Mentor Text Writing Lesson Plan Assignment

Draft of Lesson Due 3/12 (3 points) Lesson Taught and Reflection Due 4/9 (7 points)

The lesson plan will be a three-part assignment. You will be asked to complete the READ 436
ELED lesson plan (on Canvas), an in-depth description of your procedure, and a reflection.

The intent of this assignment is to help you dig a little bit deeper into what goes into planning and
thinking about a using mentor texts to teach writing. Through this assignment, you should think
more about how you can make a lesson unique and effective and how the concepts and ideas we
discuss in class can help you create a lesson that helps the students enjoy and appreciate writing
in a way you may not have as a student.

PART ONE: THE LESSON

The intent of this part of the lesson is to prepare you for what you will need to do and think about
before teaching your lesson.

A. TITLE OF LESSON (Writing Focus):

 Using descriptive language and figurative language

B. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING

Identify VA Standards of Learning that are directly addressed in this lesson. Write the entire
standard in your lesson plan, not just the number.

 4.7 The student will write in a variety of forms to include narrative,

descriptive, opinion, and expository.
 i) Elaborate writing by including details to support the purpose

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

UNDERSTAND -
 The student should begin to develop an understanding of the use descriptive
and figurative language.

KNOW -
 Students will know descriptive words to add in their writing.
 Students will also know how to use figurative language in their writing.

DO -
 Students will be able to come up with descriptive words and make an ordinary
sentence more “exciting”.

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
  To assess the students, I am going to write a boring sentence on the
whiteboard, for example, “The horse jumped”. The student’s will read the
sentence and using what they learned about descriptive words and figurative
language, they will create a new sentence from the “boring” one and make it
more “exciting”. They will then write the new sentence on their own whiteboard
and then they will share their new sentence with the rest of the group.
 By doing this assessment, I can see if they have an understanding of how to
use descriptive/figurative language to spice up their writing.
 Another assessment I am going to do is reading their final drafts of their
“Teacher I didn’t do my homework because…” paper. I will assess this writing
and see if they used what they learned and added descriptive language.

PART TWO: LESSON PLAN PROCEDURE

A. CONTEXT OF LESSON

 Step 1: Find a small group of students who need help with using figurative/ descriptive
language
o Ask teacher which students need help with this and go to the back of the room
with them during their reading time.
 Step 2: Ask students what they already know about descriptive/figurative language
o Understanding their prior knowledge will help shape the lesson to suite their needs
 Step 3: Introduce mentor text
o My CT has already read this book so the students are already familiar with it.
o I chose a few pages from the book to use as examples.
o This mentor text has great examples of the use of descriptive language that makes
the story more interesting
o Read the pages that I have chosen and talk about each page after reading it and
ask the students what words were used to make the sentence more exciting.
 Step 4: After the mentor text, start sentence “makeovers”
o Before getting into the activity, make a list of “exciting” words for the students to
use as a reference. Ask the students to come up with words with you.
 Words like:
 ADJECTIVES: blue, swirling, bright, joyous, quirky, and miserable
 ADVERBS: blissfully, amusingly, eagerly, hastily, kindly, rapidly
 GERUNDS (verbs that act like nouns) –ing words
o Get whiteboards and give one to each student and one for myself
o On my whiteboard, write down a “boring” sentence. Ex:
 The horse jumped.
 The cat sat.
 The man ate.
 Justin was sad.
o With these sentences, ask students to write their own “exciting” sentence on their
whiteboard and go around and ask them to share what they have.
 Step 5: wrap up lesson
 o Ask students to go get a piece of writing that they are working on and look it over
and try to find where they can add descriptive words.
o Before they go, pass out a sheet that has descriptive words on it that they can use
as a reference for their writing.

You must also identify how you found or came up with the idea for your lesson. It is okay to find
ideas online, from your book, or by consulting with your cooperating teacher. You do not need to
make up a lesson on your own. However, if you find a lesson from an outside resource, you must
make it your own. You may not find and use a lesson as is from an outside source.

 I came up with this idea for my lesson on my own. I asked my CT what some of her
students struggle with and she suggested doing something with descriptive and figurative
language. She let me look through the read alouds that she was focusing on that week and
let me pick one to use. I also knew that doing just the mentor text may not be enough so I
thought adding on the whiteboard exercise would be a great way to extend their learning
as well as assess them on what they know/ learned.

B. MATERIALS NEEDED
 Last Stop on Market Street by: Matt de la Pena Illustrator: Christian Robinson
 Whiteboards
 Expo markers
 List of descriptive words (I will provide)

C. PROCEDURE
Discuss how you will address the topics below. Provide specifics about what you plan to say,
questions you may ask, and strategies you will use to make the lesson a success.


CONNECT “Today we are going to talk about using descriptive
Students learn why today’s language in our writing. Does anyone know what
instruction is important to them descriptive language is?”
as writers and how the lesson
Before
relates to their prior work (if “Using descriptive language in our own writing is
applicable). The teaching point is important because we want others to be engaged while
stated. they are reading our writing.”

TEACH I will read sections of the mentor text and engage

The teacher shows the students students in a conversation about what type of
how writers accomplish the descriptive language the author uses to make the story
teaching point in the mentor text exciting.

During ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
After we teach something,
students are given a chance to
practice what has just been
taught with new writing or
revising a prior piece. (May
We will come up with our own list of descriptive words
either writing them down on a sheet of paper or the
whiteboard.
Whiteboard activity with making ordinary sentences
exciting and they will share with each other.
 assess during this time)
After is activity, I will send the students off to work on a
piece of writing and add descriptive language.
After LINK
The teacher reiterates what has If there is time, I would like to have the students share
just been taught and gives sentences they added with descriptive language.
students an opportunity to share
(May assess during this time)

D. DIFFERENTIATION

 We are doing this activity together so no one is going to finish early
 This activity involves reading, critical thinking, and independent writing so there are
different forms of engagement for different types of learners
 If there is a student struggling with the objectives, I can go to the directly during their
writing time and I can work with them to help with whatever they are struggling with.

E. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?

 They may get distracted or off task

o I can check in while they are working on their writing or during the whiteboard
activity to make sure they remain on task.
 Miranda Sullivan

Mentor Text Mini Lesson Reflection

The actual teaching of the lesson went way smoother than I thought it would. I

followed through with most of the lesson the way that I wrote it in the lesson plan except

for the wrap-up. Originally, I had written in my lesson plan that the students would get

their “Teacher I Didn’t Do My Homework Because…” paper and work on it at their

desks but I decided to change it up while I was in the middle of my lesson. I decided to

have the small group of students work on their papers during my lesson. I had them look

through their rough draft and find a sentence that they could make more exciting. For the

lesson, I took them out in the hallway because it was quiet and there were whiteboards. I

was able to utilize the whiteboards during my lesson and let the students use them to

write their sentences up. This allowed them to have more freedom with the way they

structured their sentence and they could easily write in or erase parts of their sentences to

add descriptive language. Another thing that differed with my written lesson plan was

how involved the students wanted to be in the lesson. For example, during the part of the

lesson where I wrote a boring sentence on the whiteboard and the students “spiced up”

the sentence on their whiteboard, some of the students wanted a turn coming up with the

boring sentence and writing up on the board. I let them have some fun with this for a few

minutes before we had to move on to the next part of the lesson. I thought it was really

cool how they wanted to come up with their own sentences. It really showed me that they

were engaged in the lesson and wanted to challenge themselves and others.
 I think that one way I could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice

would be to allow for more wait time. I noticed that at some points where I thought we

were ready to move on, some students weren’t. Having an appropriate amount of wait

time is extremely important because it allows a more fair chance of students being able to

finish their thought process. It also allows children who may take a longer amount of time

to form an answer to feel more comfortable with sharing their answers. I want to keep

this in mind for the next time I teach this lesson so I can give all of my students a fair

chance to come up with an answer or finish their thoughts.

Based on the assessment I created, I made a positive impact on the students

learning. To assess their learning, I wrote a boring sentence on the whiteboard. Their task

was to then to add descriptive words to make the sentence exciting. They had individual

whiteboards where they would write their exciting sentence, which they would then share

with their group. When they shared their sentence, I was able to assess their

understanding of the lesson by observing how many descriptive words they used. The

small group that I assessed did extremely well and they were very eager to share what

they had written. The sentence that I wrote on the whiteboard was “The horse jumped.”

The descriptive sentences that they wrote for this was the one I assessed with the picture

and the rubric. I was going to do another assessment, which was reading their final drafts

of “Teacher I didn’t do my homework because…” papers but I had forgotten to take

pictures. Their papers were very descriptive and extremely fun to read and would have

been graded highly on the rubric. I ended up deciding to just assess the exciting sentences

that they wrote on their whiteboards because I had taken pictures of them.
 If there was one overarching thing that I learned about teaching children, is how

excited they get about learning when they are engaged. The mentor text that I read to

them immediately had them hooked on the lesson because they had read it before in class.

It was incredibly easy to teach them when they were excited to learn. They really enjoyed

writing their own sentences and even bounced ideas off one another. I think a really

important part of teaching is student engagement. As a teacher, your job becomes a lot

easier when your students are engaged and actively participating.

One thing I learned about planning a lesson is that what you plan may not

necessarily be what plays out in the classroom. Your students can be unpredictable so

things may not go to plan and you may need to improvise. This lesson in particular went

mostly according to plan with the addition of the students adding to the lesson by coming

up with their own boring sentence for the other students to “spice up”. Something that

was reinforced was student’s willingness to participate. Every question that I asked

always had raised hand by students ready to answer. They were eager to show off their

knowledge to me and with this activity they were actively engaged as well.

Something I learned about myself was that I may go too fast at some points and I

need to allow more wait time for students to finish writing their answers. There were

points that I had to remind myself that they can’t write as fast as I can and had to slow

down. They really put thought into the sentences that they were creating and sometimes it

took them a little longer because they were trying to think of creative words. If I taught

this lesson again, I think I need to allow more wait time for students to have more time to

think and express their thoughts.

 Rubric: (Student work on next page)

Student’s name

Uses little to no
adjectives or Student has a basic Student has an evident
descriptive words in understanding of grasp of using
their writing. descriptive language and descriptive language
uses 1 or more by using 3 or more
adjectives or descriptive descriptive words in
words to create an their exciting sentence.
exciting sentence.

Gregory X- Gregory came up

with really great
adjectives!

Jacob X- Wow! The

descriptive language
that Jacob used really
painted a picture in
my mind! Great use
of descriptive words!
Jeanette X- Great use of
description words! I
love how you added
to the action of the
horse jumping!
Gregory:

The white horse leaped high into the

windy air.

Jacob:

The white horse jumped over the big brown

gate he was amazing his hair swayed in the
wind.

Jeanette

The handsome horse jumped over the tall black

wooden fence.