Getting Started with Essays Lesson Plan 4



Getting Started with Essays

Linda S. Davis

Liberty University Online

Getting Started with Essays

|Grade & Topic: |

|12th Grade |

|Language Arts: English & Health Issues |

|Standards of Learning: |

|English standards of learning for Virginia Public Schools. Grade Twelve. Standard 12.7. Retrieved |

|from |

|Standard 12.7 – The student will write, revise, and edit writing. |

|a) Edit, proofread, and prepare writing for intended audience and purpose. |

|b) Apply grammatical conventions to edit writing for correct use of language, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. |

|c) Use the style manual, American Psychological Association (APA), to apply rules for punctuation and formatting of direct quotations (VDOE, 2010, p. 3). |

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|National Health Education Standards. Grades 9 – 12. Standard 4. Retrieved from |

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|Standard 4 – Students will demonstrate the ability to use interpersonal communication skills to enhance health and avoid or reduce health risks. |

|4.12.1 Use skills for communicating effectively with family, peers, and others to enhance health. |

|4.12.2 Demonstrate refusal, negotiation, and collaboration skills to enhance health and avoid or reduce health risks. |

|4.12.3 Demonstrate strategies to prevent, manage, or resolve interpersonal conflicts without harming self or others. |

|4.12.4 Demonstrate how to ask for and offer assistance to enhance the health of self and others (CDC, 2013, p. 1). |

|Objectives: Students will read and discuss the Getting Started essay describing and recognizing important issues or topics for completion of their essays. |

|Read the essay Getting Started written by an anonymous teenager. |

|Discuss the issues/topics in the essay to refuse, negotiate, and collaborate using strategies to manage, resolve, or prevent interpersonal conflicts without harm |

|to others or self as well as demonstrate the ability to offer or ask for assistance to communicate effectively in enhancing health, reducing, or avoiding health |

|risks (CDC, 2013, p. 1). |

|Research the correct use of APA 6th edition rules for writing a paper to include title page, in-text citations, and reference page formatting (VDOE, 2010, p. 16). |

| |

|Write an essay about his or her limitations, strengths, goals, and attitudes. |

|Materials: Students will need the following items: |

|Laptop |

|Wireless Internet access |

|The essay Getting Started from the book From Darkness to Light |

|The essay Rubric |

|The Purdue Owl: APA Formatting and Style Guide |

|Lesson instructions |

|Diversity / Differentiation for Exceptionalities: |

|Students (6 Girls, 5 Boys) |

|3 LEP |

|2 ADD |

|2 ADHD |

|2 Gifted |

|2 ED |

|Learning Styles (modalities / multiple intelligences) – This lesson plan involves a design to enable students to comprehend information by using their personal |

|learning style. Images with descriptions enable visual learners to learn best. Hands-on projects, note-taking, and observations enable kinesthetic learners to |

|learn best. Guided question and answer sessions enable audio learners to learn best. These students work well in discussion groups and group activities. |

|Gifted - The gifted students will without a doubt know how to explore and manipulate the sites. These students will most likely know how to operate the laptop as |

|well as navigate the sites. |

|LEP – Group activities will benefit the LEP students who struggle with the most. Information and visual aids will help these students perform at their best. |

|LD, ED, ADD/ADHD – The visual aspects of the sites will help these students learn best. The partnering of students and provide supportive staff will greatly |

|benefit these students. In addition, the support staff should provide encouragement to help the students stay focused and participating in their groups. |

|Multicultural Connections – Cultural comparisons as well as present and past history help multicultural students learn best. |

|Socioeconomic Diversities – Socioeconomic students may not have a laptop for the assignment. This will make it important that the school supply laptops to the |

|students. |

|Technology Inclusion: To guarantee that the assignment is a success the teacher must ensure all of the following: |

|Laptops are available for the students |

|Laptops are fully charged |

|Students have access to the Internet |

|Students have access to DropBox |

|Provide written How-To Instructions for students to successfully navigate the sites and understand expectations of the assignment to include APA formatting |

|Provide demonstrations on navigating the sites |

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|The following describes inclusion of technology into the assignment: |

|The instructor determines the sites and provides the links for access |

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|The instructor determines the assignment will be performed on a laptop |

|Students will use a laptop to access the Internet for gathering information and viewing the sites. |

|Students will use a laptop to access, investigate, and gather data for his or her essay during the 45 minute lesson. |

|The instructor will use an interactive SMART Board to demonstrate to the class navigation of the sites. |

|Procedures: |

|A description of the instructional elements and techniques for encouraging classroom discussion on an essay written by a teen about issues faced by teens and to |

|create an essay about individual strengths, attitudes, limitations, and goals. . |

|Instructional Set: |

|This lesson for the 12th grade English class takes place in the regular classroom using laptops. |

|Developmental Activities: |

|Instruction: |

|Introduction – The instructor will provide written How-To instructions on how to navigate sites involved in the assignment. The instructor introduces the lesson |

|as a discussion and gathering of information for the students to write their own individual essays identifying key elements of strength, goals, attitudes, and |

|limitations. |

|Media - This lesson consists of using technology to view the provided links on the Internet. In addition, the students will discussion the essay and the issues in|

|the essay that the teenager faced. Students will write an essay describing their individual strengths, attitudes, goals, and limitations as they see them. |

|Students will share their essays DropBox. These students uses most their time in independent practices. However, as seen many times before the least amount of |

|time used on guided practices will shape and define the student’s information gathering during explorations. The students’ main objective consists of exploring |

|the sites, videos, and using additional word processing software to write an essay to share with their classmates using DropBox. |

|Content Objectives – |

|To build student self-esteem. |

|To develop resiliency. |

|To improve the student’s ability to face challenges and triumph over adversity. |

|To proofread, edit, and prepare writing for intended purpose and audience. |

|To apply grammatical principles for editing the essay with corrections for correct use of spelling, language, capitalization, and punctuation. |

|To use the style manual, American Psychological Association (APA) 6th edition, to apply rules for direction quotation formatting and punctuation (VDOE, 2010, p. |

|3). |

|Process Objectives – |

|Process and analyze information for essay. |

|Share the essay with classmates via Dropbox. |

|Explicit knowledge – The guided discussion starts (anticipatory set). |

|Begin the discussion with the students with the following questions: |

|Can you have fun playing a sport you are not good at? |

|Is there more pressure or different pressure on boys than girls when participating in sports? |

|Is there more pressure of different pressure on girls than boys in other areas? What are those areas? |

|How important do you think attitude is when pursuing a goal? |

|Is attitude more important than effort or talent? (Hopkins, 2010) |

|Encourage students to discuss and write their responses to the following questions: |

|How competitive are you? |

|If you enjoy something that you are not good at, do you continue to do it or do you quit? |

|If you have to do something that you are not good at, how do you motivate yourself? |

|When doing something you are not good at, do you do the best you can or do you just try to get it over with as fast as possible? (Hopkins, 2010) |

|After students read the Getting Started essay they will choose one of the following questions to write about: |

|What are your strengths and limitations? How do they affect the choices you make? |

|What five skills are you most proud of? How do these five skills influence who you are? |

|What one thing would you like to do but do not do it well? What three steps might you take to become better at it? |

|Are you an optimist? Describe an optimist and explain why you think you are or are not an optimist (Hopkins, 2010) |

|Students read essay, rubric, and APA formatting using the provided links. |

|Students discuss the essay. |

|Guided Practice: The instructor reviews the project instructions explaining to the students the expectations reading, discussing, and collecting information to |

|write their own essay. The guided practice consists of the following: |

|Distribute and explain the written instructions. |

|Explaining the principle of the assignment. |

|The instructor uses a laptop with a SMART Board to perform a demonstration of navigating the sites and writing an essay. In addition, the instructor demonstrates |

|how to share the essay via DropBox. |

|The instructor guides the students to the sites. |

|The instructor guides a Q&A session after the 45 minute lesson. This will allow students to learn from one another, and to feel more comfortable in asking |

|questions as well as having the opportunity to receive feedback and explanation on details for writing and sharing their essay. |

|The instructor gives permission for students to work in groups. |

|Students will be allowed to view the shared essays and prepare to discuss them over the next couple class times. |

|Students may work alone on gathering information for their essays if they so choose. |

|The instructor ends the 90 minutes of class encouraging the students to view as many of the essays as they can before the next class time. In addition, students |

|are encouraged to take notes as they read the essays before their ensuing discussions. |

|The instructor encourages student to continue to work on their essay while the information is still fresh in their minds as well as reminding the students of the |

|submission deadline within two days. |

|Independent Practice: The independent practice consists of the following: |

|Students will visit the Internet sites to research and collect information: |

|Getting Started essay available at |

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|Essay Rubric available at |

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|Purdue Owl APA Formatting and Style Guide available at |

|Students may ask to be grouped or partnered together to research and understand the assignment better. |

|Students will use the Purdue Owl: APA Formatting and Style Guide to understand the rules for writing a paper to include title page, in-text citations, and |

|reference page formatting. |

|Students will share their essay with the class using DropBox. |

|Closure: |

|This lesson researches information on the process of mitosis and its stages. |

|The lesson requires students to create an essay to share their strengths, attitudes, goals, and limitations with their classmates. |

|Evaluation/Assessment: Progress and assessment tools. |

|The instructor observes the students during the viewing of the sites, collection, and analysis of information providing assistance as needed and to assess the |

|understanding of the assignment by students. |

|The instructor ends the class with discussion and guided questions to assess learning experiences. |

|The instructor assesses the students’ essays. |

|The instructor offers praise and encouragement for correct answers while gently guiding students to correct any wrong thinking. |

|The instructor assesses the students during the follow-up class discussion sessions. |

|Risk Analysis: |

|Ensure all students have a laptop. |

|Ensure students will have learning experiences that fit their individual learning styles. |

|Ensure laptops are charged prior to the beginning of class. |

|Ensure students have access to the Internet for the assignment. |

|Ensure the links for the lesson are available prior to the beginning of class. |

|Prepare and print handouts prior to the beginning of class. |

|References: Sources and Websites |

|Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2013). National Health Education Standards. |

|Grades 9 – 12. Standard 4. Retrieved from |

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|Education World. (2014). Getting started. From darkness to light: Teens write about how they |

|triumphed over trouble. Retrieved from |

|Hopkins, G. (2010). Getting started with essays. Education World. Retrieved from |

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|International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English (IRA/NCTE). (2013). |

|Essay Rubric. Retrieved from |

|Perdue University. (2014). Purdue Owl: APA formatting and style Guide. Online Writing Lab. |

|Retrieved from |

|Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). (2010). English standards of learning curriculum |

|framework 2010: Grade Twelve. Standard 12.7 Strand: Writing Grade Level 12. Retrieved from |

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|Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). (2010). English standards of learning for Virginia Public |

|Schools. Grade Twelve. Standard 12.7. Retrieved from |

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