Day Two:
We will then make a class checklist; I will write these down on the overhead for all students to
see, modeling what is important to add in a biography. Each group will give a couple of
examples that they had in yesterdays activity and explanations about Alboms biography.
I will pass out one book of The Five People you Meet in Heaven to each student.

All will be asked to read just the back cover of the book. Once they are done the students will be
asked to have a sheet of paper and write down information from the back of the book that may be
clues to what the story is about or clues that Mitch Albom was the author. They may take these
clues from what we decided was a good biography and see if we can tell Mitch Albom was the
author of this book just from the writing. Did his biography and the back cover have anything the
same? Does this book relate to Albom or anything else in his biography? Explain. These are a
couple of questions to get the students thinking of where to start.
Students and I will read the through chapters 1 and 2 in class using the popcorn reading strategy
in order to create a solid foundation for their understanding of the novel.
Once completed in class, students will practice Think-Pair-Share and share with their partner
what they understood about the reading and their predictions of what is going to happen in later
readings.
HW: Students are to read chapter 3 for homework.
Closure (restate learning goal & connect across curriculum/real life application and extends
learning):
3 minutes: To close class students will be asked to answer the exit ticket which would include
them stating if they are excited to read this book. From just the back cover what seems to be
interesting? Why or why not?
Materials:
-Mitch Alboms Biography
-Blue Painters Tape
-Biography Graphic Organizer

Technologies Implemented:
-Projector/computer
-iPad

ATTACH: any lecture notes, strategy explanations, handouts, rubrics and so on that you
use.

Thomas R. Brown
Seton Catholic High School
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Lesson 1
1-19-15
When my students first came into the classroom this morning, they could tell I
was awful eager about something, which made them nervous. As we were going over the
anticipatory set questions on the board, I discussed with them how there is that one book
every first-year English teacher is chomping at the bit to teach to their class for the first
time. I made it very clear to my class that I was thankful for the opportunity to teach this
novelbut I did not disclose the title. I had a brief conversation with my class about
how we make changes in the world day in and day out and how we as individuals, have
the power to make a difference. While reading about Mitch Albom, the students seemed
to be very engaged due to our popcorn reading activity. The students were aloud to call
on anyone, at anytime, to take over reading where they left off. I noted this activity from
my 8th grade English class at Test Middle School. I was very surprised as to how well the
students behaved during this activity. This class tends to be a very high-energy group of
students, but when they heard they would have to stand and read with Shakespeare type
expression, they paid very close attention. I tried out this reading strategy for two
reasons; one being that this activity kept students attention on the reading at hand, and
two, because the strategy made reading a biography interesting and it seemed to go by
quicker.
During our biography analysis group activity, the students seemed to be off task.
So rather than doing this activity in groups, I projected the biography onto the board and
had individual students come up and underline with a dry-erase marker what they felt was

important information to include in a biography. After we modeled this step three times,
with three separate students, the class was then dispersed back into their groups. I felt the
short modeling activity helped them understand what their task at hand was. This is an
honors class so I ASSUMED that they would just get it. I quickly realized how important
it was to model, no matter how simple I feel the task is.

Thomas R. Brown
Seton Catholic High School
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Lesson 2
1-20-15
As students came into class today, I had a big box sitting on my desk. I did not
realize this, but these sophomores love the element of mystery and surprise. All they were
talking about today before prayer was Whats in the box Mr. Brown? and I refused to
comment. I did not plan on this, but the box turned into my anticipatory set for the day.
At the beginning of every class, I like to open with a discussion that has absolutely
nothing to do with school. We talk about what we did last night, possible struggles with
homework, how bad we beat our friends in video games, etc. With this class being so
sociable, I found that it is better for me to open this discussion rather than try to play the
settle everyone down game when they come init worked quite well this morning.
This helped a lot with my classroom management throughout the day; a short 3-minute
class discussion goes a long way.
I was very surprised as to how many of my students had never written a
biography before. I feel that in order to understand how to analyze a biography, you must
first understand how they are writtenwhich I thought they did. I realize now that this is
why they were so confused as to what was important in our activity yesterday. I realize
now that I need to first break things down to the foundation, rather than start on the main
floor. I learned today that when I go to teach an autobiography unit in the future, I need to
break down how they are written first, rather than assume they have been taught this.
The students were very disappointed when I opened my boxthey realized it was
full of novels and not candy. My intro activity, reading the back cover, seemed to really

interest the students. English teachers in my past have told me this is bad to do because
students will automatically make assumptions as to whether or not they will like the book
but that is exactly why I wanted them to do this activity. I wanted to know what
students were interested, and what students werent. I wrote down who voted for which
side and I plan on doing a revote at the end. What I found most intriguing today was how
one student was especially appalled by the book. She slammed the book down on her
desk and said, this sounds like a corny kids book. I am teaching at a Catholic school, so
this surprised mewhich right now seems a bit discriminatory. I am glad I made this
observation because now I will make a point of asking her opinion throughout the book.