Ready-to-teach lesson
Whole-Book Plan
Ish - Grade 1 - Short lesson
TIME
OBJECTIVE
16 minutes Read the whole book and explain what makes Ramon stop drawing, and what makes him start again.
PRODUCT
A chart of what stopped him and what started him Essential question: How much does it take to stop somebody, and how much to start them?
- Materials
- Text to mark
- • The book
- • Passage 1 - drawing in bed at night
- One chart each
- Prepared passages: Passage 1, Passage 3, Passage 5, Passage 10
- Passage 3 - the vase of flowers, with Marisol watching from the doorway
- Passage 5 - alone at the table, papers on the floor
Lesson sequence
1 Before reading - 3 min
- Passage 10 - one drawing, taped up and still creased
- Focus:
- What happens to the ones that go wrong
- Teacher direction:
- Ask the class what they do with a drawing that has gone wrong. Most will say screw it up. Keep that answer, because somebody in this book does something else with them.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1 2 Teacher model - 5 min
- Teacher model:
- I read the page where his brother laughs, and then the page months later. Nobody tells Ramon he is bad at drawing. One person laughs once and asks a four-word question, and that is enough to stop somebody who drew anytime, anything and anywhere. I say what the book says: the laughter haunted him.
page 1
- Prepared text:
- Passage 3, Passage 5 3 What stops him and what starts him - 8 min
- Focus:
- A laugh, and one word
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 3 and 10, write what makes Ramon stop drawing and what makes him start again.
- Expected answer:
- He stops because his brother bursts out laughing at his drawing and asks what it is, stressing both words. Nothing else is said - there is no telling-off and no criticism - and it is enough to keep him trying to make his drawings look right for months, and then to give up. He starts again because his sister points at one of the drawings he threw away, and when he says it was supposed to be a vase of flowers and does not look like one, she says it looks vase-ish. One word, and she means it as praise.
- Student product:
- Two boxes: what stopped him, what started him
- Prepared text:
- Passage 3, Passage 10
Support & extension
Above: Leon laughs once and Ramon stops for months. Explain why one laugh did so much, using what the book says about it.
Below: Fill the two boxes, then write what Ramon is like at the end.
Assessment
- Says Ramon loved drawing at the start
- Says his brother laughed at a drawing
- Says Ramon gave up and put his pencil down
- Says Marisol kept his crumpled drawings on her wall
- Says the word ish made him start again
page 2