LESSON PLAN

DATE: November 14, 2012. TIME OF DAY: Morning DURATION: 125 minutes split into two periods (used to commence a unit)

SCHOOL: Orchard Elementary School CYCLE and GRADE: Cycle 2 Year 2 LESSON: The Wonders of Creative Writing

FOCUS of LESSON: In this lesson, students will produce and present their very own piece of creative writing. This will be done with the use of a prompt, but without constraint.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this Language Arts lesson is for the students to begin to comprehend the joys and rewards stemming from expressing oneself through writing. This lesson will allow for students to feel at ease and to begin looking for creativity and the story behind everything in life. As the students have also been working on the storytelling unit, they will be able to make connections between the how the story is told orally and how one should write a story.

MATERIALS

A SmartBoard Images to prompt writing A personal example of writing The image to match a piece the personal piece of writing Emotions Inspiration Introduction Setting Plot Characters Conflict/Climax Resolution Dialogue ______________________________________________________

VOCABULARY

MELS COMPETENCIES

Competency #1: To read and listen to literary, popular and informationbased texts. To construct her/his own view of the world through reading and listening to literary, popular and information-based texts Competency #2: To write self-expressive, narrative and information-based texts. To follow a process when writing Competency #4: To use language to communicate and learn To use language (talk) to communicate information, experiences and point of view

Competency #1: To use information. CROSSCURRICULAR COMPENTENCIES To put information to use. To imagine possible uses. To formulate questions. To answer his/her questions using the information gathered.

Competency #3: To exercise critical judgment. To qualify his/her judgment. To compare his/her opinion with those of others. To reconsider his/her position.

Competency #4: To use creativity.

TIME

LESSON Introduction To begin, I will explain that we will be beginning a new kind of writing experience and will be using some of the skills we spoke about during our storytelling lesson. o In order to spark the students interest and to access their prior knowledge I will ask the following: What does creative writing mean? Where are the key elements of a story? Why are some stories more influential than others? Do we all have the same taste or interest in stories? Following this, I will briefly explain my personal experience with writing and my previous fears of the process. I will ensure that students feel more at ease with writing creatively and therefore realizing how exciting it can be. o I will then put up an image on the SmartBoard and ask the students what they see and feel due to it. Next, I will ask the students to gather around me as I tell them the story I wrote about what I saw in and felt from the image on the screen.

10 minutes

5 minutes

Development 25 minutes After telling the story, I will explain that although I am not a titled professional writer as I was not a professional storyteller, I was able to write a piece that means something to me. I will then ask the following: o Did I use more than what was in the image? o Do you think anyone else wouldve come up with the same story? o What kinds of feelings does the story make you feel? How did I do that? I will go on to lead a question based discussion about: o The importance of details and description in writing o How the words used help to shape a story o The use of dialogue in writing Finally, I will explain that students will be compiling their own piece of creative writing based on a photograph I brought in. As each student will have his own image, no story should look similar and should therefore reflect who he is. o I will remind them to use the elements of a story (plot, setting, etc.) and to use their senses and the 5 Ws to have a story come to life. Next, I will call up students individually (by random selection of names from the chores bag) to pick the photo calling their name. [This will be adapted for future lessons if students feel this to be unfair and I will therefore hand out numbers correlating with a photo]. After selection, students will be asked to get their writing hats out and write freely and flowingly whatever comes to mind based on their photograph. They should not worry too much about structure until the editing comes into play.

5 minutes

40 minutes

Closure

TIME 40 minutes

LESSON After several drafts, editing peer editing and practice, students will combine this lesson with the previous unit on storytelling and use this as their very own story to tell the class. The students will be evaluated on both the piece of writing and the presentation, as this will correspond with the storytelling unit. The emphasis of the assignment is on the content of the writing, therefore conventions; grammar and spelling will be corrected but will not influence the grade a student receives.

Whats next? (Extension) The continuation of this activity will be to have students to write creatively based on music. I will play a piece or several pieces of music and have students interpret the feeling they got from it and write accordingly.

Adaptations As far as students with a difficulty reading or writing, they may choose to sit with an adult (myself, my CT, the resource teacher) and have them scribe. If sitting with an adult is not possible, the student may record their ideas on an audio recording system and the teacher can scribe it at a later time. Socially shy students will feel less pressure if they are able to tell their story to the teacher while she is recording it and it is then played back to the class.

The Wonders of Creative Writing

Youve got it (4) Connection You made a clear connection with your image and this was demonstrated throughout your piece. You used great Almost there (3) You made somewhat of a connection with your image that was demonstrated at most points of your piece. You used some good Getting close (2) You did not have much of a connection with your image, but you pulled us into your writing anyway. Take another look (1) You didnt have a connection with your image and it did not unite well with your story.

Description

You used some description in

Your story lacked description and

descriptions throughout your writing which invited your audience into the feeling of the story. Voice You were easily heard all of the time. You kept a strong, effective tone throughout your story. You have effective pacing and breathing breaks throughout; there was a strong beginning and end.

descriptions throughout your writing that brought your audience into the story at certain points. You were easily heard most of the time. You kept a strong, effective tone throughout most of your story. You have effective pacing and breathing breaks for the most part; there was a good beginning and end.

your writing that made sense with the story.

didnt easily draw the audience into the story.

You were easily heard some of the time. You kept a somewhat strong, effective tone throughout. You have a somewhat effective pacing and breathing breaks; there was a beginning and end.

You were not easily heard. You did not keep a strong, effective tone throughout.

Pace

You do not have effective pacing and breathing breaks throughout; there was a beginning and end, but they were difficult to follow.