1 A young teacher tried her hand at developing her first differentiated lesson plan. “Could you give it a look and see if I’m on the right track?” she asked me. Her 4th graders were all reading the same novel. She had fashioned five tasks, which she was going to assign to students based on what she perceived to be their readiness levels. The tasks were to create a new jacket for the book, build a set for a scene in the book, draw one of the characters, rewrite the novel’s ending, or develop a conversation between a character in this novel and one from another novel they had read in class that year.

Differentiation story, p.2 After I looked at the tasks, I asked a question I wish someone had insisted I answer daily in the first decade of my teaching: “What do you want each student to come away with as a result of this activity?” She squinted and answered, “I don’t understand.” I tried again: “What common insight or understanding should all kids get because they successfully complete their assigned task?” She shook her head: “I still don’t get it.” “Okay. Let me try another way.” I paused. “Do you want each child to know that an author actually builds a character? Do you want them all to understand why the author took the time to write the book? Do you want them to think about how the main character’s life is like their own? Just what is it that the activities should cause the students to make sense of?” Her face flushed, and she waved her hand as if shooing away a bug. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “I thought all they were supposed to do was read the story and do something with it!” Carol Ann Tomlinson 2

Novice Function (s): Accuracy: Explain where and why hunger exists in the world Prepositions with continents and countries 3

Age# of items*Time Span 5 – minutes 14+5 – 920 minutes *An item is an individual piece of information – the ending of a verb, a new vocabulary word, etc. Only “chunking” pieces of information allows the learner to work with multiple items. 4

Degree of Retention Time in Minutes 5 Adapted from Sousa Gain Attention I do. You do. We do.

6 The teacher says…Learners: While I take attendance… write two questions to find out how if your partner is hungry, what he/she ate recently While I pass out the graphic organizer…. think of ways to complete the following sentence, “Hunger exists because… While I answer this student’s question… role-play a (30 second) conversation with your partner. If you run out of things to say, start over. While I find the picture…tweet a thought about hunger in the world. We have one minute left…. use circumlocution to see how many of the following words/phrases you can get your partner to say.

SAY TO YOURSELF In this type of sponge, you ask the student to think quietly. This type of quiet activity is good for settling things down at the beginning of class, after a fire drill or an announcement, while you are erasing the board, while they are moving into their groups, or after a test while a few slower students are still finishing. Here are some examples of this type of sponge: Describe to yourself... Tell yourself... Think of... Picture to yourself... Read the poem and locate the main idea. Read and decide the appropriate title. 7

SAY TO OTHERS Take turns describing... Tell each other most important thing you learned in this class. Ask your partner a question. Draw a picture of... describe it to your partner. 8

WRITTEN RESPONSE List... Write a five-word description of the story. Complete this sentence: List four famous people and qualities to describe them. Write a question I could ask on tomorrow’s test/could have asked on yesterday’s test but didn’t. Write a two-sentence description of the poster. Write what I just said on a piece of scrap paper, in your own words. Draw a star next to the most important item in your notes. 9

SIGNALING Show if a sentence is true or false. Stand up if you know the answer. Hold your thumb up, down, or sideways: up for yes/agree, down for no/disagree, sideways for don’t know. Point to the picture of a _______________. Write the word for ___________ in the air with your finger. Show me with your face how this character felt. 10

“Give me five” means 2 eyes on me, 2 hands on your desk that are not doing anything and one closed mouth. (2+2+1=5) After explaining a few times in the target language, just say “Dame cinco” or “Donne-moi cinq”. or Address the issue quietly by: a. asking “Do you know what you are supposed to be doing?” b. asking “Do you know how to do it?” c. requesting “Show me.” 11

12 Type of HomeworkLearners might Pre-learning watch a video or read an article on hunger issues in English. Checking for understanding create a visual or find visuals for key vocabulary related to hunger. Post to in class word wall. Practicing work with graphic organizer and write sentences by completing various sentence starters. Processing write questions they might ask to identify hunger issues in their community.

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