Samantha Gibbons, Reading Specialist at Greenburgh Academy says, “Students in my self-contained class, ranging in age from 12 to 15, often find staying on task for an entire lesson a significant challenge. However, when I developed a lesson using the EDI Lesson Plan template, the students were engaged and excited the entire period. By the end of the lesson every student demonstrated mastery of the literary strategy that was taught!

What did Samantha’s lesson look like?

I planned a lesson that addressed each of the components of EDI:

• I had a clearly stated objective for students to learn the literary element of flashback.
• I activated prior knowledge by showing a clip from the video The Lion King.
• Using the clip, I talked about lesson importance and modeled the concept and skill development.
• I engaged students in guided practice as the students read the chapter where the character had a flashback and made connections between the flashback in the video clip and the book.
• Students then independently practiced identifying flashbacks and illustrating them.
• During lesson closure the students answered questions and shared their work, demonstrating mastery of the learning objective.
• Throughout the lesson I checked for understanding, verifying that students were learning.