This lesson plan aims to teach 7th grade students how to evaluate the safety components of schools. Students will read and annotate articles on school violence and safety. They will then write a 5 paragraph essay stating a claim about violence in schools and supporting it with evidence from the articles. Additionally, students will create an interactive poster presenting ways to promote safety in schools, and cite their sources. The teacher will provide guidance, feedback, and assess students using a rubric.

1. Lesson Title: Evaluating Safety Components of Schools
Teacher: Mrs. Winfield-Corbett
Grade Level: 7
Duration: 4 periods
Common Core Learning Standards:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.1a: Introduce claim(s), acknowledge alternate or
opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.1b: Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and
relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an
understanding of the topic or text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.7.1: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to
support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn
from the text.
Materials/Resources: Computer, How to Annotate Text Notes Set,
Website: http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/#cat20181 (School safety
articles for teens)
Performance Objectives:
1. The teacher start by showing a video that) reminds students how and
what to annotate when conducting a close reading of a text.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzrWOj0gWHU
2. Next the teacher will distribute the note set on how to annotate text. The
class will read the article “Should You Worry about School Violence”
together as a class. The teacher will model how to annotate and conduct a
close reading of the text by performing think-alouds. The teacher will call
on various students to volunteer responses throughout the reading. The
teacher will use a document reader to model the annotations. Students will
copy annotations on their copies of the text as it is read.
3. Student will then visit the Kids Health website and select a second article
of their choosing from the ‘schools/jobs’ article section. Independently, they

2. will read and annotate their article. Students will then conference with
another student that chose their same article and add to their annotations.
4. Students will conference with the teacher where the student will identify
a claim about violence in schools and then develop an outline for their
response essay.
5. Students will then write a response essay where they state a claim about
violence in schools and use evidence from both articles to support their
claim in a 5 paragraphs essay. Students will be given a rubric to use as
guidance in the development of their essay.
6. The teacher will also conference with the student where they will give the
student specific feedback on the content of their responses using the rubric.
7. Students will be given the opportunity to make corrections to their essay
before final submission.
Independent Practice:
The student will create an interactive poster using Glogster.com on how to
promote safety in schools. Students will have to conduct research using the
internet to find pictures, videos, articles, and other research to help facilitate
the development of the content on their posters. In addition to creating the
poster, students will be required to create a works cited page that outlines
their resources used for the creation of the poster using an online citation
generator.
Assessment:
The teacher will use the reader response evaluation rubric to assess student
writing responses.
(http://teacherweb.com/TX/ElsaEnglandElementary/Armantrout/Readers-
Response-Rubric-modified--3.pdf )