Help the Ozone

Common Core Connection

The standard RI1.8 is about analyzing a text for the author's point and finding the reasons that the author uses to support their point.  This requires slowing down, rereading, and looking deep into the text. Sometimes it is nice to stick with a certain topic to develop this skill since it helps students to have some background knowledge prior to analyzing a text. This standard provides a nice opportunity to allow student to write about the topic. W1.2 says that the students should write to inform using a introduction, details, and a closure. So, pairing these standards provided a nice learning experience, since students need a great deal of content knowledge to write an informational text effectively. Check out my video about how I select and scaffold text complexity.

Lesson Overview

This is the last of five lessons related to the environment. The big difference in the last few lessons is that they are on the same topic, which gives the students more practice understanding the content. In this lesson they take their content knowledge and write a paragraph.

The text complexity based on vocabulary and sentence structure increases greatly in each lesson in this series. Honestly, after I read the texts to my class I thought I might have lost my mind, but students need exposure to challenging text. I expose students to rigorous text in my whole group lessons, but usually scale back to closer to their level for small group work.

The class has read several text about the ozone and we are going to read one more text.  Then the students write an informational paragraph about the text.  To deepen the complexity I actually have some students who write several paragraphs, and this is how I differentiate to meet all my students needs.

I also use two strategies throughout the lesson to keep engagement high: Peanut Butter Jelly Partner and Transitions.

Introductory Activity

In the beginning of the lesson, I ask the students to discuss all that they remember from the previous lessons about the ozone. When they talk I am assessing what they remember so that I can adjust. Then I put the lesson image on the Promethean board and ask the class to discuss what this image might have to do with the ozone.  Hopefully I can guide students to something like, "Hairspray is a man-made substance that could destroy the ozone." I am connecting the lesson to something they are personally familiar with.

Then I share the lesson plan and goal.  The class chants the goal. I can find the author's point in an the reasons use to support the point.