Planning for effective minilessons

1. Making the Most
of Mini-lessons
Mindi Rench and Julie Buzza
Northbrook School District 28

2. When you hear the
word mini-lesson,
what do you think of
and what do you feel?

3. Big Questions for
Mini-lesson Planning
• Why do we teach this? How does it fit into the
bigger picture?
• What are my big goals?
• Which resources will I use?
• How will I provide for students to enter at own
level?
• How will I be assessing? Does assessment match
my big picture goals?
adapted from Franki Sibberson (2012)

4. Why do we teach this?
How does it fit into the
bigger picture?
• Benchmark assessments indicate a whole-
class trend.
• Curriculum/scope and sequence requires
instruction on the topic.
• The concept fits into a larger unit of study.
o Large concepts break down into smaller
learning targets that add up.

5. What are my big goals?
• Think about where you want your students to be
at the END of the study.
• Based on what you know about your students,
what instruction do they need to move them
forward?
• Big goal will be the same for all students, but the
level of support or scaffolding needed might be
different for individual students.

6. Which resources will I
use?
• Consider picture books, even for older
learners.
• Your own writing.
• Student writing.
• Articles, excerpts from longer texts, and
short stories found in magazines.
• Short videos.

7. How will I provide for
students to enter at own
level?
• Provide a variety of texts for use during
guided practice.
• Provide time for students to talk in pairs or
triads during the lesson.
• Differentiate guided and independent practice.
• Provide additional scaffolding or extension
during invitational small groups.

8. How will I be assessing? Does
assessment match my big picture
goals?
• Informal assessment occurs during student
conferences and conversations that day and in the
upcoming days.
• Exit slips that ask students to demonstrate
proficiency or to reflect on their learning for the
day.
• Student self-assessment
• Formal assessment at the end of the unit of study

10. Steps in a Mini-lesson
1. Review anchor chart or learning target
2. Model the process
Text
3. Provide guided practice
4. Provide independent practice
5. Sharing
adapted from Teaching For Deep Comprehensionby Linda Dorn & Carla Soffos, p. 97

12. Possible Mini-lesson Cycles
• Reading • Writing:
o Strategies: o Strategies: sensory
comprehension, word- language,
work organization, etc.
o Behaviors and habits: o Behaviors and habits:
book choice, stamina territories, stamina
o Literary elements: o Craft moves:
character, theme, etc. punctuation, syntax,
o Genre: non-fiction, leads, etc.
poetry, science fiction, o Genre: writing in
etc. various genres
adapted from Franki Sibberson, 2012

13. Discuss the two videos
at your tables. Consider
the steps of the mini-
lessons as well as the
big questions

14. Reading Strategy Model
Learning Goal: To help students learn how to use evidence from the text to confirm or adjust an
inference.
Text: “The Captive
Step 1: Review the anchor chart. (2 minutes)
Add: Use evidence from the text to confirm or adjust an inference.
Step 2: Model the process. (5 -7 minutes)
Think aloud and stop three or four times to make, justify, confirm or adjust inference about the
captive’s identity. Annotate on the enlarged text.
Step 3: Provide guided practice. (8 minutes)
In partners or on own, students continue to more through the text stopping at each page to make,
justify, confirm or adjust an inference.
Teacher assesses by conferring and listening to literate talk.
Before moving into composing session, a few students share thinking, and the teacher recaps goal of
the lesson encouraging them to use this strategy on own.

15. Reading Strategy Model
Lesson (cont.)
Step 4: Provide independent practice (during composing session.)
Teacher might bring up this strategy if the moment presents itself in a
small group or one-on-one conference.
Step 5: Sharing (during reflection time.)
Teacher can ask students to share if anyone had the opportunity in
today’s composing session to practice and apply this strategy to
another piece of text.

16. Multi-day Model Writing
Mini-lesson
Lesson Plan: What is a feature article?
Learning Target: Students can understand
that writers can learn how to write feature
articles by analyzing and using mentor
texts.

17. Multi-day Model Writing
Mini-lesson, cont.
Day 1:
1.Introduce genre study. We’ll read and examine a variety of
feature articles, determine a topic we’re interested in learning
more about, conduct research, and finally write our own feature
articles.
2.Today we’ll read an article from Smithsonian Magazine
entitled “Bionics.” As we read together, think about what
makes this a feature article? How is it similar to or different
from other articles that might appear in a magazine?
3.Read aloud, stopping from time to time to discuss parts of the
article, for the rest of the allotted mini-lesson time.
4.Have students finish reading the article for homework.

18. Day 2:
1. Bring students together into the meeting area with their writing notebooks, writing
utensil, and article.
2. Begin a chart entitled “What Is A Feature Article?” Have students create a similar
chart in the lesson notes section of their writers’ notebooks.
3. Together create a definition of a feature article. “A feature article is a magazine article
that takes information about people places, events, or phenomena in the world and
seeks to explain it.”
4. Then add “Important Facts” under the definition. Come up with a list of things to
remember about FA based on reading of “Bionics”:
• FA are meant to be informative AND entertaining
• They are written with a particular audience in mind
• Feature articles require:
• research
• analysis
• synthesis of ideas
• organization
• good, strong writing skills
5. Have students read a different feature article and complete the FA reading guide for
homework

19. Day 3:
1.Refer back to the chart the class co-created
yesterday.
2.Have students gather in small groups based on
the article they read for homework.
3.Groups discuss the features they found in their
articles.
4.Debrief: How were articles similar/different?
Did they match our definitions and important
information?

20. We want our students to make
a lifetime commitment to
reading and writing. And so
we begin by painstakingly
caring about the literary
landscape and then we
proceed to do the best
teaching imaginable.
--Shelley Harwayne