Focus Lesson- Using our Resources

Mini / Focus Lesson Plan- Using Resources

Rationale: I have seen a few students in my class use their picture dictionaries to look up words, but other than that I don’t think they know much about using their resources in their writing, from simple things like looking up the spelling of a word to researching for a short paper. I want students to really know and understand what resources are available to them and how to use them in their writing process.

Standard: ELA1W1 The student begins to understand the principles of writing. The student

k. Begins to use a variety of resources (picture dictionaries, the Internet, books) and strategies to gather information to write about a topic.

Mentor Text:

Their Picture Dictionary

http://www.factmonster.com/


Lesson Description: (5-10 minutes)

-          We will start off by creating a graphic organizer as a group of all the resources we can think of! It will start with “Resources” in the middle, then branched from there it will have “books, Internet, people” etc. Then from there we might have “Picture Dictionary” off of books, “Mrs. Maxwell” for people and “factmonster.com” off of internet. This will continue until we have thought of everything we can use to figure out information we don’t know.

-          Next I will talk about how when we are writing, sometimes we need to know how to spell something, another word for something, a fact about a topic etc. These resources will get us what we need.

-          Then I will briefly review when and how you should use certain resources. Example- if you need to know how to spell something, you can always sound it out, but if it is a final draft or you just want to make sure to get it right, you can use your dictionary. If it is not in the dictionary, then you can ask Mrs. Maxwell.

Independent writing:

As students are working on their writing, I will expect to see them using their dictionaries to look up how to spell words before they ask the teacher. I think it would even give them good practice to do a little research activity where they pick a topic, find 3 facts about it using the books in the room, their encyclopedia set, the internet etc and write a paragraph or two about it.  

Focus Lesson- Using "and" Correctly

Mini / Focus Lesson Plan- Using the Word “and” Correctly

Rationale: I was talking to Mrs. Maxwell about what the students have the most problems within their writing and she said they are constantly using “and” to begin sentences. They rarely use it correctly in sentences and often use it too often or too many time in a sentence. I think this is a common error in beginning writers so I would like to address it!


Standard: ELA1W1 The student begins to understand the principles of writing. The student

i. Begins to write different types of sentences (e.g., simple/compound and declarative/interrogative).

Mentor Text:

Small Paragraph-

¹My name is Axel. ²I am a student in Mrs. Maxwell’s class. ³I love to play soccer and watch movies with my friends. ⁴And I like to eat pizza. ⁵And one day when I grow up I want to be a fire fighter. ⁶Other students in my class are Kenya and Leslie and Kennet and Jennifer.


Lesson Description: (5-10 minutes)

-          I will post the paragraph on the smartboard, read the paragraph to the students and we will circle all the “and’s” we can find.

-          We will look at each sentence and see if there is anything we need to change.

o   Sentence 1 and 2 can be combined. We can plug in “and” so you have a compound sentence instead of 2 short sentences.

o   Sentence 3 uses “and” correctly. We could separate the thoughts into 2 sentences, but they are related because they both talk about what he loves to do. This way we don’t have to repeat “I love” at the beginning of 2 different centences.

o   In sentence 4 we need to simply drop the “and”. To make it flow better, we can insert “also” so the sentence would read: “I also like to eat pizza” because he is further telling about himself.

o   In sentence 5, we would just drop the “and” altogether. It does not need to be there at all.

o   In sentence 6, there should not be as many “ands”, we should only have one between Kennet and Jennifer.

-          After we make all these corrections we will review when “and” is appropriate and needed (ie. When you are listing things, to connect 2 sentences with a similar thoughts etc)

Independent writing:

Students will be encouraged to look through previous writing and circle each “and” they find and see if the sentence really needs it. They should ask themselves “does this sentence make sense without it?” and if it does, take it out. In future writing they should be more careful about putting “and” between everything. However, they should also try to use it the right way in making more compound sentences.

Reflections 3/28

I want to reflect on the writing I held during my four day unit plan. We were studying inventions and inventors so I had them write "IF I could invent anything it would be _____ because..." and describe it OR they could write "I think _____ is a good/bad invention because..." and tell us why. I know these prompts may seem simple or overdone, but I think they really get the kids to explore different ideas and though processes. The first prompt allows them to think of problems we have as individuals, classes, countries etc or things we hate to do and how to solve it. Students came up with light up jewelry boxes so we can find them in the dark (why? Who knows! But it seems cool!) a homework machine that you put your homework in and it spits back out to you, a mouse that could clean your house while you sleep etc. I was so impressed with their ideas it was incredible!



The second writing prompt was interesting because they have not done persuasive writing yet and I did not go into the details, I just wanted to see what would happen. One girl wrote about how dictionaries are great inventions because they tell us all the words and how to spell them and what they mean. Who would have ever considered the common dictionary an invention? I mean it definitely is! Another wrote about how hand held video games were not a good invention because if you play them all the time it could hurt your eyes and you might have to get glasses. Talk about really thinking! The last thing I expected was for a first grader to tell me video games are bad- but maybe she has had experience with this or someone told her it could happen if she played them too much.



I loved giving open ended writing prompts like this that allowed for creativity, it was so fun reading their responses and I was so impressed. As a funny side note, I forget that as first graders they are still learning common writing conventions and don't always understand them. I cannot tell you how many students actually wrote the "______" or the "..." and my favorite was when I saw kids write "is a good/bad invention" haha I didn’t even think that they would not pick up on the "/" as meaning "pick one of these that suites your topic". haha it gave me a good laugh :)

Reflections 3/22- FOUND IT!

I totally forgot this thing saves a draft every so often! OMG I AM SO HAPPY! haha ok, well, here is my original post haha:

As I began to read this article already on the first page I was brought back to 6th grade- we had been workin gon poetry for quite some time and had been encouraged to try a variety of styles. Towards the end of the semester my teacher, Ms. Davison planned a coffee house with us. We decked out her room in lava lamps and mushroom memorabelia and we all put on our best buret's. The lights were dim and all our parents sat in our desk. I memorized a really long poem I had written and was particularly proud of. I still remember my best friend Nick dressed up as Shakespear or something rediculous and recited some famous poem. It was silly and serrious all at the same time, and we had a blast. That one night meant so much to us and I will never forget it. I am by no means an expert poetry writer and do not remember much else from that class, but I will never forget out 6th grade lit coffee house.

I believe, as the article talks about, that it is these type of meaningful activites that teachers can do with their students that will really stick with them, especially when it comes to writing. It is such an expression of ourselves, I feel like I always hear stories of students blowing their teachers away with their writing, and this only happens because the teacher sets the stage. We need to really dive into writing and allow the students to really feels its value for themselves. I feel like in my classroom at Whitehead Road the students get a good amount of writing instruction and have time to write, but it is not richly framed and encouraged to follow through. This article really articulates that, even if it is not the main idea.

To veer off a bit but come back to the article a little more, i LOVE the idea of a collage of a research paper. Who likes sitting down and putting things into some random format boring people decided we should write in? I certainly dont. But if I can write a poem, a shirt story, a newspaper article and create some piece of artwork to go with it all revolving around the same subject- how much more fun is that?! It would really stimulate different parts of the brain and encourage creativity. I have never really heard of something like this, and feel it might be more appropriate for 3-5th, but I truly love the idea.

Reflections 3/22

I could cry right now... I just had liek 4 full paragraphs of stuff and lost it all because of some error.... ahhhh

I hate to do this but it is late so I will summarize what I wrote before... I cant believe that just happened.

-The first page of the article reminds me of this incredinle coffee house my 6th grade lit class put on. We had a blast and it really enriched our experience in that class- things like this mean more than simple writing rough draft of a poem after another and moving on to something else
- I think teachers should plan more rich activities like this where a concept is completely followed through

-As for the multi-genre research paper- i LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea. I already love collages and scrapbooks and things like that, anything where I can be creative and dont have to follow a standard. Stuff like this I think would really open up the doors for students to really impress us as teachers and truly get something out of what they are studying

That is all for now... I really wish you could read what I had written before, I was really proud of it :/