Lesson Topic: _______________________ Grade level



Writing Prompts

Understanding by Design Lesson Plan

Teacher: Carla Goldberg, for Ms. Russell School: Sherrod Elementary

Date: ___2/24/12___________ Subject: 4th Grade Language Arts

|Stage 1 – Desired Results |

|Established Goals/Content Standards: |

|The student writes about a topic by |

|[4] 2.1.1 Writing a paragraph that maintains a focused idea and includes details that support the main idea. |

|[4] 2.1.2 Organizing ideas logically |

|Understandings: (Facet 1, Application ) |Essential Questions/Hook: |

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|Students will… |What would life be like without books and stories? |

|Apply story writing abilities when given a prompt. | |

|Student objectives (outcomes): |Student objectives (outcomes): |

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|Students will know… |Students will be able to… |

|How to develop a concept into a story with a minimum of 1 paragraph. |Write a story utilizing the writing prompt. |

|How to organize their ideas. | |

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|Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence |

|Performance Tasks: |Other Evidence: |

|Story is written about one of the prompted topics with a minimum of 1 |As teacher walks around she will informally identify students needing |

|paragraph |assistance and those who can do the task without assistance, providing |

|Story is well organized |direction as needed. |

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|Self-Assessments |Other Evidence |

|n/a |Informal evaluation for understanding performed by teacher throughout the |

| |lesson. |

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|Stage 3 – Learning Plan |

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|Materials |

|paper and pencil |

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|Ask Essential Questions/Hook |

|The hook is incorporated into the Quick Write Activity |

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|Quick Write Activity |

|Give the students 30 seconds to think and 1 minute to write on the topic you give them. Let them know this will not be turned in. It is something for them to |

|keep or do whatever they want with it. |

|Topic: What would life be like without books and stories? |

|If class is not getting it, write on board: What do books do? Why do I need books? Is the world better with books? This should provide some direction. |

|Don’t let them write until 30 seconds has passed. |

|Have them write for 1 minute only & tell them to stop. |

|If anyone wants to share, let them read what they have. |

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|Lesson & Guided Practice |

|We are going to do some creative writing today. |

|Our topic is: What would you do if you were the teacher and none of your students showed up for school one day? |

|Brainstorm as a class. |

|What would you think, feel, do, or say? |

|Write on the Board |

|“Think” “Feel” “Do” “Say” |

|Under these write ideas from the kids for the categories. |

|Prompts if needed – would you be bored, stay there, feel sad, happy, play with the crayons, what would happen, would you go home? |

|As an entire class, write a story on the board using one of the categories (think, feel, say or do). |

|You don’t need to write the entire story as a class. Instead write a few sentences and then talk about how you would include some of your ideas. |

|Answer any questions |

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|Prompts to Choose From |

|What if cows gave root beer instead of milk? |

|If you could have a magic power what would it be and when would you use it? |

|How do you define a “friend? |

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|Small Group & Independent Practice |

|Students will choose from 1 prompt above to write about. Write them on the board. |

|Divide the class into groups of 3 to 4 students per group via their interest in the prompts above. |

|Have them brainstorm as a group first and come up with some ideas about their writing prompt for |

|Think/Feel/Say/Do |

|They should write down these categories on a piece of paper and write ideas |

|Next, tell them to think about their topic on their own for a little bit and add any other ideas. |

|Each child needs to write a story about their writing prompt. It should be at least 1 paragraph. |

|Recommendation: Allow 10 minutes for getting ideas on paper and a rough draft. |

|For another lesson or the next day, students can edit, revise and make corrections after a mini-lesson reminding them of things to look for when correcting |

|their stories. Teacher will provide direct recommendations to each student in regards to their story. |

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|Anchor Activity |

|Start editing and re-writing the story on their own with minimal assistance. |

|Draw a picture to go with their story. |

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|Conclusion/Reflections (if taught) |

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|I decided to alter the lesson plan and only allow for 2 writing prompts to choose from. They are not used to having a lot of freedom, so I thought I should not|

|allow more than 2 choices. I wanted them to stay focused. I was surprised that half of them picked the cow and milk and the other half picked the super power |

|topic. |

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|I think the assessments were too advanced for them. Writing a full story/long paragraph was too much so I changed it right before I delivered the lesson. I |

|personally don’t think it is too much to ask for forth graders, but since Mrs. Russell puts lots of emphasis on math, her students might be behind in writing. |

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|I thought the kids enjoyed the lesson. It was certainly more fun than the typical assignments they do in class. |

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|I thought it would have been better to have the writing prompt topics typed out ahead of time for the Promethean Board, so the kids wouldn’t have to wait while|

|I wrote the topics on the board. |

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|Other than that, I thought it went well. I was really impressed with how engaged the kids were. WAY better than the middle school kids!!!! |

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|Mrs. Russell didn’t give me any feedback on this lesson. However, I did record it on video and turned in the DVD with this paper. |

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