Writing Lesson Plan Template

Name: Nicole McDaniel Writing Trait: word choice/revising

Grade: first Focus Area: SOL 1.13 c

Curriculum Standards

SOL(s): 1.13 The student will write to communicate ideas for a variety of purposes. c) Revise by adding descriptive words when writing about people, places, things, and events.

Essential Question(s): How do good writers make their writing more descriptive when revising their final written pieces?

Lesson Objectives: A statement or statements of what the students will be able to do as a result of the lesson. Need to be observable and measurable.(ABCD format)

1. The student will be able to revise written pieces by adding descriptive words (adjectives) when writing about people, places, things, and events. 2. The student will be able to focus on the topic and respond to questions and suggestions from peers and teachers. 3. When given the opportunity to identify adjectives, or descriptive words to written pieces, the student should be able to do so 3 out of 4 times.

Assessment of Objectives: Describe how you will collect evidence that individual students have indeed met the lesson objective(s). These need to be tied to the degree or criteria from your objectives.

For morning work the students will be given a different worksheet each day that has up to five sentences (the number of sentences will increase as the week goes on). The students will need to revise the sentences to include more descriptive words, or adjectives. The morning work will be collected for a grade.

Explicit Explanation/Direct Instruction: Focusing attention, laying the groundwork, creating interest, sparking curiosity, setting a purpose, explaining “the why”

Adjectives are words that describe an object. When you look at this object what do you see? What size is it? What color is it? How does it feel? How does it look? Is it heavy? All of these are questions that we can ask ourselves before we write about a specific place, person, event, or thing. Can you think of any other questions you could ask yourself to figure out how to describe something in more detail? If I wanted to tell you about my dog I could simply say that he is a chocolate lab. Or, I could give you more detail by adding some adjectives like this: My dog is a very large, sweet, and playful chocolate lab. Can you think of another sentence to add that has at least one adjective, or describing word in it?

Modeling (Mentor Text, Teacher Writing): Utilizing strategies to demonstrate how to use the trait/focus area, thinking aloud, incorporating visuals/examples, scaffolding instruction

The teacher will give the students an example of a topic with sentences that may use now. Then the teacher will give the students an example of that same topic with more descriptive sentences. The teacher and student will discuss the differences between the two paragraphs and explain why it is better to be more descriptive with their writing.  I like pizza. It is my favorite food because it tastes good. I think pepperoni pizza is the best.  I love extra-cheesy pepperoni pizza. It is my favorite food because the gooey cheese tastes delicious. Writing Lesson Plan Template

Note how even though there are fewer sentences in the second piece, the reader can visualize what I am talking about better because of the descriptive words I chose to use.

Guided Practice: Engaging with new content, applying new knowledge, checking for understanding, reflecting on learning

The following is an example of what the students will have to do during morning work each day when they come in. The directions are to read the sentences given and to revise them. Since this lesson is introducing adjectives, the students will circle the adjectives or describing words that they find.  Santa Clause wears a fuzzy red and white suit. He has shiny boots. His cheeks are always rosy red and he has a jolly laugh. Rationale: Why teach this lesson in this way? Why give these objectives? Why are these the BEST strategies to choose and use? Explain why this sequence of activities leads to cultivating the behaviors or performing the skills or displaying the knowledge called for by the objectives.

I chose to do this lesson the way I did because I believe it provides a lot of different opportunities for the students to understand what an adjective is and how using them can make their writing sound more descriptive. I think it’s important to do this with first graders because they learn a lot about visualizing their reading, and this helps them visualize what they are writing. I chose the objectives I did because I believe the student should be able to identify the adjective before they can create sentences with them.