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students with the opportunity to construct meaning from what they have seen and heard, and
to convey that meaning to others.
In the next grade band, students are expected to make oral presentations that include
multimedia components that enhance their topic, and begin to develop an understanding of
formal and informal English and the appropriate purposes and audiences in which each can be
used.
SL. 2.5. Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to
stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
Enduring Understanding
Proficient speakers make deliberate choices regarding language, content and media to capture
and maintain the audience in order to convey their message. They are careful to base their
presentations on facts and make sure that everyone in their audience can hear them.
Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events,
include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event
order, and provide a sense of closure.
Language
Conventions of Standard English
L. 2.1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when
writing or speaking.
a. Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g. feet, children, teeth,
mice, fish).
b. Use reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, ourselves)
L. 2.2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization,
punctuation, and spelling when writing
c. Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives
Language: Conventions of Standard English
L.2.2.
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and
spelling when writing.
a. Capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic names.
b. Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.
c. Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently occurring possessives.
d. Generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words (e.g., cage - badge; boy boil).
e. Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and
correct spellings.
English Language Arts Curriculum Model
Content Statement Elaboration:
Writers and speakers use the rules and Conventions of Standard English, parts of speech,
sentence structure, mechanics and spelling to communicate effectively. These conventions are
learned and applied within the contexts of reading, writing, speaking and listening. As writing
competency increases, young writers begin to understand the importance of the audience for
whom they are composing text. Teacher modeling of the conventions of grammar and
punctuation is critical. Using think alouds as they compose, teachers provide students with the
inner dialogue that occurs during the composition process. Creating an environment that
supports word learning and encourages word play is critical.
In the next grade band, students focus on more complex grammatical constructions (such as
abstractions and complex sentences) and punctuation (quotation marks, underlining, commas)
to communicate text.
Knowledge of Language
L. 2.3. Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading or
listening
Lesson Summary:
Students will further develop and expand their writing and grammatical (specifically
irregular plural nouns, reflexive pronouns and exclamatory) skills by recounting a
favorite experience from their own lives about a special vacation adventure or holiday
break memory and creating a personal narrative. A trip to the ocean or a cruise, a
camping trip in the mountains, baking Christmas cookies and caroling, and learning how
to ski are some example topics for their narratives. The class will put all of their writing
skills to use by partaking in creative writing technology activities. Students will develop
a hand-written rough draft, compose a typed final draft on Microsoft Word, partake in
peer editing, and share their story using the VoiceThread digital tool as well as a formal
oral presentation in front of their peers.
Estimated Duration:
The writing lesson and activities will take place over the course of 4 days (M, T, W, R)
during the 50-minute writing block part of our daily schedule. There will also be two 20minute blocks (M, T) dedicated to grammar study and application. (240 minutes total)
Commentary:
A challenge I anticipate students to encounter is forming descriptive details in their
narratives. I want students to go beyond just writing a monotonous paragraph about
how their family went to the beach per say, but rather share details about specific
family bonding experiences from the trip, funny moments, vivid environmental
descriptions to help the reader/listener visualize the setting, delicious meals from
restaurants, sites and tourist attractions they saw, etc. Writer blocks may occur for
some students, so I will foster an environment for creative and focused thinking as well
as provide necessary academic tools ranging from thesauruses to thought
provoking/generating web applications. I will encourage students to add diversity to
their sentence structure as much as possible too. I will get students hooked on the
lesson by reading two example narratives each about a page long. Details are found in
the instructional procedures below.
*Technology incorporations are highlighted in bright lavender throughout this document
Instructional Procedures:
Day 1 Writing Block
those who wish to use them. Spend a couple minutes showing students how to utilize
dictionary.com and the thesaurus application on the site.
Day 1 Grammar Block (20 minutes)
Reflexive Pronouns
Administer the 10-question pre-assessment to the whole class which is found in the PreAssessment section below. Students are to work independently with no help from
outside resources.
Introduce the lesson by reviewing the basic pronouns. Call 2 students up to the Smart to
write short example sentences e.g. He was proud. Have students write two examples
in their grammar journals. Explain the definition of a reflexive pronoun in the most basic
manner. A reflexive pronoun is used when the subject in a sentence and an object in a
sentence are the same person. Modify the 2 examples e.g. He was proud of himself.
Make a t-chart of the pronouns and their reflexives.
Two activities will be used from a Teacher-Pay-Teacher download I purchased titled
Reflexive Pronouns- Activities for the Second Grade Common Core. What they do not
finish turns into homework for the night. Have them log it in their planners. Screen
shots of the activities entail are below.
Review answers using the SmartBoard and/or ELMO. Emphasize the ending of the word
changed for many of these lves. I believe these two activities are perfect for students
to practice using reflexives and understanding how they fit into context. Students will
be informed that they are required to incorporate at least 2 reflexive pronouns into
their narratives.
Day 2 Writing Block
Warm-Up (15 minutes)
Provide students with the following graphic organizer to start generating ideas for their
rough drafts, focusing on main points including setting, who was involved, sequential
events and coordinating details.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/sites/default/files/posts/u133/pdfs/personal_narrativ
e_graphic_organizer_snapshot.pdf
Rough Drafts (25 minutes)
Students are to generate hand written rough drafts referencing their graphic organizers.
I will monitor students work and progress by visiting each student at their desks and
quickly revising their work. During this time I will also have a composited visual display
of both irregular plural nouns and reflexive pronouns on the Smart Board for students to
refer to while writing.
Introduction to Peer Editing (10 minutes)
Students will be strategically assigned partners to trade narratives with to peer review.
This remaining time of the block will be dedicated to instructing students what to look
for while peer editing. Circling grammatical errors, suggesting words that could be
substituted for richer language, checking for proper capitalization of proper nouns,
appropriate grammar usage particularly of reflexive pronouns and irregular plural
nouns. Display and model an example using the ELMO.
Day 2 Grammar Block (20 minutes)
Spend 5 minutes reviewing reflexive pronouns. The remaining time will be spent
teaching irregular plural nouns. There is no rhyme or reason to these, so instruction will
best take place in a drill and practice manner. Using virtual flashcards to study with
the class as a group incorporates technology. Then have students break off into partners
and use iPads to review the flash cards with each other. Each iPad will need to already
have the web application ready to go and students will be given login information for
the site. Students are required to incorporate at least 1 irregular plural noun into their
narrative, the easiest being men or people.
https://www.studyblue.com/online-flashcards
Examples to be used in the creation of flashcards:
Pre-Assessment:
The creative writing pre-assessment using StoryBird described earlier will show
how well students form and produce complete sentences with detail, utilize
punctuation such as exclamation points, and if they use reflexive pronouns or
irregular plural nouns at all in their writing. Scoring is teacher judgment although
they should track grammar factors.
I- Myself
She- Herself
He- Himself
We- Ourselves
They- Themselves
Score as a percentage.
Post-Assessment:
The post assessment is broken down into four parts:
1. Administer the same 10=question assessment as the Pre-Assessment. Compare
percentage scores tracking growth.
2. Post-assessment pertaining to the usage of grammatical content would be the
grading and evaluation of their final personal narratives. The teacher will score 1 point
for every correctly used irregular plural noun and reflexive pronoun.
3. Analyze the writing style and composition of their final drafts. Is there rich detail
present? Are unique thoughts expressed? Ultimately this assessment is in the form of
teacher judgments.
Performance assessment takes place on their oral presentation and VideoThread. If
students participate, they pass, but a rating scale of 1-10 applies and much assessment
takes place in the form of personalized comments and feedback. Approximately 5-7
feedback points should be made for each student and typed out and shared via email to
the student as well as a printed copy.
Gifted students could be assigned multiple peer editing assignments and given
opportunities to peer review with struggling students during silent reading time,
recess, or first thing in the morning.
I would provide flash cards for students who are struggling to use in class and
take home of images of singular and irregular plural nouns and have students
verbally identify which is which e.g. one card would be a picture of 1 mouse and
another card would be a visual of 3 mice.
For students who are struggling with creating rich detail and vocabulary
expansion for their narratives, they could be assisted in making a word web to
expand their stories. For example students could put happy or fun in the center of
their web and then use a thesaurus (virtual or hard copy) to find synonyms for the
branches e.g. exuberant, joyful, blissful, pleased, overjoyed. This is geared
towards students who complex and flexible vocabulary does not come natural to.
Extension
This web application may be used to help students with future creative writing
endeavors and provoking writing ideas and content:
http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html
Wordle Beautiful Word Clouds is a fun end of the lesson or extension activity students
will enjoy seeing a visual display of their frequently used vocabulary in from their
narratives.
http://www.wordle.net
Interdisciplinary Connections
Art cross-curricular connection
The art teacher could chose an art medium or aesthetic such as watercolors, oil pastels,
or sketch pencils for students to create a piece or work depicting their personal
For teachers
For students
Key Vocabulary
Irregular Plural Nouns
Personal narrative
Reflexive Pronouns
Additional Notes
There is no doubt we are living in the Information Era and Educational technology
tools are flourishing. I believe it is important for teachers to take the initiative to
stay up to date and utilize tools relevant to the curriculum. Incorporating
technology to benefit students and strike their interest is important, however I
believe that traditional, paper-pencil writing skills should be instilled. Being able to
generate original thoughts and transcribe them with nothing but ones own
brainpower is tremendously important. Knowing how to actually write is a skill
that should not be lost or swept under the rug despite the in the use of keyboards,
typing and virtual messaging. Hence why I required students to create handwritten rough drafts.
Time restraints may be an issue according to this guideline, so work time may be
necessary for students perhaps during extension time or if the class schedule has
a study hall part of the day.