TPE 9: Instructional Planning
_Unit Lesson Plans: What Should I Write About?, Elaboration through Descriptive Writing, Word Choice, and Word Choice in Beach Trip Memories
One of our major units this semester is our non-fiction narrative writing unit. Early in the school year all the 3rd graders went on a beach trip. In this unit, students recall one story from the trip and write about it. Since the teachers also share the beach experience, we can ask pertinent questions and can guide students' writing even more effectively. The students take the story through all the typical editing phases: brainstorming, first draft, second draft, final draft. The final draft will be typed up and published. Copies will go up in the room and home with the students. The third grade California state standard that we are addressing in this unit is standard 2.2: write descriptions that use concrete sensory details to present and support unified impressions of people, places, things, or experiences. We are putting special focus on descriptive writing since, in my master teacher's experience, students have the most difficulty in this area. Writing in the world of adults, is usually a solitary act with occasional partnerships. We are mimicking that in our class. Students work independently except during editing and conferences. Students who have problems working independently receive the extra support of graphic organizers, task chunking, and more one-on-one time with an adult. The order of the lessons in this unit is flexible. There are so many facets to good writing that we can not cover them all. We rotate between mini-lessons, time to write and individual conferences. Our pacing depends on how the students are doing and how patient the students are with multiple edits. My 3rd grade class halfway through this unit. We have students who are still in the middle of the first draft and we have some who have almost finished typing up their final draft. We will expand this unit and continue to do writing mini-lessons with the students as they wrap up their stories |