TPE 6: Developmentally Appropriate Teaching Practices
_Lesson Plan: What Should I Write About?
This lesson, What Should I Write About?, is designed for the beginning of the year of third grade English language arts. Students in my class at Christa McAuliffe often have difficulties getting started writing. Those who get started often lack a beginning, middle or end much less descriptive detail. This lesson is designed to support students in these areas. When students are asked to write a story, there are always complaints, "I don't know what to write." Thanks to this lesson, all students will have a storehouse of ideas, so when they complain we can point them back to this list in their writing journals. Students will thereby have the means to solve their own problems. Some students when they are given the assignment to "write a story" think of aliens battling on Mars or some such fantasy. The problem with this is that the story stalls and they cant' figure out what happens next. The stories also lack imagery and description because they didn't experience it. The overt objective is for students to create a list of ideas that they might write a story about. My underlying objective is to encourage students to see their own life experience as worthy story material. I had the opportunity to present this lesson to a group of third graders. I believe this lesson was successful in large part because of my delivery. When I was modeling I tried to keep it engaging. I used silly voices and dramatic body language to imitate students who approach teachers with the line, "But I don't know what to write about." I walked around the room to keep them on their toes and to double check who was paying attention to me. As in any lesson, some things did not go perfectly. Many students came to me with questions during independent practice, which tells me that I didn't spend enough time resolving questions during whole class instruction. I should have included one more Think-Pair-Share during the modeling. This would have given the students more opportunity to field their ideas and get feedback. Overall, this was a valuable lesson for both the students and me. |