• Throughout the lesson, observe and listen to students to see if they understand the concepts of beginning, middle, and end.
• Ask students to remember what comes next in the story, to evaluate their understanding of the story.
• Evaluate students’ story-map graphic organizers to check for understanding of text structure. Students should demonstrate a clear understanding of what happens at the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
• Ask each student to label the beginning, middle, and end of a favorite story. The student may write using letters and/or draw pictures. Collect and keep this assignment in each student’s writing portfolio for the end-of-unit assessment. Use the Formative Assessment Scoring Rubric for this lesson to evaluate each student’s work on this assignment.

Formative Assessment Scoring Rubric:

Focus Question: Why is it important to tell the events of a story in order?

Part 1

With students at the gathering area, begin reading the story from Lesson 1 (or another known story that is sequential in nature) out of order and see if students realize that it does not make sense.

“Do you notice anything different from the last time you heard this story? What is different?” Give them time to answer. They should realize that the events do not make sense in this order. “I’m so glad you realize that the story does not make any sense. Why is it important for a story to be told in the correct order?” Give students time to respond.

“Do you remember what happens at the beginning of the story, what happens in the middle, and what happens at the end?” As students respond, model using a graphic organizer by drawing pictures of the beginning, middle, and end on a class copy (LW-K-1-2_Story Map.pdf). Once students think they have the story in the correct order, reread the story again in the right order and have students check the story map to make sure it is correct.

“I have another story to read to you. Listen carefully to see what happens.” Read We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. (You may choose to show one of the two YouTube videos listed in Related Resources instead.) “That story tells everything that the characters did on their walk.” Have students retell what happened in the story. Record their responses on sentence strips. Make sure there is one sentence strip per pair or small group. To simplify, limit the sentence strips to two per part (beginning, middle, and end) so that the students can easily distinguish between each section.

Part 2

Give each student one sentence strip that was generated in Part 1. Tell students that you would like their help putting the sentence strips in order as they happened in the story. “As I read, listen for what happens before and after the part on your sentence strip.” Reread We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Next have each student come up and tell what is on his/her strip. Ask the student to tell what happens before or after that in the story. Have the students hold the strips for others to see and try to arrange themselves in the order of events of the story. Ask the rest of the class for help with the sequencing as needed.

When the class agrees on the order, have each student place his/her strip in the correct sequence in the pocket chart.

Give students the story map graphic organizer and have them write or draw what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

Extension:

• Students can illustrate their sentence strip as a center activity.
• As students come forward to place their sentence strips in the pocket chart, you can have them share the sounds and/or hand motions associated with the event from the story (swishing and swashing through the grass, splishing and splashing through the river, etc.).