Ready-to-teach lesson
TUMBLETA · GRADE 3 · VERIFIED STANDARD EDITION
Ontario Art's Supplies - Make Inferences
C1.4
Standard focus
Explain how visual and text features contribute to meaning in texts.
Why this lesson is a winner Students use handwriting, quotation marks, and pointing lines as meaning-making features to distinguish narration from character speech.
Decision: WINNER
This edition is included only because the lesson teaches and assesses the claimed skill. No standard is assigned where the match is partial or merely topical.
The lesson that follows is the approved TumbleTA skill lesson. The standards page is additive; the lesson content remains unchanged.
means going too far. Crayons come in a box, and thinking outside the box means having a new idea.
Pastels blend colour, and blending in means fitting into a crowd. Scissors cut, and cutting jokes means telling them. Glue holds things together, and so does somebody who keeps a party from falling apart.
Model: This page has the eraser almost stopping the party and then deciding not to cross a line. An eraser does cross lines - that is its job. But not crossing a line also means not going too far, so the sentence is doing both at once.
Support and extension
Above: Write a new sentence of your own about one supply that works both ways, and say what the two meanings are.
Below: For one sentence, point at the supply and say what it really does.
Assessment
- Look for:
- Gives both meanings, not just the funny one.
Connects the saying to what that supply actually does.
Uses the words on the page rather than a retelling.
- 3.Who Is Talking Here
Full lesson
TIME
30 minutes
OBJECTIVE
Use the way words are lettered to tell the storyteller's voice from the supplies talking to each other.
STUDENT PRODUCT
Two columns of lines, sorted by who says them, with the clue written beside each
FOCUS
Two kinds of printing standing for two kinds of voice
Essential question
How does the page show you which words are the story and which are somebody talking?
page 1
Materials
The book, on a screen the whole class can see Two pages copied, one of each kind Text to mark before teaching Passage 1 — Art in the doorway of the supply room, arms wide Passage 2 — shelves of jars and brushes, a blank easel beside them Passage 4 — two pencils facing each other, hand-lettered speech between them Passage 6 — a crayon box with a face, a blue crayon in its mouth Passage 9 — a brush pouring ink, a quill and an inkpot to the right
Lesson sequence
- 1
- Two pages side by side · 7 min
Focus:
Teacher model:
Prepared text:
2
Teacher direction:
Expected answer:
Prepared text:
3 The tricky one · 8 min
Teacher direction:
Expected answer:
Prepared text:
4 Take one out · 5 min
Focus:
Teacher direction:
- Prepared text:
- A difference visible before you read Show a narration page and a speech page together. Ask what is different about the words before reading either.
Passage 2, Passage 4 Sort them · 10 min Sort these lines into storyteller and supplies, and write the clue you used each time.
Both are supplies: handwritten, in quotation marks, with a line drawn to a crayon box and to a brush.
Neither tells you what happened next.
Passage 6, Passage 9 The opening line is printed like the storyteller's words but somebody is speaking. Say who, and how you can tell.
Art is speaking. It is in quotation marks and the book says Art declared it, even though it is typed like the narration.
Passage 1 What each layer is for Read a page with the handwritten jokes covered up. Ask what is lost and what still works.
Passage 4
page 2
Teacher guidance
Why this text works: The book prints its narration in even type and the supplies' speech in loose handwriting with a line drawn to whoever said it, so the class can sort every line by looking rather than by guessing.
- Expected answer:
- The storyteller's words are in even printed type, along the top or the side, and they tell you what happened. The supplies' words are handwritten, in quotation marks, with a curly line pointing at whoever is speaking, and they are jokes to each other rather than part of the story. Art's own line at the start is printed like narration but is Art speaking out loud.
Model: These words are handwritten and a line runs from them to a pencil.
That tells me a pencil said them - the storyteller would not be written by hand.
Support and extension
Above: Explain why the storyteller's words are needed and the handwritten jokes could be taken out without breaking the story.
Below: On one page, point at the handwritten words and say who is speaking.
Assessment
- Look for:
- Sorts lines by how they are printed, not by what they say.
Names the pointing line or the quotation marks as the clue.
Notices the opening line is speech even though it is typed.
Short version
TIME
15 minutes
OBJECTIVE
Use the way words are lettered to tell the storyteller's voice from the supplies talking to each other.
STUDENT PRODUCT
Two columns of lines, sorted by who says them, with the clue written beside each
FOCUS
Two kinds of printing standing for two kinds of voice
Essential question
How does the page show you which words are the story and which are somebody talking?
Materials
The book, on a screen the whole class can see Two pages copied, one of each kind Text to mark before teaching Passage 1 — Art in the doorway of the supply room, arms wide Passage 2 — shelves of jars and brushes, a blank easel beside them Passage 4 — two pencils facing each other, hand-lettered speech between them Passage 6 — a crayon box with a face, a blue crayon in its mouth Passage 9 — a brush pouring ink, a quill and an inkpot to the right
Lesson sequence
page 3
- 1
- Two pages side by side · 5 min
- Focus:
- A difference visible before you read
Focus:
Teacher model:
Prepared text:
2
Teacher direction:
Expected answer:
- Prepared text:
- 3 The tricky one · 4 min
- Teacher direction:
- A difference visible before you read Show a narration page and a speech page and ask what looks different.
Passage 2, Passage 4 Sort them · 6 min Sort these lines into storyteller and supplies with the clue for each.
Both are supplies - handwritten, quoted, with a line drawn to whoever spoke.
Passage 6, Passage 9 Say who speaks the opening line and how you can tell.
- Expected answer:
- Art, because it is quoted and the book says Art declared it.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1
Teacher guidance
Why this text works: The book prints its narration in even type and the supplies' speech in loose handwriting with a line drawn to whoever said it, so the class can sort every line by looking rather than by guessing.
- Expected answer:
- The storyteller's words are in even printed type, along the top or the side, and they tell you what happened. The supplies' words are handwritten, in quotation marks, with a curly line pointing at whoever is speaking, and they are jokes to each other rather than part of the story. Art's own line at the start is printed like narration but is Art speaking out loud.
Model: These words are handwritten and a line runs from them to a pencil.
That tells me a pencil said them - the storyteller would not be written by hand.
That tells me a pencil said them - the storyteller would not be written by hand.
Support and extension
Above: Explain why the storyteller's words are needed and the handwritten jokes could be taken out without breaking the story.
Below: On one page, point at the handwritten words and say who is speaking.
Assessment
- Look for:
- Sorts lines by how they are printed, not by what they say.
Names the pointing line or the quotation marks as the clue.
page 4
Notices the opening line is speech even though it is typed.
- 4.The Excuse at Both Ends
Full lesson
TIME
30 minutes
OBJECTIVE
Work out what Art is really telling you by reading the first page against the last two.
STUDENT PRODUCT
Boxes for what Art says at the start and what he says at the end, with a line written underneath about the difference
FOCUS
page 5