This document contains an information literacy lesson plan created by Melissa Lewis for a 4th grade class. The three-day lesson teaches students about cause and effect relationships. Students learn definitions, identify causes and effects, and create a flip book with examples. Assessment includes a t-chart, flip book, and quiz to evaluate student understanding of locating and explaining causes and effects. The teacher found identifying reversed relationships and key words most challenging for students.

1. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
Melissa Lewis
Practicum
March 4, 2010

2. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
Action Example Template
GRADE: 4th Grade
TEACHER(S): Karen Easterly Smith
MEDIA SPECIALIST: Melissa Lewis
CONTENT TOPIC: Reading/Language Arts
STANDARDS FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY LEARNER GOALS
Standard:
1. Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge.
2. Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations,
and create new knowledge.
Skills Indicator(s):
1.1.6: Read, view, and listen for information presented in any format (e.g. textual, visual,
media, digital) in order to make inferences and gather meaning.
2.1.2: Organize knowledge so that it is useful.
2.1.5: Use strategies to draw conclusions from information and apply knowledge to
curricular areas, real-world situations, and further investigations.
CONNECTION TO LOCAL OR STATE STANDARDS
Georgia Performance Standards:
ELA4R1 The student demonstrates comprehension and shows evidence of a warranted
and responsible explanation of a variety of literary and informational texts
d. Identifies and uses knowledge of common organizational structures (e.g.,
chronological order, cause and effect).
OVERVIEW:
Essential Questions- How do you explain what a cause and what an effect are? How do
you identify a cause and an effect? How do I determine the causes and effects for events
read about in a variety of texts?
This unit will be a series of three lessons that cover cause and effect. I will start with
examples of real-life events that have cause and effect. I will use those examples to
explain that the cause is WHY something happened and the effect is WHAT actually
happened. The students will be led into identifying and creating both the cause and effect
of events. Also, students will be taught how to identify the causes and effects of events
inside a variety of texts, given guided practice on this skill by working with a partner, and
then completing doing it independently.
FINAL PRODUCT:

3. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
By the end of the lesson the students will know what a cause and what an effect are.
They will be able to identify the cause and effect of events within a variety of texts.
They will create a flip book of that displays cause and effect relationships correctly.
LIBRARY LESSON(S):
ASSESSMENT
The librarian and teacher will use two specific items to assess the students’ knowledge
during this lesson:
1) Flip book
2) Cause and Effect Quiz
• Product
The product will be the flip book that they create during two of the lessons. The
students will have two sides to their flip book: a cause and an effect. They will create
ten different scenarios that contain both a cause and an effect, and place each in the
correct category of their booklet. With each cause and effect the student will develop
an illustration that reflects the words.
• Process
EQ: What are a cause and an effect?
DAY 1
1. Activating Strategy:
The media specialist will begin by reading several real life events out loud to the
students. Then together the students will help identify what happened in each situation
and why it happened. The teacher will record the information into a T-Chart with the
headings WHY and WHAT HAPPENED. After all of the events have been charted the
teacher will then introduce the vocabulary words: cause and effect.
2. Activity One:
The media specialist will then ask students if they know what each word means and
will develop definitions for each word. The teacher will teach the students that the
cause of a situation is WHY it happened, and then will write the word cause in the left
column of the t-chart that is already created. She will then define the word effect as
WHAT happened and label the other column with that word. The MS will then talk
about several different key words are used to identify cause and effect relationships
including: since, then, and, therefore, because, and hence. She will then ask the
students to help her create several cause and effect situations. Together the MS will
model and allow the students to practice determining the cause and effect of each
situation by placing them in the T-Chart
3. Activity Two:
The teacher will then hand out a t-chart labeled just like the model that was used during
the whole group instruction. The students will work with a partner to create five causes
and effects and place identify them correctly in their chart. As the students complete
this part of the task the teacher and MS will walk around the room to give any
assistance or guidance as it is needed.

4. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
4. Summarizer:
Students will be able to share the different causes and effects that they created with the
class, and even come up to the smart board and chart them on the class t-chart. Then
the teacher will ask each group of partners to come up with a definition of what a cause
is and what an effect is, and a few groups will be called on to identify the definitions of
both words.
DAY 2
EQ: How do I create statements with a cause and effect relationship?
1. Activating Strategy:
The teacher will prompt the students to talk to their neighbors to determine the
definitions the words cause and effect. Then the teacher will call on several students to
define each word. After the two words are defined the media specialist will play a
cause and effect matching game from quia.com. The students will help to identify
which phrase is a cause and which is an effect. Students may even be called on to walk
up to the active board and identify the cause and effect that go together.
http://www.quia.com/mc/94601.html
2. Activity One:
The media specialist will use the examples from the opening activity to point out to the
students that there are key words found in cause and effect relationships. On the active
board she will have a list of those key words, and explain how they are used. She will
make a point to teach the students that normally the cause comes before the effect,
except when certain keywords are used. She will give an example using the word
because. The students will help to create two or three cause and effect relationships
using several more of the key words.
3. Activity Two:
The media specialist will then explain the concept of the flip book. She will show the
example that she has prepared and give directions in detail on how to complete this
activity. She will explain that this is an individual assignment, point out the two
columns of cause and effect, then explain and review how to create and scenario for
each and telling them they are to complete six total. One other thing that the students
will be instructed to do is to find and identify the key words of cause and effect they
used in their flip book. After they have written the relationships they are to underline
the key words. She will also instruct them to draw an illustration for each cause and
effect, giving them an example by showing the flip book she already created as a
model.
3. Activity Three:
The teacher and media specialist will walk around to assist and re-direct students as
they complete their books. Both instructors will ask different students to explain their
books and the cause-and-effect scenarios they are creating. After the students have
finished they will be able to share their flip books with the class.

5. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
Day 3
EQ: How do you identify a cause and an effect relationship within a reading selection?
1. Activating Strategy:
The teacher will have a list of three causes and the students will work with their
neighbor to create an effect for each one. The media specialist will walk around to
assist and observe. Then the students will give several different effects for each cause.
2. Activity One:
Then the media specialist remind the students in identifying the key words that are used
to create a cause and effect relationship using the examples created in the activating
strategy. The students will then add the other key words that they can remember,
creating a list on chart paper to post in the classroom.
3. Activity Two:
The media specialist will then display a reading passage on the active board. Together
the entire class will read the passage, determine the key cause and effect words, and
identify the cause and effect relationship within the passage. Several more passages
will be displayed and the media specialist will move from doing this as a whole class,
to allowing the students to read and complete these independently. After each passage
there will be two multiple choice questions about cause and effect that the students will
answer. The class will read and complete questions for five reading passages total. As
the media specialist is teaching this part of the unit, the teacher will walk around
observe the students’ success with completing this skill.
4. Activity Three:
The students will write in their reading journals to reflect on the two essential questions
presented so far: What are a cause and an effect? How do you identify a cause and an
effect? How do I create a cause and effect relationship? The students will also talk
about what has been difficult about this concept and what they have enjoyed.
Day 4
During this lesson the teacher will review the concept with the students and then they
will take a cause and effect quiz.
• Student self-questioning
The students will use self-questioning when writing in their journals and answering the
essential questions of the unit.
INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN
• Resources students will use:
- Crayons
- Flip Book
- Pencil
- Active Board
- Internet

6. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
- Reading Selection Paragraph Flip Chart
• Instruction/activities
o Direct instruction:
The three different active board lessons will be used as direct instruction.
The teacher and media specialist will directly teach the definition of the
word cause and effect, the key words used to identify this concept, and
how to write and identify them.
o Modeling and guided practice:
There is a lot of modeling within the lessons of this unit. First the teacher
and media specialist will model how to write a cause and effect. Also, the
concept of how to create a flip book will be modeled for the students.
Lastly, the teacher and media specialist model how to find the key words
of cause and effect and identify this relationship within a reading passage.
o Independent practice:
The students first create their own t-chart that lists several different cause
and effect relationships, then go on to create a full flip book, and finally
identify cause and effect relationships within reading passages
independently.
o Sharing and reflecting:
The students will share several different times throughout this unit. They
will continually share different cause and effect relationships they come
up with and will also share with the class the flip book they created. The
students will be given a chance to reflect on what they have learned in
their reading journals on the third day of instruction by answering the
essential questions of the unit.
Reflection:
This was the second time that I had developed and implemented an information literacy
lesson in direct collaboration with a classroom teacher, and I have to say it was much
easier the second time. This time I was able to collaborate with a teacher that works in
my same school, which enabled us to collaborate face to face. We met three different
times to specifically go through plan this lesson. We started by looking at the data she
had on her students primarily through the OAS test and a few other classroom
assessments she had taken. We determined through the different data she had that cause
and effect was still a topic that the students needed more instruction on. I was then able
to pull in several different information literacy skills that I could cover while teaching
about cause and effect. During our second meeting we focused on the different elements
of unit and developed the objectives, essential questions, and basic outline of our
instructional strategies that we would use. Then we came back a third time and
developed the specific materials we would need for the three lessons.

7. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
The implementation of the unit went very well. At first, this topic seemed hard for the
students to understand, but as we continually reviewed this concept they began to make
progress. By the end of the three days the majority of the students were able to create
and identify the cause and effect relationships. The hardest thing for the students to
understand was to identify the cause and effect when the relationship was reversed,
meaning the effect came before the cause. This happens when the word because is used,
which we pointed out several times during the unit but students still seemed to struggle
with during the assessment.
Assessment Results:
Cause and effect T-Chart
Student Unable to Write Able to Write
Cause and Cause and
Effect Effect
Relationships Relationships
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 (ESOL) 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 

8. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
25 
Flip Book
Student Number of Correctly Number of Key Words
Developed Cause and Effect Correctly Identified (Out of 6)
Relationships (out of 6)
1 6 6
2 6 6
3 6 6
4 6 5
5 5 5
6 5 3
7 6 6
8 6 6
9 6 6
10 6 6
11 6 6
12 6 6
13 6 6
14 (ESOL) Shortened Assignment, Shortened Assignment,
Completed with help Completed with help
15 6 6
16 4 3
17 6 6
18 6 6
19 6 6
20 6 6
21 5 5
22 4 5
23 6 6
24 6 6
25 5 6
Most students were able to create these relationships from scratch, but several still had
problems when they used the word because. They mixed up the cause and effect, not
understanding which was which. Also, students had some trouble identifying the key
words.
Cause and Effect Quiz

9. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
Student Grade

10. Melissa Lewis
Information Literacy Lesson Plan
1 92
2 100
3 92
4 83
5 75
6 67
7 100
8 92
9 83
10 83
11 83
12 92
13 83
14 (ESOL) 83 with reading
accommodations
15 92
16 67
17 92
18 100
19 92
20 92
21 75
22 58
23 100
24 83
25 92