1. Tess McNamara
TL525
LESSON PLAN: Making inferences from The Help
OBJECTIVES
Content: SWBAT make inferences about the speaker, Skeeter, and her relationships with her mother and
her societal constraints against her desires.
Language: SWBAT articulate (oral and written) their thinking process that drew them to make an
inference by naming their conclusions and the evidence they used to draw such conclusions.
ASSESSMENT
Students will complete a graphic organizer as they analyze the text and submit their work at the
beginning of the next class. The teacher can also monitor the students as they work by walking around
the classroom and talking to them about their inferences. (Review & Assessment)
CONNECTION TO STANDARDS
STATE STANDARDS
College & Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading 6-12
Key Ideas and Details, 1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical
inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn
from the text.
Craft and Structure, 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining
technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or
tone.
Craft and Structure, 6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
WIDA STANDARDS
English Language Development Standard 1: English language learners communicate for social and
instructional purposes within the school setting.
English Language Development Standard 2: English language learners communicate information,
ideas and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language arts.
2. WARM UP/DO NOW (Building Background, Lesson Preparation)
This is a photo of me when I was six years
old. By looking at this photo, what are five
conclusions that you can make?
Suggestions: What can you guess about our
personalities? How might we have been
feeling this day? How might I know those
boys? When was the photo taken? Where
was the photo taken? (Comprehensible
Input)
Write your conclusions down in your
notebook. Try to describe why you made
those guesses. (Review & Assessment)
INTRODUCTION OF NEW MATERIAL
1. I review warm-up activity with the students. I ask them to share what they concluded about the people
in the photo and how they arrived at those conclusions. (Review & Assessment, Interaction) (The
photo was taken on a family outing on a nature walk. My older brother is hugging me and the two other
boys are my cousins. I was rarely allowed to drink soda and bowl haircuts were cool in the 90s.) For
example, the students could deduce that the haircuts and clothes could tell them that the photo was
taken in the 90s or early 2000s. They could guess that the boys in the photo are probably my family and
that we were on some kind of tourist activity or nature walk. They could assume that we kids were very
excited to be drinking soda or that we had been walking for a long time and were thirsty. They could
determine how my brother looked up to my older cousin by the look on his face, etc.
2. Assess the conclusions that you made about me in this photo. How do you think I feel about my
surroundings and about the environment that I am in? What can you guess I was thinking about? What
kind of values do you think I had as a six-year-old in this photo?
3. Assess the conclusions that you made about my brother in this photo. How do you think he feels
about his surroundings and about the environment that he is in? What do you think he’s thinking about?
What kind of values do you think he had as an eight-year-old in this photo? How do you think his
perspective about our surroundings differed from mine in this photo? How do you think my brother and
I might describe our memory of this photo differently? (Practice & Application)
2. I ask the students to explain how they make similar inferences when they look at photos and when
they read. I ask them how different themes or values might be represented in a story depending on the
speaker or narrator. (Building Background)
3. I ask them, “when you read, what are some strategies that you use to help you understand the meaning
of the text?” (I imagine that I would keep a poster of helpful reading strategies on the wall in my
classroom, so they could use that as a helpful reference.) Why is that reading strategy helpful for you?
3. *Examples: re-read, read for purpose, look up unfamiliar words, attention to the title, context of place
and time it was written (Strategies)
GUIDED PRACTICE
1. I transition and explain to the students that we will be working on making inferences. I clarify
the definition of an inference and then pause for them to ask any clarifying questions about what
an inference is. To help ELs, I give each student a handout with the definition of an inference.
The handout then has a place to write their own definition of an inference and another place to
write down synonyms to inference. Students may fill out the sheet as we discuss this as a class. I
also ensure to give plenty of wait time for students to ask clarifying questions about inferences
and about the worksheet. (Comprehensible Input, Strategies)
2. Review that authors make choices about how the speaker speaks to the audience. I explain that
in the selected text for today, the characters have very different values. Because the excerpts are
from The Help, a book based during the civil rights era, the characters’ values have a lot to do
with the context of their society. (Lesson Delivery from prior lesson)
3. Ask the class to take a minute and think about some of the values that they have at home with
their families. Are their values the same as their friends and their parents? If they have any
different values from their friends or family, why are those values different?
4. I hand out the packet with excerpts from The Help and the graphic organizer that goes along
with it. (Comprehensible Input)
5. As a class, before reading the text, I show a series of images from the movie version of the The
Help. Meanwhile, I set up a KWL chart on the board. I ask the students to tell me what they can
infer, based on the images, about the dynamics of people in Jackson during the Civil Rights
movement. I would make sure to guide the conversation toward information that is relevant to
The Help and then I would make sure to clearly explain or elaborate upon any information that
was known/given by students. To help ELs, I would make sure to repeat the information and
fill in the gaps between any random tidbits on the chart. I would also give the students a blank
KWL chart to fill in on their own as I filled out the one on the board. This way, the EL students
can refer back to their chart later if they happen to forget any of the information along the way,
and they can also write down any additional questions they might have as they read the text in
the “want to know” column. (Lesson Preparation, Building Background, Comprehensible
Input, Interaction, Practice & Application, Review & Assessment)
6. I review the directions for the graphic organizer with the entire class and clear up any questions.
Make sure to leave lots of wait time for questions and speak extra slowly when explaining the
directions. I would try to say the directions in a few different ways so that the message was
clearly understood. I make sure to ask the students if they feel comfortable with the directions
before we move on. (Comprehensible Input)
7. I read aloud part of the first excerpt. I ask the students some guiding questions about what they
learned about Miss Skeeter. I do not tell the students to fill out the graphic organizer yet, but I
make sure to model (via think aloud) the thought process I would go through when I made an
inference in the text. While thinking aloud, I make sure to use the specific language that is
written in the graphic organizer (ie. evidence, conclusion, guess, because/then, reasoning,
justify). I continue reading and pausing throughout to ask guiding questions and to call attention
to certain details. To help ELs understand the reading clearly, I make sure to articulate and to
4. read very slowly. I also make sure to read with enthusiasm, such as changing my voice when
Skeeter or her mom are speaking to differentiate the two speakers. (Comprehensible Input,
Strategies)
8. I finish reading aloud and I give the students 5 minutes to jot down some reactions and general
inferences they made from the read aloud. After 5 minutes, I tell student to turn and talk for 5
minutes and discuss their findings. I ask them to discuss what they can tell about Miss Skeeter’s
society, her economic status, and her feelings about her relationship with her mother. These
guiding questions will be written on the board at the front of the room. Before the students
begin their turn and talk, I ask if there are any questions about the text that we just read. I ask if
there was any vocabulary that was unfamiliar or any part where they did not understand what
was happening. After clarifying any confusion, then I ask the students if they know what to
discuss with their partner, and then they turn and talk for five minutes. (Comprehensible
Input, Interaction)
9. After 5 minutes, I ask the students to share their findings with the class. On the board (or
projector), I write the students inferences. I set up a chart like the one on their packet and I
remind them to fill out their packet as we review as a class. (Interaction, Review &
Assessment, Lesson Delivery)
10. I play a short clip from the movie The Help, taken from the scene where the director combined
the scene we just read with another textual scene where Skeeter gets a job. Before playing the
clip, I ask the students to pay special attention to the characters’ body language. How does their
body language make their feelings clearer? I ask some of the students in the class to explain what
body language means to make sure that the EL students are familiar with the term.
(Comprehensible Input, Interaction, Practice & Application)
This is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWYiothdzWg
11. I ask the students to turn and talk with a different partner about their reaction to the movie clip.
Did their inferences about Skeeter from the reading match up with what they saw in the movie
clip? Did they make any new inferences when they watched the movie clip? What stood out in
the movie clip that helped them support or go against the inferences they made just after reading
the text? (Interaction, Practice & Application)
12. I ask the student pairs to share their findings with the class.
INDEPENDENT PRACTICE
1. I split the class into groups of four. I ask them to continue to work on analyzing the next excerpt
selected from the same chapter of The Help. I ask them to make specific inferences about the way Skeeter
feels about herself and her relationships with her mom and with her society. I plan the groupings ahead
of time and make sure to pair some stronger students with some of the students who would need
additional help. (Lesson Preparation, Interaction, Lesson Delivery)
2. I ask each group to choose one person to explain their findings and their reasoning with textual
evidence. (Lesson Delivery, Review & Assessment)
3. I give the students an individual writing assignment to write one paragraph in total. They should
explain some of Skeeter’s values and how they might differ from other characters mentioned in the text.
The students need to include three inferences from the passages, as well as their evidence/reasoning for
those inferences. (Strategies, Practice & Application, Lesson Delivery, Review & Assessment)
5. CLOSING/EXIT TICKET (5 min.)
1. What was most challenging about making inferences from The Help today?
2. Did watching the movie clip help you to understand the story and make inferences from the text?
(Lesson Preparation, Lesson Delivery, Review & Assessment)
HOMEWORK (if appropriate).
Students should take home their inference packet and complete or improve any work from class today.
(Comprehensible Input, Practice & Application, Lesson Delivery, Review & Assessment)
6. The following excerpt is from chapter 5 in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help:
“Did I tell you?” Mother says. “Fanny Peatrow got engaged.”
“Good for Fanny.”
“Not even a month after she got that teller job at the Farmer’s Bank.”
“That’s great, Mother.”
“I know,” she says, and I turn to see one of those lightbulb-popping looks of hers. “Why don’t
you go down to the bank and apply for a teller job?”
“I don’t want to be a bank teller, Mama.”
Mother sighs, narrows her eyes at the spaniel, Shelby, licking his nether parts. I eye the front
door, tempted to ruin the clean floors anyway. We’ve had this conversation so many times.
“Four years my daughter goes off to college and what does she come home with?” she asks.
“A diploma?”
“A pretty piece of paper,” Mother says.
“I told you. I didn’t meet anybody I wanted to marry,” I say.
Mother rises from her chair, comes close so I’ll look her in her smooth, pretty face. She’s
wearing a navy blue dress, narrow along her slim bones. As usual her lipstick is just so, but when she
steps into the bright afternoon sun, I see dark stains, deep and dried, on the front of her clothes. I squint
my eyes, trying to see if the stains are really there. “Mama? Are you feeling bad?”
“If you’d just show a little gumption, Eugenia—”
“Your dress is all dirty on the front.”
Mother crosses her arms. “Now, I talked to Fanny’s mother and she said Fanny was practically
swimming in opportunities once she got that job.”
I drop the dress issue. I’ll never be able to tell Mother I want to be a writer. She’ll only turn it
into yet another thing that separates me from the married girls. Nor can I tell her about Charles Gray,
my math study partner at Ole Miss. How’d he gotten drunk senior year and kissed me and then squeezed
my hand so hard it should’ve hurt but it didn’t, it felt wonderful the way he was holing me and looking
into my eyes. And then he married five-foot Jenny Sprig.
What I needed to do was find an apartment in town, the kind of building where ingle, plain girls
lived, spinsters, secretaries, teachers. But the one time I had mentioned using money from my trust fund,
Mother had cried – real tears. “That is not what that money’s for, Eugenia. To live in some rooming
house with strange cooking smells and stockings hanging out the window. And when the money runs
out, what then? What will you on?” Then she’d draped a cold cloth on her head and gone to bed for the
day.
And now she’s gripping the rail, waiting to see if I’ll do what fat Fanny Petrow did to save
herself. My own mother is looking at me as if I completely baffle her mind with my looks, my height, my
hair. To say I have frizzy hair is an understatement. It is kinky, more pubic than cranial, and whitish
blond, breaking off easily, like hay. My skin is fair and while some call this creamy, it can look downright
deathly when I’m serious, which is all the time. Also, there’s a slight bump of cartilage along the top of
my nose. But my eyes are cornflower blue, like Mother’s. I’m told that’s my best feature.
“It’s all about putting yourself in a man-meeting situation where you can – “
“Mama,” I say, just wanting to end this conversation, “would it really be so terrible is I never
met a husband?”
7.
8. Name: _________________________________________ Date: ______________________
Analyzing Text and Making Inferences
Directions: As you read the passages from The Help by Kathryn Stockett, notice details that
allow you to make inferences about Skeeter’s values and relationships with other characters in
the story. In the graphic organizer below, please write your inference, copy the quote that
supports your inference, and then explain your reasoning. How and why did that line, phrase or
word lead you to make your inference?
Evidence Inference Reasoning & Justification
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