NAME: Amanda Rapstad
CLOSE READING LESSON PLAN
GRADE: 3 rd grade SCHOOL: Nautilus Elementary
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Complexity Analysis
Worksheet
Annotate Text (Type specifics for annotations and include key vocabulary)
Annotation Directions
1.
Circle powerful words or phrases
2.
Underline confusing words or phrases
3.
Make notes in the margins
Key Vocabulary porch – The front area or deck on a house bosom- chest mingle – to mix with
Identify Student Writing Assignment
(Suggested Writing Strategy)
Quick Write Prompt:
Why does Aunt Sue share her stories with the boy?
Identify the strategy and how students will converse and interact with text.
Focus on opinion writing
Students will use a sentence stem to write an opinion…”In my opinion, Aunt Sue shares her stories with the boy because…”
Students will incorporate linking words and phrases into their opinion piece to support their opinion with evidence from the text.
Text Dependent Questions
A minimum of six, 2 per category: 1. Key Ideas and Details, 2. Craft and Structure, 3. Integration of knowledge and ideas.

Text Dependent Questions: Key Ideas and Details
*What does it mean that Aunt Sue has a “head full of stories” and “a whole heart full of stories?”
*How does the child know that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories?
Text Dependent Questions: Craft and Structure
*Why does Hughes repeatedly refer to the child as brown-faced/dark-faced?
*What are the “dark shadows” that Hughes refers to in lines 15 and 16?
Text Dependent Questions: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
*What does the use of “sorrow songs” and “dark shadows” tell you about the slaves’ lives?
*What does it mean when the author writes, “But that they came right out of her own life.”? What can you infer about her relationship with the slaves?

Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.
Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
Summer nights on the front porch*
Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom*
5 And tells him stories.
Black slaves
Working in the hot sun,
And black slaves
Walking in the dewy night,
10 And black slaves
Singing sorrow songs in the banks of a mighty river
Mingle* themselves softly
In the flow of old Aunt Sue’s voice,
Mingle* themselves softly
15 In the dark shadows that cross and recross
Aunt Sue’s stories.
And the dark-faced child, listening,
Knows that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories.
He knows that Aunt Sue never got her stories
20 Out of any book at all,
But that they came
Right out of her own life.
The dark-faced child is quiet
Of a summer night
25
Listening to Aunt Sue’s stories.
Close Reading Routine:
Read and annotate text:
1.
Circle powerful words
2.
Underline confusing words
3.
Make notes in the margins.
Vocabulary:
*porch – The front area or deck on a house
*bosom- chest
*mingle – to mix with

Aunt Sue has a head full of stories. What does it mean she has a head full of stories?
Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
Summer nights on the front porch*
Close Reading Routine:
Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom*
5 And tells him stories.
Black slaves I associate the word slave with hard work.
Working in the hot sun,
And black slaves
Walking in the dewy
These lines help me make a mental picture of the hard conditions slaves had to endure.
Read and annotate text:
4.
5.
Circle powerful words
Underline confusing words night,
10 And black slaves
Singing sorrow songs in the banks of a mighty river
6.
Make notes in the margins.
15
Mingle* themselves softly
In the flow of old Aunt Sue’s voice,
Was Aunt Sue a slave?
Mingle* themselves softly
In the dark shadows that cross and
Why do the voices mingle with
Aunt Sue’s recross
Aunt Sue’s stories.
And the dark-faced child, listening,
Vocabulary:
Knows that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories.
He knows that Aunt Sue never got her stories
20 Out of any book at all,
But that they came
Right out of her own life.
This line makes me think that Aunt Sue was a slave.
*porch – The front area or deck on a house
*bosom- chest
*mingle – to mix with
The dark-faced child is quiet
Of a summer night
25
Listening to Aunt Sue’s stories.