LESSON DATE: October 29, 2014 CLASS: English Language Arts

TIME: 10:20 CYCLE: 2

PLAN DURATION: 1 hour 20 minutes GRADE: 4
FOCUS OF LESSON: Introduce and guide students towards writing their own Acrostic Poem.

OBJECTIVES By the end of this lesson students will be able to:

Brainstorm ideas for a specified topic
Write their own acrostic poems
BROAD AREAS Media Literacy
OF LEARNING
MELS Competency 2: To write self-expressive, narrative and information-based
LANGUAGE ARTS
COMPETENCIES texts
Competency 3: To represent his/her literacy in different media
Competency 4: To use language to communicate and learn
CROSS Competency 1: To use information
CURRICULAR
COMPETENCIES Competency 4: To use creativity
Competency 5: To adopt effective work methods
Competency 8: To cooperate with others
Competency 9: To communicate appropriately
MATERIALS Smart board
NEEDED
Powerpoint
Novel: Mouse and The Motorcycle
Examples of Acrostic poems
Students writing folders
Writing materials for students
Grading ruberic

TIME LESSON
Introduction
5 min Ask students questions to get them engaged:
Who can tell me what a poem is?
Do you enjoy reading poems? How about writing them?
Do you know of any different types of poems?
Ask students Have you ever heard of an acrostic poem?

Development

15min Explain to students what an acrostic poem is.

Tell them it is a poem where the first letters of each line spell out a word or phrase.
The word or phrase can be a name of a person, place or thing.

The first letter in each line is capitalized so that it is easy to read the word vertically
down the page. That word is also usually the title of the poem.
 The sentences and words in each line have to be related to the main word.

Acrostics are easy to write because they dont need to rhyme, and you dont need to
worry about the rhythm of the lines. Each line can be as long or as short as you want
it to be.

10min Show students the example of the MATH poem. We will read it together and try to
answer the following questions
What is the topic/subject of this poem?
What should be the title for this poem?

Show students some more examples and go through the questions mentioned above:
Pumpkin
School

15min Model how to write a poem with the students.

Be sure to go through the brainstorming process as well

Tell students they will write their own poem using a word from the Mouse and The
Motorcycle. They can use the names of the characters as well.

Give students the rubric that will be used to mark their poems. Go through rubric with
students to make sure they know exactly how they will be marked

They will have to write small phrases or sentences they have to avoid writing single
5 min words in their lines
They will have to brainstorm their ideas on the brainstorming template
Explain to students how to use the brainstorming template
They will edit and peer edit their work
Ask students what they need to look for when editing their partners work
All lines start with a letter from the main word
Spelling and grammar errors
Focus on topic
They will write their final version on construction paper and decorate it

Repeat instructions

Give students 30 minutes to work on their poems

30min
If they dont finish it will be assigned for homework

Closure

Once students have completed their poems, they can share them with the class.
10min
Their good copies will be displayed in the class.
Evaluation
Were students actively participating?
Were students on task and engaged?
Evaluate students poems using rubric

Additional notes
For differentiation, accept lines with only 1-2 words instead of longer phrases, as long
as the lines are related to the main topic.

Reflection
The lesson went well over all.
For future lessons where students are working in groups to brainstorm and practice, I
should remind them of the rules for group work before they start working. This way I
will not need to interrupt the work flow to remind the students to lower their voices.
 NAME:

TOPIC OF MY
POEM