Lesson Plan for

Implementing NETS•S
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Ashley Carlyle

Position 8th Grade English Language Arts

School/District Heritage Middle School

Grade Level(s) 8th

Content Area English Language Arts

Time line 5 Days

Standards
 What do you want students to know and be able to do?
 What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you expect students to gain?
 Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks?
 Please put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and
numbers that indicate which standards were addressed.

ELAGSE8RL1: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of
what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

ELAGSE8RL3: Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or

drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

ELAGSE8RL6: Analyze how differences in the points of view of characters and the
audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such
effects as suspense or humor.

Content Standards

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 ISTE 1.3 Knowledge Constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources
using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make
meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others. (1.3a and 1.3c)

ISTE 1.6 Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express

themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles,
formats and digital media appropriate to their goals (1.6b and 1.6d)

ISTE 1.7 Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their
perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working
NETS*S Standards: effectively in teams locally and globally. (1.7b and 1.7c)

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

This unit is designed to be a mini unit of the larger novel study of “The Outsiders.” This unit will pick up at
chapter 5. Students will use close reading strategies to read and comprehend Chapters 5 throughout the
course of the mini unit. Students will engage with multiple technological medias including Quizizz, Nearpod,
and Canva. Students will review terms foreshadowing and symbolism and how they apply to chapter 5 of “The
Outsiders.”
A day by day summary can be found below:
Day One- The teacher and students will read Chapter 5 and take a Quizizz to demonstrate comprehension.
Day Two- The teacher will introduce Lucid. Students will work with groups to collaborate on a character map,
analyzing the connections among characters up to Chapter 5.
Day Three- The teacher will lead students in a Nearpod over Foreshadowing and Symbolism in Chapter 5
Day Four- Students will use the prompt: “Using Canva, create a digital representation for the book “The
Outsiders” thus far. Make sure to include symbols from the book, a quote describing that symbol, and an
explanation on how you know there is symbolism with that item.” Exemplar
Day Five- Presentation of Book Posters from Canva

Essential Questions

 What essential question or learning are you addressing?

 What would students care or want to know about the topic?
 What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate interest about the topic?
 What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring to this topic and build on?

Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry. They should not be answered
with a simple “yes” or “no” and should have many acceptable answers.

 How can I build upon group member’s thoughts and express my ideas clearly?
 How can I support claims using evidence?
 How can I visually represent symbols from a novel?

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Assessment

 What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning?

 What can students do to generate new knowledge?
 How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)?
 How will you assess what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?

You must attach copies of your assessment and/or rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

Resources

 How does technology support student learning?

 What digital tools, and resources—online student tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials,
templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or explain the content or allow students to interact
with the content?
 What opportunities did you have to collaborate with your students to discover and use new digital
resources to meet their learning goals? (Note: This meets part of ISTE standard 4.2)
 What previous technology skills should students have to complete this project?

Technology supports student learning by reaching for higher level thinking on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Students will
use the new tools Lucidcharts and previously known tool Canva to create, design, and summarize symbolism in
the book “The Outsiders” through chapter 5. This higher-level taxonomy will support student critical thinking skills
about the targeted standards of symbolism, foreshadowing, and character analysis.
Students are familiar with Canva and Quizizz. They will not require supports to use these programs. However,
students will need some scaffolding for the use of Lucidcharts. Lucidcharts has student tutorials to help with this.
Prior to groups working on their concept map, as a class we will have an introduction to Lucidcharts and watch the
concept map tutorial provided by the company via YouTube. By actively monitoring and being available to help
students during their group work time I am able to collaborate with my students while they use the new digital
resource.

Instructional Plan and Preparation

 What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson?
 How can you find out if students have this foundation?
 What difficulties might students have?

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 Students are engaged with “The Outsiders” and enjoy the book. Students have interest in creating visuals to
represent their knowledge. Canva is something students are accustomed to using in the classroom to create visual
presentations. However, Lucidchart will be a new platform for them. Lucid may provide difficulties for students as
they begin with their group. To combat this, I will show students Lucid basics prior to allowing students to use the
platform.
Prior to this unit, students have participated in a “Frightful Figurative Language” unit where they learned the
vocabulary words foreshadowing and symbolism while reading “The Tell Tale Heart.” When students take the
Chapter 5 Quizizz I can analyze the data to check for the foundation I anticipate them retaining from previous units
of study.
I anticipate the use of Lucidcharts to be difficult for the start for students because of the higher-order nature it is to
create a character web. However, this will be modeled for students prior to them beginning the activity.

Management-- Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the
use of digital tools and resources.

 How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals, classroom, lab, etc.)
 What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this lesson?
 Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson.
 Explain how you worked with students to resolve or trouble-shoot them? (This meets part of ISTE
standard 4.2.)
 Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as throughout the
process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that occurred as
you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

Catoosa County School District is 1:1 across the district. All students have equitable access to a Chromebook. The
biggest trouble shooting problems for equitable access is forgetting their Chromebook at home or forgetting to charge
their device. To troubleshoot these problems, we have loaner Chromebooks in the media center and teachers have
extra chargers in their classrooms. Students can be sent to the media center if they forget their device to check one
out for the day. Students can also borrow a classroom charger. The school system also offers the classroom support
of GoGuardian for teachers. GoGuardian is a program that allows the teacher to monitor student Chromebooks
remotely via their own laptop.
In the off chance the internet does not cooperate…
Day One- Quizizz can be taken on paper
Day two- Lucid can be turned into a paper concept map
Day Three- Nearpod can be done on the teacher’s laptop via hotspot.
Day Four- Students can create on paper instead of Canva.

Depending on the day, the students will work in whole group, small group, and individually.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities – Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson.

 How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the students'
roles in the lesson?
 How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or creativity levels of
Bloom’s Taxonomy?
 How can the technology support your teaching?
 What authentic, relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete?
 How will they build knowledge and skills?

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  How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other and
others?
 How will you facilitate the collaboration?

My classroom is designed to facilitate the research-based strategies of Kagan collaboration. Kagan strategies
will be used to facilitate conversations in a meaningful way during the reading of “The Outsiders” and
throughout the daily assignments of this unit. Kagan groups are also designed to limit distraction and
behavioral issues in the classroom.
As mentioned above, students will create, design, and summarize from the high-levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
with the support of the technology.
The concept map and book poster offer opportunities for creating and personalizing, making them more
meaningful for students. They will build knowledge by collaborating with their Kagan groups on the concept
map and the book poster. Collaborating is key to building knowledge in the classroom.
I will facilitate by using Kagan talk moves with students such as Rally Robin for analyzing multiple
foreshadowing moments and symbols, One-A-Stray when collaborating on concept maps to gain further insight
into thinking, and Stand-up, hand-up, pair-up when doing our presentations.

Differentiation

 How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and abilities?
 How will you help students learn independently and with others?
 How will you provide extensions and opportunities for enrichment?
 What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)

The assignments being open ended help to differentiate the learning for students. For example, students may find
more connections on their concepts maps than students who may be struggling with their comprehension of the
story. Providing open ended prompts and using a checklist with no minimum character connections gives students
the flexibility to meet their individual needs. Using Kagan strategies in the classroom helps to make sure students
are learning independently and with others. The use of Nearpod also helps to differentiate the instruction. For
example, on the collaboration board students can view others thinking to help them facilitate their own thinking need
be.

Reflection
 Will there be a closing event?
 Will students be asked to reflect upon their work?
 Will students be asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself?

Also answer the following questions:

 How will you know if the students found the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
 In what ways do you think this lesson will be effective?
 Why do you think this?
 What problems do you anticipate and why?
 How would you design and/or teach this lesson differently if you had more time?

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 The closing event will be students sharing their book posters. Students will be asked reflection questions prompted
by the teacher during Kagan discussions such as “After seeing other students work, what is one thing you would go
back and add to yours?” or “What is one thing about your poster project that you think shines?”
I believe student created work such as the concept chart and the book poster lead students to take more ownership
of their work. Because of this, I think this lesson will be effective and rewarding for students.
I anticipate the use of Lucidcharts to be a little bit of a struggle for students because it is so new to them. I think the
use of the Youtube demonstration and me actively monitoring/helping for this activity will help to offset the struggle.
If I had more time, I would have incorporated the Lucidchart concept map from the beginning of the novel student
and had students add to it weekly as characters develop.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
I was pleasantly surprised with how smooth this lesson went given the newness of some of the digital tools. I think
the novelty worked in my benefit of keeping my 8th graders on task! I learned to give my 8th graders more credit with
their tech savviness than I originally thought. Students were very into the concept of Lucidcharts. When we reflected
as a whole class they used words like “I was like thinking out loud” to describe the experience. Nearpod is a go to
digital tool my students are very familiar with. This time there was a matching activity that proved to be challenging.
In hindsight, I would probably add page numbers to the cards to tell them where to look in their books.
Also, I did have a few students struggle with use of technology. Whether that was because of distractibility
(GoGuardian did help) or because they couldn’t understand the online tools well enough to feel successful, I
recommend the teacher have digital assignments already printed to help those few students who may prefer them.

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