Ready-to-teach lesson
Whole Book Plan
Stephanie's Ponytail - Grade 1 - Short lesson
TIME
OBJECTIVE
16 minutes Read the whole book and explain what Stephanie does about her ponytail, and what she does about the copying.
Essential question: What do you do when everybody copies you?
Materials
Text to mark
PRODUCT
A round-by-round chart, and the ending
- • The book
- • Passage 1 - the first ponytail, and the first round in full
- One chart each
- Prepared passages: Passage 1, Passage 3, Passage 4
Lesson sequence
1 Before reading - 3 min
- Passage 3 - the kitchen, and the argument about where a ponytail can go
- Passage 4 - a crowd of side ponytails
- Focus:
- Wanting to be the only one
- Teacher direction:
- Ask whether anybody has ever wanted something nobody else in the class had. Then read the first page, which contains the whole shape of the book: she asks, she gets it, they call it ugly, she does not care.
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1 2 Teacher model - 5 min
- Teacher model:
- I read the same four lines from two different rounds and I point out that they are the same four lines. She asks her mother, she gets the ponytail, the other children say the same three words, and she gives the same answer. What changes between one round and the next is only where the ponytail is - and how many of them copy it.
page 1
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1, Passage 4 3 The rounds - 8 min
- Focus:
- A new place, then a crowd of copies
- Teacher direction:
- Using Passages 1, 3 and 4, write where Stephanie's ponytail goes each time, and what the other children do afterwards.
- Expected answer:
- First the ponytail comes out the back, and the next morning all the other girls have one out the back too. Then Stephanie asks for one out the side, just above her ear - her mother says that is very strange and that the back is the only place you can do ponytails, and Stephanie says it is not. The next morning all the girls and even some of the boys have side ponytails. Each time the other children call it ugly first and copy it the day after, and each time more of them copy.
- Student product:
- A row per round: where the ponytail went, who copied
- Prepared text:
- Passage 1, Passage 3, Passage 4
Support & extension
Above: Stephanie never shaves her head. Explain whether she lied, using what she says on the desk.
Below: Fill in the rounds, then write what Stephanie said she would do and what she did.
Assessment
- Says Stephanie wanted a ponytail nobody else had
- Names two places her ponytail went
- Says the other children called it ugly and then copied it
- Gives Stephanie's answer to them
- Says she arrived with a ponytail and not a shaved head
page 2