Danielle Wangsness



Lesson Author: Danielle Wangsness, Cedar Rapids Community School District

Lesson Title: Creative Writing Using Nature

Summary: Students will use the schoolyard area to hone in on their descriptive writing skills. After a pre-writing sensory hike students will generate short poems that will be written around the school on sidewalks with chalk.

Grade Level: 4th Grade

Subject Areas: Language Arts-Writing

Integrated Subjects: Social/Emotional and Physical Education

Lesson Plan Source: Some of these ideas come from the book: Schoolyard Enhanced Learning: Using the Outdoors as an Instructional Tool-K-8 by Herbert W. Broda. Lesson: “Tale of the Tape,” page 88 and “See What I Found Poem Formula,” page 112.

Modifications: The lesson will include a nature sensory walk that will incorporate a variety of locomotor movements before working on the two writing activities. I also identified and used the district standards when writing the lesson.

Learning Objectives: The learner will be able to…

• Respect individual differences.

• Gain on awareness of varying points of view.

• Write descriptively by observing a single object in nature.

• Compose a “See What I Found” poem and publish it on school grounds’ sidewalk.

• Use correct spelling, grammar and sentence formats when writing the poem.

Standards: Cedar Rapids Community Schools-4th Grade Student Learning Expectations

• Writing Standard: The student will write for a variety of purposes.

• Social/Emotional/Behavioral: The student will gain awareness of the value of respecting individual differences.

• PE: The student will be able to demonstrate a variety of locomotor movements in a game or fitness activity by hopping, skipping, jumping, galloping, walking, jogging, and running.

Outdoor Recreation: Students will be actively engaged outside while completing various components of the lesson. First, with a sensory walk that will include locomotor skills of hopping, skipping, jumping, galloping, walking, jogging, and running. Hopefully, through the three activities the students will gain an awareness of how easy it is to be active and creative outside with little or no materials.

Environmental Concept or Skill: National Environmental Standards

Strand 1C: Collecting Information

1E: Organizing Information

Strand 2.3: Humans and Their Societies

B: Culture: Learners understand that experiences and places may be interpreted differently by people with different backgrounds.

Inquiry Learning: The lessons will be guided using many types of inquiry questions such as:

• What was hard about this activity? Why?

• Which words were the most common? Why do you think that?

• Could we make different categories with the words? How?

• Did you notice any patterns with the generated words?

• What did you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel on your hike?

• How could a nature hike help you with your writing?

• If you did this activity again what could you do differently?

Diverse Learners: All three parts of the lesson are hands-on and open ended so all abilities will be able to participate at their level.

Suggested Time Frame: The lesson will be taught on two different days about 60 minutes per activity.

Materials:

Day one materials:

• Cones

• Laminated cards with the following words-gallop, jump, walk, hop, skip, jog, run.

• Masking tape

• Leaves (all from same tree/bush-or other natural objects)

• 1 roll of adding machine tape-cut into 2 feet strips for each student

• Pencils-one per student

• Chart paper

• Marker

Day two materials:

• Clipboards-one per student

• Worksheet-“See What I Found”

• Pencil-one per student

• Dictionaries-10-12

• Sidewalk chalk-1 piece per student

Prior Knowledge: Before the first activity the class will review as a class the five senses and the components of a complete sentence. Assessment of student’s prior knowledge will be done in an introductory activity before the lesson.

Lesson Introduction: Ask students what makes a piece of writing interesting to read. What do good writers do? What types of inspiration and/or tools to writer’s use? How could a writer use nature to help with their writing? The discussion will be done as a whole group, with teacher writing ideas down on chart tablet to refer back to.

Lesson Procedure:

First Day

• Explain to class that we will be going on a sensory locomotion walk on the trail. They are to stay on the trail at all times. The purpose is to get moving and to use as many of our five senses as possible. (Preparation: ahead of time spread out cones with locomotor cards taped to them evenly along the trail.)

• The class will use many of their senses while following the directions off the movement cones along the trail. When everyone is finished with the hike, the class would gather at the outdoor classroom station. At the end of the hike the following questions would be asked: What did you see, hear, feel, touch, and taste along the trail? Did you notice something that you have never paid attention to before? What was it? Why do you think you never noticed it before? How could this nature walk help us with our writing?

• Each student picks up their clipboard, pencil, adding tape strip, piece of masking tape, and leaf. Students will tape the leaf to the top of the adding strip paper.

• Each student will need to write as many phrases and/or words to describe the leaf as they can. The goal is to fill the tape with different words. Make sure to give enough time for students to tap into careful observation mode.

• When most students have exhausted their word banks, stop and call on a student volunteer to read their list slowly to the group. Have another student keep a master list of generated words on chart paper with a marker. While the student is sharing have students check off items that are the same or very similar. Call on other students that have items that are not listed, continue to add these to the master list. Do this until all descriptive words that are unique are exhausted.

• Share the master list with students. Ask: which words came up the most? Why do you think that? Could we make different categories with the words, how? Did you notice any patterns with the words, if so what? If you could do this activity again, what would you do and why?

Second Day

• Quick review in class of the five senses and how to use these in describing and writing about objects. Share writing rubric for scoring poems that they will write later. Pass out clipboard with “See What I Found” worksheet and pencil.

Line 1: See what I found?

Line 2: name of object in nature

Line 3: adjectives or descriptive phrase

Line 4: Tell about where you found it

Line 5: Make a comment or question about it

• Students will have 10-15 minutes to roam in the playground field. Talk about boundaries (stay inside of the trail) and remind that when they hear the whistle, to run back to the outdoor classroom area. Also remind the class to not remove any of the items in nature.

• While roaming. Students are looking for an object to complete a “See What I Found” poem. Each student is to write at least 2 poems on 2 different objects in nature.

• When all students have gathered at the outdoor classroom ask the following questions: What did you see, hear, feel, touch, and taste? What was easy about the activity and why? What was hard about the activity and why?

• Have the class spilt into groups of 3 or 4. Each group gets to share their poems with one another. After each child has shared each member needs to give a kuddo and suggestion.

• Gather the students back as a class. Ask the following questions: How did meeting with your peers help you in the writing process? Do you think you could go back and revise one item in your poem?

• Students then spread out in the classroom area and pick one poem to revise for ideas and edit for spelling, grammar and punctuation.

• Students select a piece of chalk when finished and write the poem on the sidewalk area surrounding the school. The teacher will collect their worksheets to score based on the rubric.

Assessments:

• Formative: Will be able to assess student’s ability to describe objects many times throughout both lessons during the whole group discussions. Student will also get a chance to evaluate and look critically at their writing during the peer editing phase of the lesson.

• Summative: Students will be scored on their poem at the end of the second day lesson based on the below rubric.

|Element |Beginning |Developing |Secure |

|Word Choice |Does not include descriptive and |Includes some descriptive and interesting |Includes many descriptive and |

| |interesting words. |words. |interesting words that create a clear |

| | | |picture for the reader. |

|Sentence Fluency |Doesn’t use complete sentences. |Include some complete sentences. |Uses complete sentences on all of the |

| | | |work. |

|Convections |Frequent errors in capitalization, |Some errors in capitalization, punctuation,|Free of errors in capitalization, |

| |punctuation, and spelling. |and spelling. |punctuation, and spelling. |

|Personal Best |Was off task throughout many parts of|Stayed on task through most parts of the |Stayed on task throughout all parts of|

| |the lessons and put little effort |lessons and put personal best effort into |the lessons and put personal best |

| |into the activities. |all areas with a few reminders. |effort into all areas without any |

| | | |reminders. |

Extensions:

• Write a story from the perspective of something found in nature.

• Start a nature observation notebook.

• Provide a list of books inspired by nature or about nature.

• Invent new movements to do while walking on the school trail. For example: animal moves, space moves, etc…

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