Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Name: Bryson Michael

Central Focus/Big Idea of the
Lesson:
Grade Level/Subject: 4th Grade Social Studies
Symbols can represent significant
historical events associated with a
particular state.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:
4.H.2.2 Explain the historical significance of North Carolinas state
Date taught: 10-24-16
symbols.
Daily Lesson Objective: Students will be able to research historical events associated with North
Carolina state symbol, explain the related time period, and analyze the overall importance
21st Century Skills:
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: During the lessons
students will be asked to make judgements and decisions
while analyzing historical events and symbols. They must
also reason effectively about how historical events,
symbols, and dates are associated based on provided
information.
Communication and Collaboration: The students will be
asked to communicated clearly and collaborate with others
throughout the lesson. They must communicate their ideas
and thoughts relating to historical events and symbols they
are analyzing while collaborating with others to construct a
timeline based on their findings.
Information Literacy: Students will be asked to access
information in a timely manner from the sources provided.
They must evaluate this information critically and
competently to reach appropriate conclusions.
Initiative and Self-Direction: The students will be required to
manage their time during small group activities so they may
work through information and reach an overall goal,
completion of a timeline. They must also work
independently to construct a timeline and act as selfdirected learners.
Social and Cross-Cultural Skills: During small group activities
the students must work efficiently with one another and
interact effectively, professionally, and respectably.

Academic Language Demand

(Language Function and
Vocabulary):
Language Function: Explain
Vocabulary: historical event, state
symbol, interactive timeline

Prior Knowledge: Students must have a prior knowledge of North Carolina, the characteristics of
a timeline, and the use of images for symbolic representation.

Activity

1. Focus and Review

2. Statement of
Objective
for Student
3. Teacher Input

Description of Activities
Time
and Setting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm8qzXlCXzg
Teacher will ask a series of questions following the video:
What occurred during the video? What were some important
historical events that you noticed within the video? Were
there any important symbols that you noticed within the
video? Why are they important to you? Do you see them
during your daily life? Why do you think they are important to
North Carolina history?
Today we are going to use an interactive timeline to research
historical events associated with North Carolina state symbols
and analyze the importance of these symbols to the states
history.
The teacher will begin the lesson with a power point that
shows three important state symbols and three significant
historical events associated with the symbols; these will not
be presented on the same slide. The teacher will work through
the presentation while verbally explaining their thought
process. When the slide containing a picture of a Dogwood
flower is presented the teacher will say, Oh, the Dogwood
flower is significant to me because my family grew them in
our front yard during my childhood. Later in the presentation,
the teacher will interact with a description of a Dogwood
slower along with an associated date. The description will be
presented as follows: Adopted by the General Assembly in
1941: This flower blossoms in early spring and throughout the
summer. The color of the flower is usually white but may be
present in shades of pink or red. This flower is important to
North Carolina because it grows on one of the most prevalent
trees found in the state from the mountains to the coast. The
teacher will then respond to this description by verbally
expressing their thinking. For example, I believe that this
description may be important to the picture of the Dogwood
flower I recently observed. Lets continue and see if it better
relates to any of the other symbols.
The teacher will follow this procedure with the remaining two
symbols and two associated events contained within the
presentation. At the end of the presentation, the teacher will
present a slide containing all of the events and descriptions.
Then, the teacher will show students how to link the symbols

5 min

2 min

10 min

to their associated events based on the picture of the symbol

and analysis of a historical event description.
The final slide will show a representation of the three symbols
and three associated historical events organized into a time
line containing the date, symbol, and description of the
historical event.
The class will be separated into groups and presented with a
mixture of pictures, cut out descriptions, arrows, and dates;
there will be four symbols and four historical events for each
group with approximately 4-5 groups depending on class size.
Each group is responsible analyzing the pictures/dates and
researching the descriptions to uncover information that will
associate one to another. After discovering which historical
event description is linked to a specific date and symbol, the
students will construct a timeline. The structure of the
timeline will be in sequential order from the earliest to latest
historical event. There should be a symbol and date linked to
each description along with an arrow between the compiled
material to represent the progression of time within the
timeline.

4. Guided Practice

During this period, the teacher will walk around the classroom
and monitor completion of the activity. The teacher will pose
questions to create discussion within the group such as, why
do you believe this symbol is important? or which historical
events seem to be associated with particular symbols?. The
teacher will also mentally check for understanding by
observing the completion of the activity and checking for
correctness.

20 min

After each group has finished, the teacher will gather the
classes attention and have a representative place their events
on the white board in the form of a timeline. As a whole class,
the students will work to construct a timeline based on the
findings made within the small groups. The class will then hold
a discussion about what they notice, what they feel is
important, and how the timeline is a beneficial tool in
representing historical events important to North Carolina
history along with their associated symbols.
5. Independent
Practice

Each student will be given two worksheets; one containing

three NC symbols and description of historical events along
with their dates; one containing a timeline template. The
students will be responsible for analyzing the symbols and
researching each of the event descriptions to find sufficient
evidence that links one to the other. They will then cut out the
symbols and descriptions and glue them in the appropriate

15 min

position on the timeline template. After completing the

timeline, the students will write a short reflection of why they
believe these symbols are important representations of North
Carolina. This will be collected as the lesson exit ticket.

6. Assessment
Methods of
all
objectives/skills:

There will be a classroom discussion held about student findings present

within the independent practice. During this period, the students will
discuss their findings as a whole class, discover if their answers were
correct, and reflect on the benefit of using an interactive timeline to
study historical events and state symbols of North Carolina.

7. Closure

The closure will be the exit ticket completed during the

independent practice and discussion held afterward.

8. Assessment
Results of
all
objectives/skills:

The majority of students within the classroom successfully completed

the independent practice. All students successfully completed the
interactive timeline apart from one student. Some students showed
exceptional abilities annotating and interacting with information within
the description of each state symbol to reach the correct answer. Most
students were able to write a reflection about the state symbols and
their significance to North Carolina. A handful of students extended their
independent practice by writing why each state symbol is important to
North Carolina rather than picking one.

Targeted Students
Modifications/Accommodations:
The teacher may provide Spanish to English
dictionaries for ELL students. The teacher
may provide larger print for students with
vision impairments. The teacher will place
students with visual and physical
impairments at the front of the class. The
teacher may group students with specific
learning disabilities during small group
instruction for close monitoring.

Student/Small Group
Modifications/Accommodations:
During small group instruction, the teacher may
pair students based on ability level. This provides
the teacher will the ability to monitor their overall
understanding of the lesson objective. Depending
on the class, the teacher may mix struggling
students with succeeding students so they may
gain exposure and observation experience that
may benefit their learning. The teacher may place
students with specific disabilities in a small group
they can closely monitor and provide support
when needed. If students continue to struggle
during the lesson the teacher may provide more
hands-on small group instruction during the
guided practice and independent practice portions
of the lesson.
Materials/Technology: Power point presentation, state symbol cut outs, historical event
description cut outs, arrow cut outs, worksheet containing symbols/historical events/dates for
independent practice, time line template worksheet for independent practice, masking tape,
scissors, glue, pencils.
References:
https://www.sosnc.gov/kidspg/symbols.htm
http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/north-carolina

Reflection on lesson: (Write several paragraphs about what you learned from this lesson. What
were the strengths? What were the weaknesses? What did you learn about teaching and student
learning? How would you teach this lesson differently in the future?

I believe this was a very strong lesson that highlighted the importance of North Carolina
State Symbols and the benefits of using an Interactive Timeline. I believe that the lesson was
well structured, meaningful, and easy for the students to comprehend. There were many benefits
that presented themselves upon teaching of this lesson as well as a few weaknesses that were
primarily related to class and time management.
My social studies lesson contained many strengths relating to content, structure, and
assessment. I was impressed with my ability to scaffold the lesson from the teacher input to the
independent practice. The content of the lesson was easy for the students to understanding
which created the ability for students to annotate the text they were asked to interact with. I
believe the repetitive use of the interactive timeline and the step by step modeling provided
early on was key to student success. The background knowledge activated during the focus and
review helped students to think about their personal history with important symbols. This helped
during the teacher input because students began making connections early on to important
symbols and the literature that was used to describe these symbols. Once the students were
send off to work on guided practice they immediately showed signs of comprehension and
understanding. The students took the knowledge I presented during the teacher input and used
it to better understand the knowledge they were asked to analyze. They also proved they knew
how to use an interactive timeline after I modeled one in the teacher input. During the
independent practice, the students proved their ability to use the information they learned in
previous sections of the lesson to construct their own interactive timeline with three state
symbols. This aspect of the lesson provided a clear assessment of the classes understanding of
the lesson and complimented its overall strength.
The weaknesses identified during the lesson were primarily related to class and time
management. Students became restless during some points of the lesson when finishing earlier
than other groups. I believe that my classroom management skills in these moments should
have been better. There were many ways I could have fixed this during the lesson such as
providing additional assignments, posing reflection questions, or asking the students to help
their classmates. I also failed to acknowledge the importance of time management during the
lesson. Unfortunately, not all of the students were able to make it to the reflection portion of the
independent practice. I had to cut the students independent practice time short due to this
conflict and call students attention for an overall lesson reflection instead. I believe I could have
bettered my instruction if I acknowledged class and time management.
After reflecting upon my instruction, I believe the main things I learned about teaching are
central to structure and management. The structure of my lesson was very important to the
students being able to comprehend and understand the lesson. I found that having a strong
focus and review as well as teacher input provided students with sufficient knowledge to be
successful during later portions of the lesson. I found that keeping a constant structure
throughout the lesson was also beneficial to student success. In my lesson, the interactive
timeline format stayed constant from the beginning of the lesson to the end and this provided
students with the ability to use the knowledge they gained to complete the lesson independently

I also learned the importance of managing the lesson; if you lost control of the class and or time
then the lesson suffered. Therefore, I would teach the lesson differently in the future by providing
students who finished early with additional assignments and being more attentive to the time.