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EDIS 4882
Lesson Plan / Formal Interaction 1
Monday, February 2nd
Context
Course name: Language Arts
Grade level: 8th grade
Length of lesson: 90 minutes
Description of setting, students, and curriculum and any other important contextual
characteristics: This writing lesson will be taught in an 8th grade language arts classroom in
tandem with the Paul Zindel novel The Pigman in preparation for the writing SOL test in March.
It will occur as students begin to read the novel and will primarily focus on descriptive language.
Virginia SOL(s):
Writing 8.7 The student will write in a variety of forms, including narration, exposition,
persuasion, and informational.
e) Select specific vocabulary and information for audience and purpose.
Common Core Standard(s):
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.8.3.d
Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to
capture the action and convey experiences and events.
Assessments:
Diagnostic: Students will demonstrate what they already know by
Participating in a class discussion about what is descriptive writing, its purpose, and components.
This assessment is aligned to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.8.3.d, KUDs 1, 2, and 3
Summative: Students will ultimately be assessed (in a future lesson) on these standards by
Writing descriptively on the essay topic during the 8th grade writing SOL in March
This assessment is aligned to VA SOL 8.7e, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.8.3.d, and KUD 6
Materials:
projector and slide show presentation
paper and pencil
photos of 10 apples for students to describe
tape
Procedure
Beginning Room Arrangement: The students will initially sit in rows in their typical seats
while we introduce them to the days objectives. Add later changes to room arrangement if
necessary
I.
Welcome/Greeting ( 2 MINUTES)
Good morning class! I hope you all had a fun weekend! You have the writing SOL coming up in
March so today we are going to work on some work on descriptive writing.
1. Good descriptive writing includes many vivid sensory details that paint a picture and appeals to
all of the reader's senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste when appropriate. Descriptive
writing may also paint pictures of the feelings the person, place or thing invokes in the writer.
1. Good descriptive writing often makes use of figurative language such as analogies, similes and
metaphors to help paint the picture in the reader's mind.
2. Good descriptive writing uses precise language. General adjectives, nouns, and passive verbs do
not have a place in good descriptive writing. Use specific adjectives and nouns and strong action
verbs to give life to the picture you are painting in the reader's mind.
3. Good descriptive writing is organized. Some ways to organize descriptive writing include:
chronological (time), spatial (location), and order of importance. When describing a person, you
might begin with a physical description, followed by how that person thinks, feels and acts.
Lets look at a couple of the examples that were successfully matched with their photos. Ill
project these on the overhead so that students can all see them. How did you all know which
photo these matched? What descriptive details and specific words let you know which photo was
the right one? We will analyze these descriptions as a class and compile a list of attributes of a
detailed and specific piece of writing. I will write these attributes on the board as students share
them with me.
breaking into groups. We could also provide Karen with some useful stem starters for
conversation that would help her monitor things like responding respectfully to others and
waiting for others to speak before she jumps in or interrupts them. This opportunity for Karen to
work with groups will likely help her to work on some of the behavioral issues that contributed
to her being held back a grade.
Technology Use: Detail specific technology being used in the lesson with explanation for
why it is being used.
For this lesson, we will be using an overhead projector and PowerPoint presentation so that
students can visually follow along with our examples of detailed descriptions. Additionally, these
tools will allow us to model descriptive writing for students as we use think aloud techniques
while simultaneously giving them a visual for our thought processes. The PowerPoint
presentation will also display important points of the lesson, including the methods for writing
descriptive language.
How this lesson incorporates specific insights from course readings and/or class discussion:
This lesson incorporates mostly what we talked about in class today, 1/28. Though we do not
plan to teach grammar as a part of this lesson, the zoom and layer idea is pretty much what we
plan to implement in the class. Like we did today, the students will examine each word/phrase
thoroughly and see where they can add more description and/or add stronger verbs, nouns, or
adjectives. The second activity comes from an article we read last semester in Teaching English
Methods I.
Materials Appendix:
Our PowerPoint presentation is attached to this document. Similarly, the photos of the apples for
the challenge activity are attached in a Word document. We will print and distribute these to
students on the day of the lesson.