Introducing a Lesson in ELA

in this video I'm going to talk about three engaging ways to start any literature unit and at EV academics this is what we call an into lesson it's something that is an integral part of our EB lesson planning approach and batch planning and those are things that we teach here at EB academics now if you're not familiar with batch planning or what I'm talking about definitely go check out our batch planning video on YouTube where we cover the basics of this and if you're interested in learning more we have tons of podcast episodes about it we also host free PD Workshop in the summer that focuses specifically on this so I've included link for you in the description to add your name to the waitlist for that free Workshop so you'll be the first to know when details are available to the public all right let's dive back into the concept of the into lesson now with an into lesson your number one goal is to grab your students attention that's it we want to get them interested from the get-go now there are three important aspects to keep in mind when thinking about your into lessons for your units equality into lesson sets your students up for success in the upcoming unit it's typically like one lesson unless no more than one or two class periods it could even last for like half of class period in some instances and this is where you might want to provide background knowledge introduce key vocabulary or simply set the scene for your unit of study the very important thing to remember though is that this lesson should be super super engaging to get students to buy in all right so now that we know what an into lesson is want to talk about three different and highly engaging into lessons that you can use with any literature unit now before we do be sure to hit subscribe where you're watching this video for more like this one and if you find this video helpful be sure to share it with fellow ELA teachers when you share our content it helps us immensely in getting our message into the hands of more teachers all right the first activity is called popcorn predictions now Love Popcorn predictions in fact it is one of the easiest activities to use to introduce New Concept popcorn predictions works really well when you're introducing novels short stories or poems now here's how it works you're going to comb through the piece of literature that you'll be teaching and you'll search for quotes that are relevant to the text but you also don't want to give away too much right so really be intentional with the quotes that you choose you can also 100 use chat GPT to help you with this right like make your life easier ask that thing to find quotes for you you want to aim for one quote per student in your class but if you have some repeat quotes that's totally fine so you'll type up the quotes print them out and cut them into strips so each quote is on separate strip of paper each student gets one sentence strip and recording sheet so they'll read that sentence strip and they'll make prediction about the text based on that particular quote then after they write their first prediction they will then pop around the room switching quotes with classmate and making second prediction so students will do this anywhere from like three to four times and after that they will make final prediction about the text to share with the class so your students will definitely want to do this more than once be sure to rinse and repeat this activity with other texts that you use in the in your classroom like it's fantastic to come back to you time and time again all right the next into lesson you can use is called five word Wonder I've used this particular activity so many different times with variety of grade levels from high school to fifth grade and every time without fail students absolutely love it they get into heated discussions about what they believe the text will be about and it creates easy excitement about the text before we start reading so here's how it works it's very simple you'll choose five unique but important they need to be important words or phrases from the text that you'll be reading so for example if we were reading thank you ma'am by Langston Hughes we might choose the following words and phrases thank you ma'am run Boy Blue Suede Shoes and Mrs Luella Bates Washington Jones now without telling students anything you will simply write these on the board or display them somewhere in your classroom and you'll Place students into groups of four to five and explain to them that they will be writing their own anticipatory paragraph explaining what they believe the story will be about there are no hints allowed don't tell them anything just give them those five words or phrases then after students have written their paragraphs with their group have them share with the class and lead whole class discussion all about their predictions you're going to love hearing what they come up with some of them are so funny and so interesting and some of them are spot on it's wild all right the last into lesson that we'll talk about today is called visual image analysis and you'll notice theme here as we get to idea number three we want to keep it simple right these interlescence are incredibly simple yet powerful and engaging for our students so the visual image analysis here's what you need to know to get started with this into lesson you will choose an image that connects to the time period the historical context the theme the character the setting or the topic whatever you choose but an image that will relate to the text that you will be reading or the unit that you will be analyzing so you'll display that image somewhere in your classroom and have students analyze the image through the following lenses number one scan what do students first notice number two observe students should make observations about the image and number three predict provide students with four to five questions that have them making predictions about the text based on the image and there you have it we hope you love using these ideas in your classroom with your students and if you haven't subscribed yet be sure to hit subscribe where you're watching this video