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Date: Thursday-December 10th, 2009
GLCEs: W.PS.03.01 Exhibit personal style and voice to enhance the written message in both narrative (e.g. varied word choice and sentence structure, character description) and informational writing (e.g. examples, transitions, grammar and usage).
a prompt.
Materials:
Graphic
Materials:
Graphic organizers
Writing {Dog_Breath_Pre_Write.pdf}
Writing journals
Pre-Assessment/
Pre-Assessment/ Prior Knowledge: a story.
Procedure:
Student will get out their graphic organizers they completed yesterday from their VIP folders.
Graphic organizers will be collected and I will go through the drafts and make spelling corrections and give comments on how to improve their final copy.
Homework: None
formal assessment.
Extensions & Simplifications: If students are having a hard time getting through their stories I will prompt the class as a whole or individually, depending on the amount of students who are stuck. Once students are finished I will have them free write in their writing journals.

Grade 3
Writing-day 3
Lesson: Descriptive Details
In this lesson students used a graphic organizer to come up with their own character, some type of animal, that has a silly problem, like the characters in the books we read together. I first filled out a graphic organizer as a class so that they would know how to complete their own. This was not very easy for students to do because some of them started off with one idea and then got off topic half way through their graphic organizer. I walked around while they filled them out and a lot of my students needed me to read and explain the graphic organizer to them. It was a complex graphic organizer, however it did help them get their ideas written down and organized, so when they went to start their writing, they already had them in their graphic organizers.
Date: Thursday-December 10th, 2009
GLCEs: W.PS.03.01 Exhibit personal style and voice to enhance the written message in both narrative (e.g. varied word choice and sentence structure, character description) and informational writing (e.g. examples, transitions, grammar and usage).
Objectives: Students will be able to model there skills in developing descriptive details by writing a descriptive story to a prompt.
Materials:
Graphic organizers
Writing journals
Pre-Assessment/ Prior Knowledge: Students will be familiar with descriptive words to use to enhance a story.
Procedure:
Student will get out their graphic organizers they completed yesterday from their VIP folders.
Once the graphic organizers are out they will start to write their rough draft of their story in their writing journals. They will need to be writing continuously and quietly for the entire writing block.
I will be walking around to answer questions and help students who are having difficulty. Students will need to have a complete rough draft by the end of the hour and I will conference with students who are finished.
Graphic organizers will be collected and I will go through the drafts and make spelling corrections and give comments on how to improve their final copy.
Homework: None
Assessment: I will be able to informally assess them by walking around and talking with students about their stories. Their rough drafts will be used as a formal assessment.
Extensions & Simplifications: If students are having a hard time getting through their stories I will prompt the class as a whole or individually, depending on the amount of students who are stuck. Once students are finished I will have them free write in their writing journals.

Grade 3
Writing
Lesson: Descriptive Details
In this lesson the teacher reads another book, “Dog Breath, the Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis” to students that exhibits the use of descriptive details in writing. Students need to pay close attention to the words that the author uses to help paint a picture in their mind, as to what Hally the dog looks like and what his silly problem is. I think it is important to not only provide students with samples of writing that include strong details, but also to read it to them so they can hear it in the writing. Students enjoyed this lesson because it was a funny story about a dog with bad breath. Most of the students could relate to the story because they have pets at home, and I think it's more beneficial when students are able to relate to the reading.
Date: Tuesday-December 8th, 2009
GLCEs: W.PS.03.01 Exhibit personal style and voice to enhance the written message in both narrative (e.g. varied word choice and sentence structure, character description) and informational writing (e.g. examples, transitions, grammar and usage).
Objectives: Students will be able to recognize descriptive details within a text and be able to discuss the text and how using descriptive words helps paint a picture in their mind of what is written. Students will be able to model this by writing descriptive paragraphs to a prompt.
Materials:
“Dog Breath, the Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis” by: Dav Pilkey
Writing journals
Pre-Assessment/ Prior Knowledge: Students will be familiar with words that are used to describe actions and characters. They will also be familiar with the task of creating a mental image of a story being read to them.
Procedure:
Students will remain in their seats while I read “Dog Breath, the Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis” by: Dav Pilkey.
We will talk about the book and discuss important parts in where it gave us a lot of descriptive detail. After discussing the book I will give them directions on their writing activity.
Students will be given the prompt: Write a detailed descriptive story about an animal with a silly problem. I will provide examples such as a cat with stinky toes, the horse with bad purple teeth, or a bear with no fur. They will be able to use any animal except for a dog and they can not use the problems of farting too much or having smelly breath.
Students will be expected to write for 30 minutes, continuously and quietly, in their writing journals. They will need to be able to generate ideas on their own and spell the best they can. I will expect at least two good paragraphs that give me a mental picture of what they are writing about.
Homework: None
Assessment: I will be able to informally assess them by observing participation, focus on the lesson, and by walking around conferencing with students as they write. Formally I will have their two paragraph story to look at.
Extensions & Simplifications: If time permits in their writing journals they will write a short paragraph about themselves using the descriptive word list created yesterday, if they did not get to that I will first have them make the list and then write the paragraph.

Grade: 3rd
Subject: Writing
Grade 3
Writing
Lesson: Descriptive Details
In this lesson students are following along as the teacher reads the book, "Walter the Farting Dog." Teacher reads through the book the first time without showing students pictures, telling them to pay close attention to descriptive details that the author uses. This was a pretty successful lesson because the students really enjoyed the book and were pretty engaged. After reading the book through the first time we then had students pick out words that the author used to describe the character and setting in the story. The students were getting a little silly because the author describes the way the farts looked, smelled, etc. However they really paid attention because it was gross and funny. This lesson is a fun way to model how an author uses descriptive details, to paint pictures for their readers.
_
Date: Monday-December 7th, 2009
and usage).
Objectives: Students will be able to recognize descriptive details within a text and be able to discuss the text and how using descriptive words helps paint a picture in their mind of what is written.
Materials:
“Walter the Farting Dog” by: William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray
Pre-Assessment/ Prior Knowledge: Students will be familiar with words that are used to describe actions and characters. They will also be familiar with the task of creating a mental image of a story being read to them.
After the book is read through a second time I will ask questions them to talk about their favorite parts of the book and why.
Homework: None
the activity.
Extensions
Extensions & Simplifications: writing journals.

Grade: 3rd
Subject: Writing
Lesson: Descriptive Details
Date: Monday-December 7th, 2009
GLCEs: W.PS.03.01 Exhibit personal style and voice to enhance the written message in both narrative (e.g. varied word choice and sentence structure, character description) and informational writing (e.g. examples, transitions, grammar and usage).
Objectives: Students will be able to recognize descriptive details within a text and be able to discuss the text and how using descriptive words helps paint a picture in their mind of what is written.
Materials:
“Walter the Farting Dog” by: William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray
Pre-Assessment/ Prior Knowledge: Students will be familiar with words that are used to describe actions and characters. They will also be familiar with the task of creating a mental image of a story being read to them.
Procedure:
Students will remain in their desks to be read the story “Walter the Farting Dog” by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murry.
First time through the reading of the book I will read the entire story without showing the students the pictures in the text. They will need to be able to create a mental picture and after reading the book all the way through they will need to give me examples of the images they saw in their heads.
I will ask specific questions about the story for them to describe in their heads and we will write that down on the board.
Once we have completed this activity I will read the book again page by page and ask students to give me what they are picturing in their heads and then I will show them what was on the page. We will write down what is seen on the page.
While also looking at the pictures I will ask students to pick out the describing words on the pages, the words that helped them think of what they were hearing.
After the book is read through a second time I will ask questions them to talk about their favorite parts of the book and why.
Homework: None
Assessment: I will be able to informally assess them by observing their attention and focus by recognizing who is participating and understanding the activity.
Extensions & Simplifications: It time permits I will have them write down a list of descriptive words they could use to describe themselves in their writing journals.

Main Ideas
Grade 3
Day 3
Students learned how to select a topic. They learned that when trying to choose a topic, they should try to pick something they know a lot about so that they can add a lot of interesting details about their topic. Students also learned the importance of narrowing down their topic to make it more specific. They learned that asking questions about your topic can help you to narrow down your idea.
Students seemed to do well in the first activity where they had to select topics for a boy who liked BMX bikes. However, when it came to their own writing they struggled somewhat with how to narrow their topics down.
Next time I would try to get around to everyone to make sure they understand the how to narrow down and make their topic more specific. It is often hard to monitor everyone, however I was able to collect the graphic organizers afterwards and look over their ideas. I think I would also try to find another worksheet that explains how to narrow down their topics. I could maybe give them a list of questions that they could ask themselves about their topics, to help them come up with a more specific main idea.
Outline for a Daily Lesson Plan
Date: 10/28/09 - Day Three
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.
Students will use graphic organizers to structure their development of a focused main idea and how to narrow down their main idea into a more specific topic, by adding details.
Materials & supplies needed:
Daily 6 Trait worksheet, Week 1 day 3 and 4
Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event
Introduction to the lesson__ ( 5 minutes)
· Students will remain in their seats as we start the lesson.
Raise your hand and tell me what we discussed yesterday about main ideas. (Students should tell me that they learned that main ideas should be clear and easy for the reader to pick out.) Today’s rule for main ideas is “Choose a strong idea. Tell about something that is important to you.” Think about this rule. If you are going to write about a topic and want your idea to be clear and focused, don’t you think you may want to know a lot about the topic? Or that you are interested in the topic? If we choose to write about a topic that we know a lot about, you are choosing a strong idea that should be easy to write about.
Lesson: 20-25 minutes
Let’s take a look at day 3 in your packet. We are going to try to select some ideas to that Hunter may want to write about. We know he likes BMX bikes, so which of these ideas would he maybe want to write about? (Read list of options to students, put X next to ideas he would write about based on his interest in BMX bikes.)
In the next activity we are going to write about what you like to do on the weekends. Choose some activity you like to do and write it on the line. Then think about how you can make it more specific. (Teacher models activity on ELMO by writing about her favorite weekend activity. Have students ask you questions to help make your idea more specific. Then model writing a specific idea about your favorite activity, based on the questions they ask you about your idea. Help students brainstorm things that they like to do on the weekends. Encourage them to write idea in complete sentences.)
___
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
While the students are brainstorming ideas, I plan to help the three girls who are struggling, as well as anyone else I notice is having trouble with organizing their thoughts in their graphic organizers. I think it may be a good idea to have them work together with me in a small group. I could show them more samples. I could model what they are supposed to do by making my own graphic organizer and show them how I developed my ideas. I will give them sometime to work on their own and come around every couple of minutes to monitor their progress.
Now we are going to take these ideas and write them in the graphic organizer on the next page in your packet. The rule for this lesson is Choose a strong idea and narrow it down. In the first box write your favorite weekend activity, just a general idea, such as play with friend. It should only be 2 or 3 words. Next you are going to narrow it down, in the 2nd box. Tell me your friend’s name or where you play. Finally in the 3rd box, make your idea even more specific, tell me what you play with your friend. (Teacher should model filling in the graphic organizer on the ELMO using her own favorite weekend activity. Also model narrowing down the idea and making it more specific by adding more detail. Walk around and ask students to help them narrow down their activity into a more specific, focused main idea.)
OUTLINE of key events during the lesson (20 minutes)
Review yesterday’s lesson.
Explain choosing a topic that you know a lot about/ are interested in.
Introduce new rule and complete activity together as a class.
Brainstorm ideas for weekend activities.
Model how to choose an idea and then how to narrow it down, making the idea more specific.
Model how to fill out graphic organizer and narrow down your topic to make it specific to your own experience.
Closing summary for the lesson ( 5 minutes)
· Let’s review what we learned today about developing a main idea for writing. (Make sure students understand that they should pick a topic that they know a lot about. It also needs to be a specific main idea. They can narrow down a topic by adding details and focusing on just one activity rather than an entire day’s events.)
· Tomorrow we are going to take your specific main ideas and start writing a paragraph about your favorite weekend activity. We are going to focus on having a clear, strong main idea, using the ideas from our graphic organizers.
Transition to next learning activity
· Now I will collect your graphic organizers and I will write down suggestions and comments to guide you in your writing. I will pass them back to you tomorrow so we can continue on in our writing process. Let’s get ready for lunch.
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
I may grade these certain students more on their progress that they have made over the last couple of days. As long as I see some improvement with developing their ideas, they will receive credit for demonstrating their understanding of main ideas.
Assessment: While students are organizing their ideas, teacher will walk around and monitor students’ idea development. Teacher will collect graphic organizers and look to see that students were able to choose a general topic, and narrow it down to make it more specific, by adding details.
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
(Which students struggled with the material? How will I reteach these students)
Some of them did not start with a general idea in the first box so it made it hard to narrow down. They were too specific at first. Other students were not specific enough with narrowing down their topic. For instance Jessics said her favorite thing to do was go to the park, but her specific idea was we play ball. She did not tell me who specifically played ball. I think she just needed someone to prompt her and ask her “Who was there? What did you do? Where did it take place?” I was able to reteach this lesson by a follow-up lesson where we used the “5 Ws” to help students narrow down their ideas and add details to their writing. I also returned their graphic organizers after I wrote some questions on there for them to answer, in order to make their ideas more specific.

Main Ideas
Grade 3
Day 3
Students learned how to select a topic. They learned that when trying to choose a topic, they should try to pick something they know a lot about so that they can add a lot of interesting details about their topic. Students also learned the importance of narrowing down their topic to make it more specific. They learned that asking questions about your topic can help you to narrow down your idea.
Students seemed to do well in the first activity where they had to select topics for a boy who liked BMX bikes. However, when it came to their own writing they struggled somewhat with how to narrow their topics down.
Next time I would try to get around to everyone to make sure they understand the how to narrow down and make their topic more specific. It is often hard to monitor everyone, however I was able to collect the graphic organizers afterwards and look over their ideas. I think I would also try to find another worksheet that explains how to narrow down their topics. I could maybe give them a list of questions that they could ask themselves about their topics, to help them come up with a more specific main idea.
Outline for a Daily Lesson Plan
Date: 10/28/09 - Day Three
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.
Students will use graphic organizers to structure their development of a focused main idea and how to narrow down their main idea into a more specific topic, by adding details.
Materials & supplies needed:
Daily 6 Trait worksheet, Week 1 day 3 and 4
Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event
Introduction to the lesson__ ( 5 minutes)
· Students will remain in their seats as we start the lesson.
Raise your hand and tell me what we discussed yesterday about main ideas. (Students should tell me that they learned that main ideas should be clear and easy for the reader to pick out.) Today’s rule for main ideas is “Choose a strong idea. Tell about something that is important to you.” Think about this rule. If you are going to write about a topic and want your idea to be clear and focused, don’t you think you may want to know a lot about the topic? Or that you are interested in the topic? If we choose to write about a topic that we know a lot about, you are choosing a strong idea that should be easy to write about.
Lesson: 20-25 minutes
Let’s take a look at day 3 in your packet. We are going to try to select some ideas to that Hunter may want to write about. We know he likes BMX bikes, so which of these ideas would he maybe want to write about? (Read list of options to students, put X next to ideas he would write about based on his interest in BMX bikes.)
In the next activity we are going to write about what you like to do on the weekends. Choose some activity you like to do and write it on the line. Then think about how you can make it more specific. (Teacher models activity on ELMO by writing about her favorite weekend activity. Have students ask you questions to help make your idea more specific. Then model writing a specific idea about your favorite activity, based on the questions they ask you about your idea. Help students brainstorm things that they like to do on the weekends. Encourage them to write idea in complete sentences.)
___
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
While the students are brainstorming ideas, I plan to help the three girls who are struggling, as well as anyone else I notice is having trouble with organizing their thoughts in their graphic organizers. I think it may be a good idea to have them work together with me in a small group. I could show them more samples. I could model what they are supposed to do by making my own graphic organizer and show them how I developed my ideas. I will give them sometime to work on their own and come around every couple of minutes to monitor their progress.
Now we are going to take these ideas and write them in the graphic organizer on the next page in your packet. The rule for this lesson is Choose a strong idea and narrow it down. In the first box write your favorite weekend activity, just a general idea, such as play with friend. It should only be 2 or 3 words. Next you are going to narrow it down, in the 2nd box. Tell me your friend’s name or where you play. Finally in the 3rd box, make your idea even more specific, tell me what you play with your friend. (Teacher should model filling in the graphic organizer on the ELMO using her own favorite weekend activity. Also model narrowing down the idea and making it more specific by adding more detail. Walk around and ask students to help them narrow down their activity into a more specific, focused main idea.)
OUTLINE of key events during the lesson (20 minutes)
Review yesterday’s lesson.
Explain choosing a topic that you know a lot about/ are interested in.
Introduce new rule and complete activity together as a class.
Brainstorm ideas for weekend activities.
Model how to choose an idea and then how to narrow it down, making the idea more specific.
Model how to fill out graphic organizer and narrow down your topic to make it specific to your own experience.
Closing summary for the lesson ( 5 minutes)
· Let’s review what we learned today about developing a main idea for writing. (Make sure students understand that they should pick a topic that they know a lot about. It also needs to be a specific main idea. They can narrow down a topic by adding details and focusing on just one activity rather than an entire day’s events.)
· Tomorrow we are going to take your specific main ideas and start writing a paragraph about your favorite weekend activity. We are going to focus on having a clear, strong main idea, using the ideas from our graphic organizers.
Transition to next learning activity
· Now I will collect your graphic organizers and I will write down suggestions and comments to guide you in your writing. I will pass them back to you tomorrow so we can continue on in our writing process. Let’s get ready for lunch.
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
I may grade these certain students more on their progress that they have made over the last couple of days. As long as I see some improvement with developing their ideas, they will receive credit for demonstrating their understanding of main ideas.
Assessment: While students are organizing their ideas, teacher will walk around and monitor students’ idea development. Teacher will collect graphic organizers and look to see that students were able to choose a general topic, and narrow it down to make it more specific, by adding details.
Academic, Social, and Linguistic Support during assessment
(Which students struggled with the material? How will I reteach these students)
Some of them did not start with a general idea in the first box so it made it hard to narrow down. They were too specific at first. Other students were not specific enough with narrowing down their topic. For instance Jessics said her favorite thing to do was go to the park, but her specific idea was we play ball. She did not tell me who specifically played ball. I think she just needed someone to prompt her and ask her “Who was there? What did you do? Where did it take place?” I was able to reteach this lesson by a follow-up lesson where we used the “5 Ws” to help students narrow down their ideas and add details to their writing. I also returned their graphic organizers after I wrote some questions on there for them to answer, in order to make their ideas more specific.

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.
is missing.
Outline for a Daily Lesson Plan
Date: 10/27/09 - Day Two