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.