Main Ideas Lesson
Day 2
Grade 3 The students learned how to score sample writings and pick out strengths/weaknesses within these samples. Students learned not only how to assign a score to the writing but also use evidence either from the rubric or from the prior day’s lesson to explain what parts of the paper were strong, and also what the writer may have left out. They learned how to use the rubric and see how we score their writing. I think that they enjoyed scoring the writing on their own because they took what they learned in class and were able to apply it during the lesson. For the most part I think the class was able to decide whether the writer had a main idea and other qualities that made the paper a strong, well focused piece of writing. Next time I would maybe give them a sample of writing that wasn’t so obvious that it was a 3 or 4. I know there’s not a big difference between a writing that’s a 2 or 3, so we weren’t sure if we should show them sample writings that fell in the middle range. We wanted to show them samples that were extreme opposites: one had a very clear, well focused strong main idea, and the other had no main idea. It may be more of a challenge, but it would help students to have to score a writing sample of a one or two so that they would have to tell me what the writer could do to improve their writing. I noticed many of my students struggle to see how they can improve in their own writing, but when it comes to other peoples’ writing, it seems very easy for them to see what is missing.
Outline for a Daily Lesson Plan Date: 10/27/09 - Day Two
Goals/Objectives for today’s lesson: Students will understand and recognize a focused main idea through exposure to sample writings that will include either strong or weak main ideas and they will demonstrate their understanding by scoring these writing samples based on a main ideas rubric.
Materials & supplies needed: ·MEAP scoring samples, one and a four ·Scoring rubrics ·Sample writings Web map organizer Week 1, day 2 Daily 6 Trait Writing worksheet
Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event Introduction to the lesson( 3 minutes) ·Students will remain in their seats as we start the lesson. ·“Raise your hand if you can tell me which trait we focused on during writing yesterday?” (Use wait time to see how many students are able to remember and volunteer to share with class). We are going to continue focusing on main ideas and learn more about what qualities make a main idea, strong.Today’s rule is “Choose a strong idea. Make your idea clear.”Let’s look at the activity on the 2nd page of your packet. Mia, please read the directions at the top of the page. Go through sample main ideas and as a class decide how you could make these main ideas more clear. Lesson: (20-25 minutes) ·It will be important for you to keep these qualities in mind as you score some more samples today. First we are going to look at one more sample together as a class, so I need you to take out your scoring rubrics. (We will review the rubric and scores, then look at the “My Cat” writing, and decide what score we would give it based on whether it has a strong, clear, focused main idea or lack thereof.) Teacher will display sample piece on the Elmo and as a class students will discuss the score they gave the piece and why: qualities that it had and qualities it lacked. ·Now that we’ve had time to review as a class, you are going to have a chance to be the judge.We have another sample that you will score on your own, using the same rubric.Teacher will distribute half sheets that have two writing samples on it for students to score.Students will be given time to assess each writing sample on their own. Now it is your turn to read through the writing “Why I Love the Beach.” Using your rubric start with a four as the score and if the writing is missing a quality of a strong main idea listed on the rubric, move down to a three. If it missing another quality, move down to a two an so on. Then when you have decided on the score you think it deserves, turn to the person next to you and compare scores. If you gave them the same score explain what you thought were the writers strengths/weaknesses. However, if one of you gave it a 1 and your partner gave it a 4, you really need to explain why you gave it the score you did. (Allow students about 6-8 minutes to score and discuss their scores with a partner.) I will be assessing students based on how they score the sample writing on their own. The piece they are scoring should receive a 3 or 4 because it has a very strong, focused, clear main idea, supported with interesting supporting details. After they score the writing, take a poll to see how many people gave it a 4, 3, 2, 1. (Almost all students gave the writing a 3 or 4).
·As a class, we will discuss the components of each writing sample and listen to student reasoning behind their scores.Now we are going to discuss what qualities the writer included in the paper that made the majority of you think that the writing was a 3 or 4. (Explain that if you gave it a 3 or 4, then the writing should include all components listed on the rubric for that particular score.)
Academic, Social and Linguistic Support during each event Mia needs some help with supporting her main idea. Her paragraph was a bit repetitive and she ended it by saying, “I like going camp with my friends. I like it yes I do.” It seems she was running out of ideas. I think that the web map organizer using the 5 Ws (Who, what, where, when, why) will help her to ask questions about her topic. Another organizer I may give her is one that involves using you five senses, things that you saw, heard, smelt, touched or tasted and add these thoughts to her own graphic organizer.
OUTLINE of key eventsduring the lesson( 30 minutes) ·Review what we learned yesterday to refresh students’ memories. ·Go through worksheet as class to make ideas more clear. ·Look at sample writing piece and discuss strengths/weaknesses of writing, then score the writing based on grading rubric from previous day. ·Have students score another piece on their own, then talk with partner about why they gave the writing that score. ·As a class go over the sample writing you had them score on their own, and have students explain the score they gave the writing, using components from rubric on main ideas and information from previous day’s lesson. Closing summary for the lesson( 3 minutes) · Let’s review what we learned so far today. Raise your hand and tell me one thing you learned about main ideas in writing. (Call on students to share their thoughts. Review components of strong, focused, clear main ideas and write them on the board.) ·Tomorrow we are going to continue to learn about strong main ideas. We are also going to learn how to choose a main idea for our own writing, and learn how to narrow it down to make our ideas more specific. Transition to next learning activity ·Now you can put away your graphic organizers in to your VIP folders so we can use them tomorrow to continue developing our writing.Put your folders away and let’s get ready for lunch. Assessment Students will be informally assessed based on the way they scored the sample writing. This will give me a good idea of who understands the qualities of writing that include strong main ideas. I will have students raise their hands and take a poll to see how students scored the sample writings.
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
After going through the pre-assessment writing samples, there were a few students that had trouble staying on topic. For instance, Jenny talked about her favorite place, but the actual structure and lack of coherence took away from her story. It is so hard to read what she is trying to say, that it weakens her writing. I think she is at about a 3 which is a developing writer. I also think giving her a checklist of questions will help her to generate more ideas to add to her graphic organizer. Another student, Aubrey, started her paper off strong, telling me about her favorite place, New York, and then starts talking about going to “Detroit school.”Again, I think giving Aubrey a rubric or checklist of things that she should include in her graphic organizer, would help her to stay more on topic as well as strengthen her main idea.
(Which students struggled with the material?How will I reteach these students?) When students were scoring the samples on their own, Jenny struggled with the assignment. Almost everyone except her and another young boy gave the sample writing a 3 or 4, but they gave it a 1. When I asked her why she gave it a 1 she said because it didn’t have a focused main idea. I am not sure if she had trouble reading the sample writing or did not understand how the rubric worked, but I did model and explain the rubric. I think that they just needed more experience working with main ideas, and we did end up focusing on main ideas for about 2 ½ weeks, rather than 3 days like we originally planned. Since some of the students were still struggling, we decided to read the book Fireflies as a class. The story is all about a young boys adventure of catching fireflies, one warm summer night. It is about just one specific event, on a specific night and what the boy did. After looking through some of the pre-assessments I noticed that students wanted to talk about too broad of topics so it often became difficult for them to narrow down their topic and give one clear, focused main idea, because they wanted to tell me about all the things that happened to them, versus one specific event.
Day 2
Grade 3
The students learned how to score sample writings and pick out strengths/weaknesses within these samples. Students learned not only how to assign a score to the writing but also use evidence either from the rubric or from the prior day’s lesson to explain what parts of the paper were strong, and also what the writer may have left out. They learned how to use the rubric and see how we score their writing. I think that they enjoyed scoring the writing on their own because they took what they learned in class and were able to apply it during the lesson. For the most part I think the class was able to decide whether the writer had a main idea and other qualities that made the paper a strong, well focused piece of writing.
Next time I would maybe give them a sample of writing that wasn’t so obvious that it was a 3 or 4. I know there’s not a big difference between a writing that’s a 2 or 3, so we weren’t sure if we should show them sample writings that fell in the middle range. We wanted to show them samples that were extreme opposites: one had a very clear, well focused strong main idea, and the other had no main idea. It may be more of a challenge, but it would help students to have to score a writing sample of a one or two so that they would have to tell me what the writer could do to improve their writing. I noticed many of my students struggle to see how they can improve in their own writing, but when it comes to other peoples’ writing, it seems very easy for them to see what is missing.
Outline for a Daily Lesson Plan
Date: 10/27/09 - Day Two
Goals/Objectives for today’s lesson: Students will understand and recognize a focused main idea through exposure to sample writings that will include either strong or weak main ideas and they will demonstrate their understanding by scoring these writing samples based on a main ideas rubric.
Materials & supplies needed:
· MEAP scoring samples, one and a four
· Scoring rubrics
· Sample writings
Web map organizer
Week 1, day 2 Daily 6 Trait Writing worksheet
Introduction to the lesson ( 3 minutes)
· Students will remain in their seats as we start the lesson.
· “Raise your hand if you can tell me which trait we focused on during writing yesterday?” (Use wait time to see how many students are able to remember and volunteer to share with class). We are going to continue focusing on main ideas and learn more about what qualities make a main idea, strong. Today’s rule is “Choose a strong idea. Make your idea clear.” Let’s look at the activity on the 2nd page of your packet. Mia, please read the directions at the top of the page. Go through sample main ideas and as a class decide how you could make these main ideas more clear.
Lesson: (20-25 minutes)
· It will be important for you to keep these qualities in mind as you score some more samples today. First we are going to look at one more sample together as a class, so I need you to take out your scoring rubrics. (We will review the rubric and scores, then look at the “My Cat” writing, and decide what score we would give it based on whether it has a strong, clear, focused main idea or lack thereof.) Teacher will display sample piece on the Elmo and as a class students will discuss the score they gave the piece and why: qualities that it had and qualities it lacked.
· Now that we’ve had time to review as a class, you are going to have a chance to be the judge. We have another sample that you will score on your own, using the same rubric. Teacher will distribute half sheets that have two writing samples on it for students to score. Students will be given time to assess each writing sample on their own.
Now it is your turn to read through the writing “Why I Love the Beach.” Using your rubric start with a four as the score and if the writing is missing a quality of a strong main idea listed on the rubric, move down to a three. If it missing another quality, move down to a two an so on. Then when you have decided on the score you think it deserves, turn to the person next to you and compare scores. If you gave them the same score explain what you thought were the writers strengths/weaknesses. However, if one of you gave it a 1 and your partner gave it a 4, you really need to explain why you gave it the score you did. (Allow students about 6-8 minutes to score and discuss their scores with a partner.) I will be assessing students based on how they score the sample writing on their own. The piece they are scoring should receive a 3 or 4 because it has a very strong, focused, clear main idea, supported with interesting supporting details. After they score the writing, take a poll to see how many people gave it a 4, 3, 2, 1. (Almost all students gave the writing a 3 or 4).
· As a class, we will discuss the components of each writing sample and listen to student reasoning behind their scores. Now we are going to discuss what qualities the writer included in the paper that made the majority of you think that the writing was a 3 or 4. (Explain that if you gave it a 3 or 4, then the writing should include all components listed on the rubric for that particular score.)
Mia needs some help with supporting her main idea. Her paragraph was a bit repetitive and she ended it by saying, “I like going camp with my friends. I like it yes I do.” It seems she was running out of ideas. I think that the web map organizer using the 5 Ws (Who, what, where, when, why) will help her to ask questions about her topic. Another organizer I may give her is one that involves using you five senses, things that you saw, heard, smelt, touched or tasted and add these thoughts to her own graphic organizer.
· Review what we learned yesterday to refresh students’ memories.
· Go through worksheet as class to make ideas more clear.
· Look at sample writing piece and discuss strengths/weaknesses of writing, then score the writing based on grading rubric from previous day.
· Have students score another piece on their own, then talk with partner about why they gave the writing that score.
· As a class go over the sample writing you had them score on their own, and have students explain the score they gave the writing, using components from rubric on main ideas and information from previous day’s lesson.
Closing summary for the lesson ( 3 minutes)
· Let’s review what we learned so far today. Raise your hand and tell me one thing you learned about main ideas in writing. (Call on students to share their thoughts. Review components of strong, focused, clear main ideas and write them on the board.)
· Tomorrow we are going to continue to learn about strong main ideas. We are also going to learn how to choose a main idea for our own writing, and learn how to narrow it down to make our ideas more specific.
Transition to next learning activity
· Now you can put away your graphic organizers in to your VIP folders so we can use them tomorrow to continue developing our writing. Put your folders away and let’s get ready for lunch.
Assessment
Students will be informally assessed based on the way they scored the sample writing. This will give me a good idea of who understands the qualities of writing that include strong main ideas. I will have students raise their hands and take a poll to see how students scored the sample writings.
After going through the pre-assessment writing samples, there were a few students that had trouble staying on topic. For instance, Jenny talked about her favorite place, but the actual structure and lack of coherence took away from her story. It is so hard to read what she is trying to say, that it weakens her writing. I think she is at about a 3 which is a developing writer. I also think giving her a checklist of questions will help her to generate more ideas to add to her graphic organizer. Another student, Aubrey, started her paper off strong, telling me about her favorite place, New York, and then starts talking about going to “Detroit school.” Again, I think giving Aubrey a rubric or checklist of things that she should include in her graphic organizer, would help her to stay more on topic as well as strengthen her main idea.
When students were scoring the samples on their own, Jenny struggled with the assignment. Almost everyone except her and another young boy gave the sample writing a 3 or 4, but they gave it a 1. When I asked her why she gave it a 1 she said because it didn’t have a focused main idea. I am not sure if she had trouble reading the sample writing or did not understand how the rubric worked, but I did model and explain the rubric. I think that they just needed more experience working with main ideas, and we did end up focusing on main ideas for about 2 ½ weeks, rather than 3 days like we originally planned. Since some of the students were still struggling, we decided to read the book Fireflies as a class. The story is all about a young boys adventure of catching fireflies, one warm summer night. It is about just one specific event, on a specific night and what the boy did. After looking through some of the pre-assessments I noticed that students wanted to talk about too broad of topics so it often became difficult for them to narrow down their topic and give one clear, focused main idea, because they wanted to tell me about all the things that happened to them, versus one specific event.