Lesson Plan

Planning

Date: September 29, 2017

Class and Grade Level: English 8
Title/Subject of Lesson: Freewriting

Learning Target(s): Assessment(s):

 I can write about events that support Thumbs up/Thumbs down for when students
my belief statement. understand. I’ll be walking around listening to
 I can logically organize those events. students and looking at their work.

Success Criteria:
 Do my experiences help explain my
belief?
 Does the organization of my essay fit
the success criteria we developed as a
class?
 Are the beliefs and experiences well
balanced in my draft?

State (or Common) Core Curriculum Standard(s):

W.8.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective
technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

W.8.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are
appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Concept(s) to Be Taught: Narrative writing, order of events, relevant details/evidence.

Rationale: Students have been learning about “This I Believe” (TIB) essays by using TIB essays
as mentor texts. We’ve read several essays together as a class and independently, and we’ve
identified important characteristics of TIB essays. Students have chosen a TIB statement that
they will base their own essay on and they’ve done a brainstorming exercise, creating a thought
web, to help them think of important events connected to their belief. In this lesson, students will
start to write their essays by identifying an important personal experience that helped them
develop that belief and writing about it in an order that makes sense. Students will also highlight
different parts of their essay (beliefs in green and experiences in blue) to make sure that they
have enough evidence and balance in their essay.

Materials Needed:
 Google Slides presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HjpNTwRGrs2fncGQw7j9z3VaumSnhNzXz4yj
 TSNsaAY/edit#slide=id.g20175d4fa4_0_344
 Chromebooks
Strategies to Be Used:
 Modeling
 Freewriting
Cross Curricular:
 Vocab practice
o Students will create a class vocab playlist by finding songs that represent words
using different Greek/Latin roots that we’ve covered in class.

Performing

Bell Work/Announcements:
 Materials Needed: Chromebook, Wednesday Wars, Writer’s Notebook
 Book Club 4 is next time - Read “January” and “February”
 Due Today: Nothing! 
 Bell Work: Gather materials. Log in to Canvas.

(0-3 minutes) Continuation from Previous Lesson: Welcome to class! You have 30 seconds to
be in your seats and then I’m marking tardies! Take attendance. Remember, book club is next
Thursday! You should read “January” and “February” and have 5 thick questions by then.

Lesson Presentation:

I. Preparing for Learning:

 (3-13) [They are listening] Today, we’re going to start with some vocab practice and
then we’ll move in to some more “This I Believe” activities to help you start writing your
essay. (2A) Mr. Brunst is going to do our vocab activity for us. Hand things off to Chris.
 (3A) How many of you like to listen to music? Awesome! And how often do you listen to
music? Call on two students. Music is a pretty big part of our lives, right? Well, we’re
going to help you connect vocab to that cool, important part of your life to help you
remember our vocab roots better and also to help you start to see how vocab can relate to
real life!
 Let’s review our vocab roots together real quick: Repeat vocab roots as a class. Good!
 I’m going to give you instructions for our vocab activity. Please listen quietly and don’t
move ahead until I say, “Go!” and then you can start working on this activity. As a class,
you’re going to create a vocab playlist by choosing a word that uses a vocab root and
then a song that represents that word.
 For example, if I were doing the root “auto,” I could choose the word “autonomy.” Does
anyone know what autonomy means? Call on someone or define the word. Great! So a
song that goes with “autonomy” is “Some Nights” by Fun because the song is about the
singer becoming his own person. See how that works?
 Each quad will be assigned a root. Here are the assignments. Read through assignments.
When I say go, I want you to turn to your quad and make sure that everyone in your quad
knows what your root means. You have 30 seconds. Read, set, go! [They are talking to
 their quad] Count down from 10.
 [They are listening] Now that you know which root you’ll be working with, here are the
rest of the instructions. Remember, don’t move forward until I say, “Go!” You now need
to think of a word that uses that root. Once you have a word that you want to use, you’ll
choose a song that uses or represents that word. You can use your Chromebooks to help
you find songs.
 Once you’ve found your song, you’re going to add it to our class Google Doc where
we’ll all be able to see all the songs that the different quads have chosen. You’ll go to
Canvas, to Modules, down to Vocabulary, and then click on “Vocab Playlist.” There will
be a link that will take you to a shared Google Doc that you should all be able to work on
at the same time.
 Here’s what it will look like: you’ll include the vocabulary word, the song/artist, and then
how that song is connected to the vocab word.
 Remember to work as a team! You have 5-7 minutes to do this. Ready, set, GO! [They
are working in their quads] Leave up instructions and reminders for working as a team
as quads work together.
 Attention getter. Let’s take a look at our playlist! This is awesome! Now you have some
good music to listen to this weekend. Go ahead and close your Chromebooks for now,
but stay logged in while we talk about TIB essays.
 (13-18) Now, we’re going to switch gears and get working on our TIB essays. Here is
your assignment sheet for your essay. I want you to underline or take notes on things that
you think are important on this assignment sheet so that you remember what you need to
do. [They are reading the assignment sheet with me and taking notes/underlining] In
your TIB essay, you are going to tell a story about a milestone in your life that really
happened to you. It can be about a funny event, a sad event, something you learned from,
something that makes you happy, sad, laugh, cry. It can be about a time you had fun with
your family, a tradition, a vacation. The story should illustrate how your belief was
formed.
 Think about these questions: What did you learn from this? What belief did it help form?
And then like the other essays we’ve read, make sure that you use the phrase “I believe”
to highlight what you came to believe.
 You are going to tell this story in first person. This means you can use I, me, us, we, etc.
This is your story, so tell it from your perspective.
 Your essay needs to be 350 to 500 words, which is about 1 ½ to 2 pages typed. You will
be turning this assignment in on Canvas, and we’ll talk more about that when the time
comes.
 Here are the due dates: your rough draft is due on Monday October 9th. In class that day
you’ll do peer reviews, so you really need to have your draft ready for that day. Your
final draft is due Friday October 13, and because it will be the end of the term, this essay
will expire on October 17, the next Tuesday. So it’s really important that you stay on top
of this and get it in on time!
 The rubric for this assignment is on the back of your assignment sheet, so you will need
to make sure that you read through that so that you know what the expectations are for
this essay. Do you have any questions?

II/III. Directing/Reinforcing the Learning:

 (18-22) [They are listening] We’re going to start TIB essays with a freewrite.
Freewriting is going to help you start getting your ideas from your head onto your paper.
 Freewriting is just like falling. You have to jump off of the edge and take the plunge and
just do it. It might not be graceful and you might have to change some of what you write,
but it will help you start getting ideas out on paper and that’s what we want. So to give
you a visual of what this freewriting activity is going to look like, we have this video.
Play 1 minute of video. [They are watching the video]
 [They are listening] Now this next visual is a little less appealing, but freewriting also
kind of like barfing. You just have to get something down on paper. It’s not going to be
pretty, but you just write whatever comes into your head that’s related to your TIB essay.
This will at least give you something to start with.
 (22-30) [They are listening] I’m going to give you instructions a step at a time for how
the freewrite is going to work. Please listen quietly until I say “Go!” and then you can
complete that step and once everyone is ready, we’ll move on to the next step.
 Create a new Google Doc and name it with this format: Last name, First
name_Period_This I Believe. So if I were writing an essay, my Google Doc name would
look like this: Sugrue, Maegan_2A_This I Believe. Once you’ve created your Google
Doc, write your belief at the top. Ready, set, go! Create your google doc.[They are
creating their Google Doc]
 I will create my own Google Doc and name it with the same format and write my TIB
statement at the top: “I believe in the unifying power of laughter.”
 Attention getter. Thumbs up if you’re ready to move on. [They give thumbs up or
down] Ok, here’s the next step. Remember, listen quietly and don’t start until I say go.
[They are listening] We are going to write for 4 minutes without stopping. Here are
some things that you can write about to help you get thinking about your essay. Cold call
a row to read the things they can write about from the slide. Perfect! Alright, do you have
any questions? You have 4 minutes to write. Read, set, GO! [They are writing] I will
model the freewrite on my Google Doc projected on the board and write while students
are writing.
 (30-37) Ok, stop! [They stop writing] Good work! How did that go? I hope you got
some good stuff down! [They are listening] Now we’re going to start trying to clean up
the word barf and the fall that happened during the freewrite. I’m going to give you all
the instructions for this next part, so please listen quietly and when I say, “Go!” you’ll get
started. You are going to read through what you’ve written so far and think about these
things to try and help organize what you’ve written. Read slide.
 Now we’re going to write again! Even if you don’t feel like you’re missing anything, you
should keep writing! Write for 4 minutes without stopping and add the things you feel
like you’re missing. Ready, set, GO! [They are writing] I am writing on my Google Doc.
Ok, stop! [They stop]
 (37-45) Next we need to revise what we’ve written! Talk to your partner about what
revision is and why it’s important. After 1 minute, I’ll call on a few of you to share what
you talked about. Ready, go! I’ll walk around and listen to partners.
 Attention getter. Call on 2 partnerships to share what they talked about. Revision is
important because it helps us to be better. When you try something new for the first time,
are you perfect at it right away? What do you have to keep doing in order to improve?
[They answer keep practicing or keep trying or something like that] Same with
 writing!
 So to start your revisions, you’re going to read through everything that you’ve written,
and cross out anything that doesn’t have to do with how your belief was formed. I’m
going to do the same thing up on my Google Doc. You have 4 minutes to do that. Ready,
go! [They read through their writing and cross things out] I cross things out on my
Google Doc.
 Attention getter. Now that you’ve crossed out the things that don’t relate to how your
belief was formed, you’ll have more relevant material to use in your essay.
 (45-50) Another important part of revising is organization. If you’re relating a personal
experience that actually happened to you, how do you think it should be organized? What
will make the most sense to your reader? Talk to your partner about that for 30 seconds.
Ready, go! [They talk to their partners]
 Attention getter. What did you talk about? Call on two partnerships. [Hopefully
someone brings up chronological order] Good! Chronological order will help your
reader understand events as they happened without confusion. [They are listening] Let’s
look at this example. This shows a brief version of Jack and Jill. What if we had started
with “Jill came tumbling after”? What questions do you have? It’s kind of confusing,
right? So when you’re writing a narrative, it’s best for the reader if events are in
chronological order.
 Take 2 minutes and double check that your personal experience is in chronological order
and change something if you need to change something. Ready, go! [They check their
narratives]
 (50-60) Attention getter. Now, let’s check the overall organization of your writing. Here’s
the organization that we’ve seen in most of the essays that we’ve read together in class.
The essay starts out with the main idea/belief, then goes into an experience that helped
them come to that belief, and then wraps up with a conclusion that explains again or
restates the belief. Does your essay look like this? Take 2 minutes to move things around
if you need to. [They check their essays]
 Attention getter. Another important part of organization making sure that there is balance
between what you say about your belief and the experiences that you relate. To practice
and double check this balance, you will highlight different parts of your essay. Sentences
or statements that have to do with your belief will be highlighted in green and
statements/sentences that have to do with the experience that led to your belief will be in
blue.
 This is Ben Carson’s TIB essay “Gifted Hands.” What do you notice about his essay?
More blue or more green? So what kind of details did he include more of? So what do
you think your essay should loo like? Yeah, you want to make sure that you tell enough
about your experience for the reader to understand how that experience led to your belief.
That milestone experience is a really important part of this essay. So now you’re going to
highlight the different parts of your essay. Remember, green is for belief and blue is for
experiences.

ATAWT: Silent reading