Ready-to-teach lesson
Analyze a Repeated Cause-and-Effect Pattern
Coriander the Contrary Hen - Grade 1 - Short lesson
TIME
OBJECTIVE
18 minutes Find the pattern in Coriander's replies, and explain what causes each one and what it causes in turn.
PRODUCT
A table of what was said and what she cackled back Essential question: Her cackles sound like noise.
What are they actually made of?
- Materials
- Text to mark
- • The book
- • Passage 7 - the first reply, lettered across the road
- One table each with the tellings-off filled in
- Passage 11 - the second reply, and the muck she was warned about
- Prepared passages: Passage 7, Passage 11, Passage 15, Passage 16, Passage 31
- Passage 15 - the third reply, off the school bus
- Passage 16 - Fanny loses patience, and copies the hen
Lesson sequence
1 Launch - 3 min
- Passage 31 - the last reply, and every hen leaving at once
- Focus:
- A reply that rhymes with the complaint
- Teacher direction:
- Read Coriander's first reply and show it - it is painted in big letters across the picture. Ask the class what the last word rhymes with. Then ask them what Farmer Bucket had just said about the road.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 7 2 Teacher model - 5 min
- Teacher model:
- I put the first reply beside what caused it. Farmer Bucket tells her this road is for trucks - and her cackle ends on truck. So the reply is not just noise: she has taken the last word of his telling-off and thrown it back at him. Once I know that, I can predict the shape of every reply in the book, though not the word.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 7, Passage 16 3 What each reply is made of - 10 min
- Focus:
- The same shape, a different last word
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 7, 11, 15 and 31, write down each of Coriander's replies and what was said to her just before it.
page 1
- Expected answer:
- Every reply has the same shape and a different ending, and the ending always comes from what was just said to her. Farmer Bucket says the road is for trucks, so her cackle ends on truck. Mrs. Bucket warns her about getting stuck in the muck, so it ends on muck. Fanny says she is acting like a dumb duck, so it ends on duck. And at the end the book mentions the feathers on the other hens, and it ends on pluck - which is a threat and not an insult. All four start with the same two cackles, all four are painted in big letters across the picture, and all four are introduced in the very same words: she ruffles her feathers, gives a sharp look, and cackles a discourteous reply. .
- Student product:
- A table: what was said, and what she cackled back
- Prepared text:
- Passage 7, Passage 11, Passage 15, Passage 31
Support & extension
Above: The last reply is the only one that works. Explain what makes it different from the three before it.
Below: Fill the table, then write what is different about the last reply.
Assessment
- Says the replies always end on a rhyming word
- Matches one reply to what was said before it
- Says the reply is described in the same words every time
- Says the earlier replies did not move her
- Says the last reply made the other hens leave
page 2