Retelling with Con Mi Hermano/With my Brother
Subject Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 2nd
Duration: 40 minutes
Content Area
English Language Arts will be addressed through the use of a picture book. Students
will identify main ideas in the text, summarize the text and connect the piece to their
own lives.
Purposes/Goals
a) After participating in this lesson, students will be able to summarize a story using
strategies presented.
b) This goal is important because summarizing is an essential tool needed in multiple
subject areas and at every grade level.
c) This lesson will require students to think of situations outside of the classroom in
another country which will help them connect the lesson to the world around them.
Objectives
Students will summarize the story orally with a partner in class. Once this has been
completed, students will summarize the story as a class and the teacher will write it
on the board.
State and National Standards
This lesson addresses Michigan Grade Level Content Expectation R.CM.02.02
because this lesson requires students to summarize the main points of the story.
This lesson fulfills this standard by providing students with strategies necessary to
be successful at summarizing a text. The lesson also addresses NCTE/IRA Standard
10 because during the lesson, English Language Learners will make use of their first
language in order to understand the lesson. This will help ELLs develop competency
in ELA and across the curriculum.
Assessment
As a formative assessment, the teacher will walk around the room and listen to
students’ summaries as they give them in pairs. As a summative assessment, the
teacher will have the class create a summary as a whole. This will allow the teacher
to see if more lessons on summarization need to be given or if students are ready to
move on.
Community Knowledge
a) Students’ knowledge and experience will be key in the beginning of the lesson.
Students will be asked to share what they know about life in other countries to
guide the lesson.
b) Students will share their knowledge and experiences as a large group at the
beginning of the lesson.
Procedure
1. The teacher will ask students what they think children do on a typical day in other
countries. The teacher will organize students’ responses on the board. The teacher
will reinforce the idea that although the children in other countries may speak a
different language some of the activities they do are similar.
2. The teacher will introduce the book Con Mi Hermano/With My Brother and explain
to the students that the book is written in both English and Spanish.
3. The teacher will give the students a task: pay special attention to the big ideas in the
story because they will have to retell it later.
4. Before reading, the teacher will take the students on a picture walk of the book and
ask students to make predictions about what will happen.
5. After reading, ask the students to raise their hands and tell some of the important
parts in the story. Explain that this is what is called a summary.
6. The teacher will pair students up. With a strong knowledge of the students, the
teacher will pair struggling readers with more confident readers and ELLs with
native English speakers to scaffold instruction.
7. TSW create a summary of the story with their partner. (roughly 8-10 minutes)
8. TSW share their summaries as a class and create a classroom summary of the story
to be displayed on the board.
Resources
 Con Mi Hermano/With My Brother by Eileen Roe – this will be the main resource in
the lesson and will be read aloud to students
 Whiteboard or Poster Paper will be used to brainstorm in the beginning of the
lesson and display the classroom summary at the end of the lesson.
Applications, Connections, Extensions
a) Students will apply what they have learned by summarizing stories in the future.
b) Students will make connections to summaries they could create in other lessons
such as their social studies text.
c) Students can extend their thinking about summarizing beyond the classroom by
thinking of big events in their life and how they could summarize it to a classmate.
Inclusive Instruction
This lesson will be inclusive of all students in multiple ways. First of all, the
book will be read in both English and Spanish. This will benefit the Spanish speaking
students in the classroom as well as the English speaking students. ELLs will be able
to hear the story in their native language to facilitate comprehension and native
English speaking students will be exposed to another language.
By providing opportunities for partner work as well as large group work,
students of all abilities will be able to work together. When students are divided into
pairs, the teacher will consciously choose partners based on abilities. This will help
scaffold instruction and students will benefit from working with their classmates.
Resources Referenced:
Kalemba, C. (2012). Let's read it again: comprehension strategies for English-Language
Learners. In readwritethink. Retrieved April 11, 2012, from
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/read-againcomprehension-strategies-1045.html?tab=4#tabs