First Grade

Lesson Topic: Questioning

Enduring Understandings: (What big idea(s) will students understand as a result of this
lesson?)
-You ask questions to find out something that you did not know before.
Essential Questions: (What question(s) will students grapple with as they learn through this
lesson?)
-What distinguishes a questions sentence from a telling sentence?
Primary Content Objectives:
Students will know: (facts/information)
-Question marks belong at the end of question sentences.
Students will be able to do: (skills and behaviors)
-Orally form relevant questions.
-Write questions that begin with a capital letter, and end with a question mark.
-Use question words (i.e. who, what, when, where, how, does) in sentences.
Related state or national standards:
Oral Language:
1.3 The student will adapt or change oral language to fit the situation.
c) Ask and respond to questions.
Reading:
1.10 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of nonfiction texts.
f) Ask and answer who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about what is read.
Writing:
1.13 The student will write to communicate ideas for a variety of purposes.
e) Begin each sentence with a capital letter and use ending punctuation in final copies.
Assessment:
Formative: The students will sort sentence strips with short sentences (both asking and telling) as
a whole group. These sentences will be created prior to the lesson (*exclude ending punctuation
from the sentences). The teacher will make a chart on the white board for both asking and telling
sentences. The teacher will then go through each sentence (have a student read it aloud, and then
repeat it for clarity). After each sentence is read, the teacher will ask, Is this a telling sentence or
a question? The students will determine the answer and will tell the teacher which side of the
chart to place the sentence. Once each sentence is placed, the teacher will read through them,
asking which punctuation mark belongs at the end of each sentence.
Summative: The teacher will read aloud a short story about a new puppy (see below). The
students will listen to the story. After a short discussion, the teacher will pass out the assessment,
which the students will complete at their tables. The assessment will have the short story written,
and will ask the students to write three questions that they could ask the owner of the puppy
about his new dog (i.e. what is his name?, how old is he?). The teacher will collect these at the
end of the lesson to assess the students comprehension of asking questions.

Materials and Resources:

-Whiteboard and marker
-6 sentence strips (telling), 6 sentence strips (questions)
-15 copies of summative assessment
Key Vocabulary and Definitions:
-Question: A sentence that asks something that you do not know the answer to.
Lesson Procedures:
1. Introduction and goal orientation:
-The teacher will explain to the students that they are going to be working on asking
questions. The teacher will have the students sit in a circle on the carpet (morning
meeting style).
-The teacher will ask, We are going to practice asking questions to each other. What do
we need to remember about question sentences? The students should remember from
previous lessons that questions are something that you do not know the answer to. The
teacher can model this by telling the students, I want to find out if _______ has any pets.
Give me a thumbs up if what I ask is a question, or give me a thumbs down if it isnt.
The teacher will start with a telling sentence, _________ has a small cat. The teacher
will wait to see the thumb signals. If many students have thumbs up (signaling if it is a
question), the teacher can address this. However, the students should know that is not a
question. The teacher can then say, _______ do you have a small cat? The students
should know that this is a question.
-The teacher should tell the students, Lets practice asking each other questions. Take a
moment to think of a question that you might have to a friend. Maybe how many siblings
they have, or what their favorite sport is. After giving students a moment, the teacher
can ask students to start asking their friends questions. Remind the students to raise their
hands if they have a question for a friend.
2. Connecting to prior knowledge and experiences:
-After the students ask their questions, the teacher will ask, What were some things you
noticed when your friends were asking questions? What did you notice about their voices,
or what words they used? The students might remark on the voice inflection and that
students used words such as who, what when how, etc.
-If the students do not notice the question words, the teacher should write the question
words on the board, and will explain that these words can tell you if a question is being
asked.
3. Tasks and activities:
-The teacher will then explain that they will do some more practice to help recognize
question sentences from telling sentences. Our whiteboard is split into two sides,
questions and telling sentences. We are going to go through some sentences, and sort

them into which category they belong to. Lets do the first one together (do first sentence
as a class, and scaffold students to help them figure out if it is a question or a telling
sentence). The following sentences can be read by a student, and then repeated by the
teacher. The teacher will place the sentences in the category that the students determine.
If the students wrongly place the sentence, the teacher can review it as a class, and
scaffold appropriately. *The sentences have no punctuation marks.
-Telling sentences:
-Jill is 6 years old.
-There is a lot of rain outside.
-We have a pet dog.
-My favorite food is pizza.
-I had so much fun at the party.
-Today we will go to the park.
-Question sentences:
-Do you want some water?
-How old is your brother?
-Where do you live?
-When do you want to go to the park?
-How many pets do you have?
-Why do you want to go home?
-Once the sentences are read, the teacher will say, great job sorting these, but our
sentences do not have any ending marks! Lets see if we can put some in. The teacher
will first go through the telling sentences, and ask a student for each, which ending mark
would work. If a student selects an exclamation mark, ask them why they did that (since
it can work for several sentences). The teacher will then go through the questions, and ask
students to fill in the question marks for those. They should know that each question
needs a question mark, but this task is mainly for reinforcement.
-The teacher will write each of the marks beside the sentence strips.
-The teacher will then transition to the writing portion of the lesson.
-The teacher will explain that s/he will read a short story about Sams new puppy. The
teacher should remind students to listen very closely to the story.
-Story:
-Sam lived in a house at the end of the street. He had a big family, but he still
wanted a dog. On his birthday he got a dog. Sam played a lot with the dog, and
loved it a lot. They played all day together.
-Once finished, the teacher will say, Even though this was a short story, there were a lot
of details missing. Think of what questions you might want to find out to know more
about the story? If the students seemed stumped, the story can be read again, or the
teacher can prompt. The teacher will take several ideas from the students.
4. Closure:
-The teacher will then explain that the students will have the chance to write their own
questions about the story. The teacher will ask the host/hostess to pass out a paper to each
table place. The paper is a short assessment that has the short story, as well as a place to

write the questions. The teacher will call quiet students to go to their tables and wait for
instructions.
-The teacher will put the assessment sheet under the document camera, and will review it
with the students. The story should be read one last time, to make sure that all readers
comprehend.
-The teacher will then say, On the lines below the story, I want you to write two
questions if you are in the red group about what you could ask Sam about his story, and
three questions if you are in the green group. Remember if you are stuck on how to start
your questions, we have all of these examples (motion to white board) to help you get
started.
-When the students are done, the teacher will instruct them to put their work in the
finished box (check that their names are on them). The teacher can use these to assess the
students knowledge, and to determine if another lesson needs to be spent on questions.
Accommodations for individual differences:
-During the oral asking portion of the lesson, the teacher can help students form their questions if
they struggle with this task.
-The short story can be read many times, so that the teacher can be sure that all reading levels
understand it.
-The summative assessment differentiated just as the students daily writing is. Based on their
reading groups, the students will either need to generate 2 or 3 questions.
Behavioral and organizational strategies:
-The teacher should have the white board chart ready for sorting prior to the activity.
Additionally, the sentence strips should be prepared prior to the lesson.
-When the students are practicing their asking questions, the teacher should remind students to
raise their hands if they want to ask a friend a question, just like they do in morning meeting.