Differentiating Lesson Plans to Meet Student Needs
Plan your website and create the next important tasks for get your project rolling
1. Different Learning Profiles
1.1. Visual Learners
1.1.1. To help visual learners better understand the structure of an essay, have students convert a sample written essay into a comic strip (with 3-5 frames per paragraph) using storyboardthat.com.
1.1.2. Show students a color coded a sample essay, using a separate color for introductory, topic, and conclusion sentences, as well as evidential sentences. Then have them go through a different essay and color code it themselves.
1.2. Kinesthetic Leaners
1.2.1. Print a sample essay and cut it up into small strips with 2-3 sentences on each strip. Mix the strips in a plastic baggie and give students 5 minutes to rearrange the strips in the right order.
1.2.2. Break students into groups of 5. Give each student a paragraph from an essay. They have 3 minutes to stand up and arrange themselves in order of their paragraphs (intro, body 1, body 2, body 3, and conclusion).
2. Levels of Readiness
2.1. High Level
2.1.1. Higher level students can be extended by writing a 5 paragraph essay completely independently
2.2. Mid Level
2.2.1. Students who understand the basic concept of structure but are not able to expand much on their ideas can write a simplified 3 paragraph essay.
2.3. Low Level
2.3.1. Students who are struggling to reach the objective because of language difficulties can write an essay using a template with sentence frames. Those who simply lack experience with longer writing assignments can write a 1 paragraph 'essay' that has a clear topic sentence and conclusion sentence.
3. Different Interests
3.1. Class activities
3.1.1. Give students a choice of which activities they want to do using 'learning menus' (McCarthy 2014). Students can chose from activities like the ones mentioned in the learner profile section
3.2. Essay topic
3.2.1. When it comes to assess students (i.e. when they have to write an essay), introducing student choice is as easy as letting them choose the topic. It is important that I "limit choices to a manageable amount," (McCarthy 2014).