Analyze Learners
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16 boys and 14 girls around the age of 9 make up my 4th grade class. Four boys have an IEP for ADHD or ADD. One girl and two boys are ELs, emerging and expanding. Four girls and three boys are identified GATE. One boy and one girl, who are African American, have oppositional behavior and tend to steer away from any academic learning. One girl is awaiting an SST for extremely low academic performances, and she has already been retained once. She is also seeking counseling during her parent’s divorce, and she is an extremely quiet child.
The demographic distribution in my class are: Hispanic- 48%, Filipino- 17%, Asian- 17%, African Amer./Black- 13%, and White 3%. Four students are bi-racial.
Based on a survey that I created through Google Form, my students, generally, have positive learning attitudes. However, they have high anxiety about taking risks in their learning because they have been conditioned to always be correct and to achieve the highest scores on tests. They do not participate unless they are absolutely sure about the answers for fear of embarrassment or being labeled ‘stupid’ by their peers.
All my students learn best when directions or instructions are visually listed in brief steps and posted on the walls along with watching me model these steps, and then they in turn also complete these steps with me. The incorporation of technology generates more student participation in the classroom. When learning abstract concepts such as writing complex sentences, math operations, and science, manipulating concrete objects such as base ten blocks, sentence cards, and actual igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks produce the best knowledge outcomes.
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State Objectives
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ELA.RL 4.2: After reading “Thank you, M’am” by Langston Hughes, fourth grade students will make a claim about the theme of the literature and support this claim with three supporting evidence based on their evaluations of the characters’ actions and attitudes.
ISTE Standard 6. Creative Communicator: Using iMovie, a multimedia program, the 4th grade students will create seven slides, each containing a picture with narration except for the credits page, to clearly express the theme of the literature piece, Thank you, M’am.
ABCDs of strong objectives are included:
A – Audience
B – Behavior
C – Condition
D – Degree
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Select Methods, Media, , and Materials
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Day 1: Teacher will introduce what a theme is by showing video, model the process of determining a theme with a familiar story, The Story of the Three Little Pigs, and write a concise paragraph using the information outlined from the graphic organizer in Google Docs.
Day 2: Teacher will introduce the grade level appropriate text, “Thank you, M’am” by Langston Hughes. During the read aloud with the teacher, the students will evaluate the actions and attitudes of the main characters to form a judgment about the ending and the author’s message based on the ending (making a claim about the theme). After the organization of their own thoughts on their graphic organizer, students will follow the rules to writing a concise paragraph.
Day 3: Teacher will model how to create 5 slides with hand-drawn/colored pictures for each sentence in the concise paragraph from the Three Little Pigs, photograph them and the cover of the story, import them into iMovie on the iPad, add title, add texts, add transitions, and narrate the slides to express the theme of the story.
Day 4: Students will use construction or copy paper, markers, pens, crayons, water paint, etc. provided by teachers to depict the lines in their concise paragraph (5 slides) about the theme in “Thank you, M’am.” Photograph them and upload to Google Drive.
Day 5: Students will import the pictures into iMovie and create a multimedia presentation of the theme in “Thank you, M’am.” Then export their movie as an mp4 to their Google Drive, and upload video on Google Classroom as an ‘announcement’ because students cannot publish video on YouTubeuding parents.
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Utilize Media, Materials, and Methods
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Assignment Description: Students will create a multimedia presentation of their understanding about the theme in “Thank you, M’am” by drawing their own pictures to depict the theme and evidences from the story, and importing them into iMovie. Students will narrate the pictures from their concise paragraph writing.
Learning Objectives: Student can make a valid claim about the theme from “Thank you, M’am” and clearly express it with careful evaluations of characters’ behaviors and citing strong textual evidence.
Preview the materials:
Teacher needs to be familiar with both stories, The Story of the Three Little Pigs and “Thank you, M’am”.
Teacher needs to define a clear learning outcome from reading these two stories- clearly expressing the theme in a paragraph form in order to narrate a multimedia presentation.
Teacher needs to be familiar with filling out the graphic organizer because this will the tool to help construct a concise paragraph.
Prepare the materials:
Teacher needs to create a WebQuest with all the hyperlinks to the stories, Docs, Slides, and steps to this learning activity. Make 30 copies of “Thank you, M’am” from Junior Great Books series. (The story can also be found online.)
Teacher tests all links for accessibility and remind the students to make a copy of the Hyperdoc and share it with the teacher. (Make 30 copies of the graphic organizers for 4th grade students to write on so that when they construct the paragraph, they won’t have to go back and forth on the tabs instead they will have the graphic organizer in front of them as they write their paragraphs.)
Teacher check all iPads for iMovie Apps and memory storage. Check iPads out for Day 3, 4,and 5.
Prepare the environment:
Chromebooks are available daily (1-1).
5 grouped desks, large, open center in classroom with large rug and bench pads for movement or collaboration.
Art center with scissors, multi- colored construction paper, plain white copying paper, coloring pencils, markers, crayons, glue sticks, tape, yarn, chalk and water colors.
Prepare the learners:
Day 1: Teacher Input/Modeling with determining the theme (90 min.)
Post the 2 learning objectives up in the classroom.
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Show the graphic organizer to prime the learners how to make a claim about a theme in a story.
Show the process with the familiar story, The Story of the Three Little Pigs.
Construct the graphic organizer and paragraph writing on chart paper, and post up the models in front of the classroom.
Day 3: Teacher Input/Modeling with iMovie (90 min.)
Demonstrate how writing translates into multimedia- illustration/animation and narration.
Create picture, depicting each line from the paragraph about the theme in The Story of the Three Little Pigs. (A total of 5 to 6 pictures: topic sentence, clarification sentence, two to three textual evidence, and closing sentence.) Have these pictures already created beforehand to save time.
With an iPad, snap a picture of the cover of the story and of each picture slide.
Import these pictures into iMovie by starting a new presentation/project.
Drag and drop the pictures into the project area.
Add title and name/date on the first slide, which is the cover of the book.
Add a credits page at the end with all names of sources, illustrator, narrator, and producer.
Hit the mic icon to record the information for each slide and expand the time for each slide to correspond to the length of the narration. May add slide effects such as zooming in or moving from bottom to top.
Export final project as a mp4 to Google Drive.
Upload video on Google Classroom as an ‘announcement’ because students cannot publish video on YouTube.
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Require Learner Participation
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5. Provide the learning experiences:
Day 2: (90 min.) Read, Determine the theme, Outline with Graphic Organizer, and Write a 5-6
sentence paragraph
Prepare: Before reading “Thank you, M’am,” students will understand that as they read through the story, they will mark points in the story with + to show agreement, ! to show surprise/shock, - to show disagreement, and ? to show confusion.
Students will look over the guiding questions in the graphic organizers to prime them for making judgements about Roger and Mrs. Jone’s attitudes and actions toward each other.
Action: During the read aloud, students will be noting points in the story when Roger snatches Mrs. Jones’ purse, when Mrs. Jones puts Roger in a headlock and drag him to her apartment, when Roger reveals to Mrs. Jones that he doesn’t have anyone at home, when he hasn’t eaten, when she feeds him, when she gives him money for some blue suede shoes, when she leaves her pocket purse near Roger after Roger washes his dirty face, and when she releases him to go home to show comprehension of the plot, conflict, and character traits.
Collaboration/Share: At the end of the story, students will discuss their judgment with partners if they agreed with Mrs. Jones letting Roger out of her house with $10 to buy his shoes and explain why.
Students will record their final judgement on the graphic organizer, and then share with the group. At this point the learner may adopt new opinions and evidence.
Students will also consider these posted questions on the board to guide their decision: (1) Was Mrs. Jones wise or foolish to trust Roger? (2) Why did Roger try to snatch Mrs. Jones’ purse? (3) Did Roger’s attitude and behavior changed when he is inside Mrs. Jones’ house? How? Why? and (4) Why couldn’t Roger say more than “Thank you, M’am” as he left Mrs. Jones’ house? What did he wanted to say more to her?
Execute: After the collaboration and sharing, students will make a claim about the lesson or message the author wanted the readers to understand. (Example: Trust can be rebuild when kindness and forgiveness is granted to those who are also misguided by difficulty circumstances.) (Any claims or statements relating to trust, kindness, dignity, forgiveness, or second chances will be acceptable.)
ELA.RL 4.2: After reading “Thank you, M’am” by Langston Hughes, fourth grade students will make a claim about the theme of the literature and support this claim with three supporting evidence based on their evaluations of the characters’ actions and attitudes.
Clicking on the Doc link, students will use the information from their graphic organizer to construct a concise paragraph about the theme in “Thank you, M’am.”
Day 4: ISTE Standard 6. Creative Communicator: Using iMovie, a multimedia program, the 4th grade students will create seven slides, each containing a picture with narration except for the credits page, to clearly express the theme of the literature piece, Thank you, M’am.
Prepare: (90 min.) Students will open up Doc with theme paragraph about “Thank you, M’am” and depict a picture or visual for each sentence.
Students will use construction or copy paper as the medium. May use watercolor paint, water-based chalk, marker, crayon, color pencils, yarn, glitter, tissue paper, scissors, glue, hot glue gun, and pipe cleaners for visual aid to enhance the narration.
(30 min.) With the iPad, students will photograph each illustration and the cover of “Thank you, M’am.”
Students will open up iMovie, import pictures into a new movie project, and name the project “Thank you, M’am” Theme_Student Name.
Day 5:
Produce: (45 min.) With the same iPad from the previous day, students will open up the iMovie project, “Thank you, M’am” Theme_Student Name.
Students will drag and drop the pictures into the project area.
Students will add a title and name/date on the first slide, which is the cover of the book.
Students will add a credits page at the end with all names of sources, illustrator, narrator, and producer.
Students will hit the mic icon to record the information for each slide.
Edit: (30 min.) Students will expand the time for each slide to correspond to the length of the narration.
Students will may add slide effects such as zooming in or moving from bottom to top.
Students will export final project as a mp4 to Google Drive.
Publish/Evaluate: Students will upload video on Google Classroom as an announcement because they cannot publish video on YouTube.
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Evaluate & Revise
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Student Performance
2. Media Effectiveness
3. Instructor Performance
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