CCSS & Close Reading Lesson Plan

Wow! It has been a LONG few weeks. I am so sad to see my parents leave, but it has been great having them here and I decided that when they were here I was committing my time to them once I was home from school. Therefore.....no blogging was happening! But I have missed  you:)

My little guy was soooo stinkin cute on Halloween. Here is a pic of him at his school story book parade. Does he make a cute Diego or what????

On another note....here is a lesson you may be able to use:


Our district is in full implementation of CCSS for Grades K-1, and are implementing key shifts to implementation in Grades 2-5 this year. As the Reading Coach, I have been offered some awesome trainings that I then deliver back at my school. Earlier this year, we trained our staff on Shift Number One: Selecting Complex Text and coming up we will focus on Shift Number Two: Text Dependent Questions.

One thing we emphasize is that  ELA Standards #1 and #10 as "Power Standards" because they are present in just about every lesson.  We are implementing a 3 Day "Close Reading" model where we use Text Dependent questions to read and revisit a complex text and end with a Performance Task.

This past week I had a few other reading coaches visit with me and I wanted to share the lesson that we created for 1st Grade. Perhaps some of you can implement it and give me some feedback.

We used the book Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant. I just love that book at this time of year, but usually use it to teach about using descriptive words in Writing. But this time we focused on character development and setting impact. The questions we asked were focused on identifying the words the author uses to describe the character and setting and also how the illustrator's pictures add to the meaning.

Click on the images below to learn more about the book, the 3-Day lesson plan and the performance task.