Short Story

Topic: Honesty

Objectives & Outcomes

• Students will understand the importance of being honest and will be able to identify situations in which it is important to be honest.

Materials

• Short story about honesty
• Pictures of situations in which it is important to be honest (e.g. lying about taking a cookie from the cookie jar, cheating on a test)

Warm-up

• Ask students to share a time when they were honest and a time when they were not honest.
• Discuss the importance of being honest and the consequences of being dishonest.

Direct Instruction

• Introduce the concept of a short story by showing pictures of different short stories and discussing the characteristics of a short story (smaller than a novel, with a beginning, middle, and end, and usually has a lesson or moral at the end).
• Read the short story "The Honest Boy" by Hans Christian Andersen to the class, pausing after each page to discuss the story and the lesson it is trying to teach.
• Ask students to think about what the lesson of the story is and how it relates to being honest.

Guided Practice

• Pass out the pieces of paper and markers and have students decorate their paper in any way they like.
• Have students use their imagination to add to the story by writing their own ending to the story, filling in the missing parts of the story, or adding their own characters.
• Have students share their stories with the class and discuss what the lesson of the story is.

Independent Practice

• Give each student a copy of the short story to read independently.
• Ask students to underline or highlight any words or phrases that they do not understand and then ask them to use a dictionary or Google to find the meaning of the word or phrase.

Closure

• Ask students to share their favorite part of the short story and why.
• Review the importance of being honest and how it can have positive consequences.

Assessment:

• Observe students during independent practice to ensure they are understanding and following the lesson.
• Evaluate the students' short stories for understanding of the lesson and ability to write a short story.