Lesson Title: What's the Response?


Length of time needed: 1 - 1 1/2 hrs.




CCSS ELA Standards Addressed:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.3
Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3.B
Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.

Objectives:
I can:
  • Describe a character’s response to certain situations based on the character’s traits.
  • Write a paragraph to demonstrate this knowledge and provide supporting details.


Materials needed:
2 Containers
  • One filled with folded pieces of paper for students to randomly select character traits.
  • One filled with folded pieces of paper for students to randomly select a situation/scenario.


Hook:
Do you think everyone responds in the same way to the same situation?

Teacher Input/Modeling:
We have learned that a character’s (or person’s) traits determine their reactions to certain situations.
Let’s think about all the different ways we could respond (or react) to certain situations.
I will give examples of certain situations and allow students to give me possible reactions. I will guide them in connecting those reactions with certain character traits.

I will have students choose a character trait and a situation, and I will model the writing of a paragraph explaining how someone with that character trait would respond to the given situation.

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING & ENGAGEMENT
As students assist me while I model the activity, I will encourage them to give reasons why they think the character would respond in that way.


Independent Practice:
Each student will take his/her turn drawing a piece of paper out of both containers. One will tell them the character trait, and the other will tell them the situation. Just as I modeled it, students will write a paragraph about how they think a character with that trait would respond to the situation. Students should also provide details as to why they think the character would respond in that way.

Closure:
Today we learned that characters (or people) respond differently to certain situations depending on their character traits.

This is important because it helps us understand the role that a character’s traits plays in the development of the story.


Remind students to be reading their books for their project and thinking about the main character’s traits.

Assessment:**
Key: 1 = Poor, 2 = Fair, 3 = Good, 4 = Excellent
Student
Described an appropriate character response to the situation.
Included supporting details in his/her paragraph to explain his/her thinking.

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1 2 3 4

1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4

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1 2 3 4