Lesson 2 - Predicting with Wordless Picture Books

    This week’s lesson focused on making predictions using a wordless picture book. We started with a “Would you Rather” community building activity. Each question was aligned with books or reading. We then reviewed the visual agenda for the lesson and reminded the students of our expectations written on the “class contract”. We had the students activate prior knowledge by thinking about any wordless picture books they may have already read. We also asked the students if they’ve ever predicted a series of events before. After sharing and discussing the students’ answers, we introduced the vocabulary for the lesson. We chose to use words like predict, evidence, and infer to introduce the students to the process of predicting something. Next, we showed them an anchor chart that would look similar to the graphic organizer the students would fill out. Following the “I do, we do, you do” scaffolding strategy, we started by re-reading the definition of predict and explaining each part of the anchor chart. Then, for “we do”, we had the students make predictions about the book based on only the cover and title. We also asked them to expand their thinking and identify the evidence they used for their prediction. Once each student shared one prediction with evidence, we started the read-aloud. 

    The wordless picture book chosen for this lesson was NO! by David McPhail. While reading, we made sure to pause and ask the students what they thought about what was happening based on the pictures. At specific points during the story, the students demonstrated the “you do” part of the scaffolding. They wrote down a prediction of what would happen next and their evidence for thinking so. The students continued making predictions until the story was finished. At this point in the school day, the whole class had to leave for picture day. When they came back, we did a quick brain break with the students to help them re-focus on the lesson. As a group, we discussed each prediction the students wrote down. If the prediction was correct, they would write a check mark in the confirm column of the graphic organizer. If the prediction was incorrect, they would write down what actually happened in the story under the reject column. Once the graphic organizers were completed, we passed out the students’ writing journals. The students were asked to pick an event from the book and write down their version of what the words would have been. This allowed them to think about how much of a story is conveyed by the pictures and where words can fill in the gaps. To end the lesson, the journals were collected, and we did another movement-based brain break with the students before cleaning up and saying goodbye. 

    Something that went really well was the student engagement. Everyone in the group enjoyed the read-aloud story. They were all very active in our discussions and equally contributed to talking about the story. During the prediction graphic organizer, they were all able to think critically about what evidence led them to their prediction. I think this lesson really let the students be creative with their predictions and reasoning while still considering the main themes and events of the story. A weakness of this lesson was not completing every activity that we planned. After reading the story and having a brain break, we planned to retell the events using sentence strips. There was also an exit ticket planned to conclude the lesson. Due to how much time we spent discussing the story while reading and interruptions like school pictures, these other activities did not happen. Fortunately, completing the graphic organizer was the main focus of the lesson, and it was not affected by time constraints.
    The objectives for this lesson were “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to make predictions about the sequential events of the read-aloud story with differentiated core support by completing a prediction chart” with varying percentages of proficiency. All of the present students meet the objectives. They did this by filling in each section of the graphic organizer. We supported the students by helping them discuss their thinking and decide what should be written down. We also modeled writing the prediction and supporting evidence statements on a whiteboard for the students to clearly see.

 

    From this experience, I learned to be adaptable without losing the most critical parts of a lesson. The activities that we did not get to do during this lesson were more comprehension-based. However, in the moment, we determined those were not the most important to focus on due to the fact that the students were showing their comprehension while completing the graphic organizer. This was the first lesson I’ve taught as a teacher candidate that had to be paused because of a school event, like picture day. Afterward, the lesson went mostly as planned, but we tried to stick to only the most vital activities. 
    This lesson reinforced how important it is for students to engage in critical thinking. I was able to see this through their active contributions to the lesson, that these students really enjoy the opportunity to expand their thinking. I will keep this in mind for future teaching experiences. To build in opportunities for students to discuss and explain their ideas. 
    In the future, I will be more conscious about how I plan. This experience gave me a very real situation where the class may have to leave in the middle of a lesson for school pictures. This experience made me think about how I am structuring lessons not only to accommodate the students, but also to accommodate interruptions or last-minute changes. In future lesson plans, I will be more conscious about how much extra time I am giving myself in case of a situation similar to this one.