Lesson+Plans

I planned this more as a unit than just one lesson. I plan to use a project to solidify understanding for the students and engage technology throughout. In the introductory lesson, students will see a paragraph written by me that needs some help. First we will discuss what we see in the paragraph. I'm hoping they will say that it is bland or that it tells very little information. Then I will ask what they would do if I told them that their word choice needed some help. I hope to lead them to looking in a thesaurus, thinking of other options, and even asking for help. I want them to use the rule of "Three before me" where they have a list of resources before asking the teacher for help. Then I have them use their resources to make some word changes in my paragraph. We also will talk about what effect word choice has on the tone and mood of the piece. They will have the opportunity to do that as well as I ask they work on the paragraph individually. After discussing this, they will be instructed to revise their essays for word choice and resubmit in Write To Learn.

This is the required lesson plan that I wrote as a unit plan. My intern is teaching part of this unit. This is his plans for the comparison reading and writing workshop. This is his opening PowerPoint that he plans to introduce the reading workshop. This is the podcast rubric.

After these activities are finished, we will read an article about the advantages and disadvantages of all-girl schools. The "Looking at Both Sides" lesson plan and "Advantages/disadvantages Lesson 1" included show the beginning of the writer's workshop. After those two steps, the students will choose a topic and create a graphic organizer for the topic in prewriting. After they complete that, they will be asked to write a well-balanced essay explaining both sides of the topic. While we prepare to write, we will discuss audience and how to appropriately choose our explanations and support. The final draft will be turned in electronically through Edmodo. My students will be giving this as a speech for their classmates, so they will also be preparing visual aids (Keynote, Prezi, or PowerPoint).

My assessment plan for this part of the unit will be to open "Track Changes" in Word and type comments. I will also be copy/pasting the rubric into their essays and scoring right there. Their speech rubrics will be uploaded into Edmodo as well so they will be able to access them electronically.