Cassie Carl

Lesson 3 - Our Third Day

🕐 Lesson Overview

⭐ Objectives

📏 Standards

💖 SEL

🗒️ Lesson Plan

Anticipatory Set

When the period begins, the teacher will give students the following bellringer "assignment":

Find the weekly agenda on the whiteboard. Then, write down the assignments for the week in your planner. Keep it open until I check it!

The teacher will allow students a few minutes to organize themselves and record upcoming assignments from the board in their planners. The teacher will take attendance then circulate to check that students are prepared. The class will then review the agenda and objectives.

Developmental Activity

The teacher will explicitly review the following routines and procedures.

When you enter the room...

  1. Make sure you are prepared with the necessary materials
  2. Write down today's assignment in your planner
  3. Be in your assigned seat when the bell rings, ready to learn. Remain there, bell to bell.

During class...

  1. We will open each class with a bellringer of some kind, then go over the agenda and objectives — so you know what we are learning and why
  2. Stay seated and focused until the bell rings. If you're playing basketball and there are five minutes left in the game, you don't leave the court and pack up. You keep playing and finish strong.
  3. Hold on to your garbage and throw it out at the end of the period
  4. Follow our classroom norms (more on that later!)
  5. Leave the classroom as good or better than you found it.

During fire drills...

  1. Walk silently through the halls
  2. Exit through the door near Mrs. ___'s room.
  3. Form a neat and orderly single-file line (or lines for bigger classes) outside.
  4. Stay silent. Do not touch other people.
  5. Leave nature where it is.
  6. Listen for directions.

On your own...

  1. Stay organized and on top of your assignments.
  2. Check your grades on Schoology frequently.
  3. Absent? You are responsible for the work you missed!
  4. Ask for help when you need it. I am here for you!

The teacher should elaborate on each item as needed to explain the why and the how. The teacher should briefly show students how materials are organized on the LMS and how to find out what they missed when they were absent.

The teacher should then show students the Weekly Agenda, both in the classroom (on the whiteboard) and on Schoology.

Closure

Students will use their class journals for the first time. If necessary, the teacher will repeat procedures for labelling journals for any students who did not bring a notebook to the previous class. The teacher will then explicitly walk students through how to maintain an organized notebook. Students will open to the first clean page in their notebook and write down today's date. The teacher will then ask students to write three goals they have for themselves for the school year. These goals may be related to English class, school in general, or just their lives. Students will need to write in complete sentences, with a capital letter and a punctuation mark. The teacher should model on this on the board to show what a neat, organized list might look like.

Time permitting, the teacher will invite students to share their goals with the whole class. The teacher will collect journals at the end of the period in an organized fashion depending on the layout of the classroom. The teacher will check students' journals (after class) and assign them a grade (out of three — one point per goal) for the assignment.

🧠 Rationale

Again, in middle school, I find it is essential to explicitly teach and practice routines. From today forward, when a student does not follow these expectations, the teacher must step in and reiterate the procedures followed in the classroom. Likewise, the teacher should aim to praise those students who are following procedures with automaticity (e.g. "I see Kyle has his planner out and is writing down his assignments for the week. Thanks for being organized, Kyle!").