Indiana Wesleyan University

Elementary Education Lesson Plan

CAEP 2018 K-6 Elementary Teacher Preparation Standards

LESSON RATIONALE/INJUSTICE CONFRONTED

While it has become less common for people to write letters, it is still a skill these students
must understand because letters are still often used in the professional world. Students
must understand how to start, end, and ask good questions in a letter. Students will work
through the big question “what is the purpose of a friendly letter?”

READINESS
I. Goals/Objectives/Standard(s)
A. Goal(s)—Students will practice writing friendly letters while also learning more
about the lives of others through asking questions in their letters.
B. Objective(s)— Given a pen pal, students will be able to properly write a friendly
letter that asks the pen pal questions that will help him/her to better understand
that person and his/her community.
C. Standard(s): 2.W.3.3 Develop topics for friendly letters, stories, poems, and other
narrative purposes that – • Include a beginning. • Use temporal words to signal
event order (e.g., first of all). • Provide details to describe actions, thoughts, and
feelings. • Provide an ending.
II. Management Plan-
a. Time per lesson element: anticipatory set: 5 minutes, lesson presentation: 15
minutes, activity: 20 minutes, closure: 5 minutes
b. use of space: Students will be seated at the carpet for the anticipatory set and
lesson and will go back to their desks for writing their letters and for the
closure
c. list of materials: slideshow with pictures from my trips to Mexico, anchor
chart, paper for writing letters
d. Behavior: I will expect students to listen carefully to instruction and try to be
involved in class discussions. I will be sure to employ the behavior
management already in place in Mrs. Atkins classroom- the blurt chart. If
students are excessively talking out or acting out I will ask them to pull a
blurt. I will continue to only call on students to answer questions if they are
sitting correctly and quietly because that has worked well for these students
to sit quietly and listen so that they have an opportunity to answer questions.
III. Anticipatory Set
• “Good morning, class! This morning I want to show you some of my friends.” Start
showing pictures of me with the children at Casa de Misericordia orphanage in
Piedras Negras, Mexico. As the pictures are showing talk to the students about what
they are seeing.
 “These are some of my friends that live in Piedras Negras, Mexico. In fact, when we did
our lesson about comparing communities from around the world to or own
community, you chose Piedras Negras as your community from around the world.

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 These friends live in an orphanage in the town and I have visited this orphanage
several times in the past few years. The only sad part is that they live over 1,000 miles
from here! This means that in order for me to talk to them I can only send letters or
messages on an app. It is hard to communicate with them but whenever I have the
chance, it is wonderful! I get to see how they and everyone else is doing. I can ask them
how school is going and for some of them how work is going. I am able to
communicate with them even though they are super far away!”

Purpose: “Today we get to learn about writing letters to people from all around the world so
that we can ask them questions about the way they live in their communities and better
understand them and where they are from.”

PLAN FOR INSTRUCTION

IV. Adaptation to Individual Differences and Diverse Learners—Many students struggle
with writing. I will give them the opportunity to write their letters on their laptops
since they do better with that sometimes. I will continue to check in with Caisa and
Trevor to make sure they are not feeling too overwhelmed with the work given to them.

V. Lesson Presentation
 “To begin, we want to first learn how to write a friendly letter. Does anyone know how
we start a letter when we are writing to someone else?” Allow time for a couple of
students to answer. “We want to start with what is called a greeting. An example of
that is dear ____.” Write this information on the anchor chart.
 “Now after that what should come next?” Allow a couple of students to try and
respond. “The next part is the body of the letter. We want to first introduce ourselves
and then we can ask them questions about themselves. So what are some things we
could tell our pen pal about us?” Allow time for students to give some ideas. “What
about questions we could ask our pen pal to get to know them and their community
better?” Allow students to answer and be writing all of it on the anchor chart.
 “Finally, how should we end our letter?” Allow a couple of students to answer. “We
want to finish with a closing like sincerely.” Write this on the anchor chart.
 “Perfect. Now that we have learned how to write a friendly letter, I am going to come
around and give you the name of your pen pal and where they live. You will write a
friendly letter to them by first introducing yourself then asking questions about what
their life is like, where they go to school, the community they live in, their family and so
on. Remember we already wrote some examples on our chart. Does anyone have any
questions?”
VI. Check for understanding.
 I will be able to check to see of students understand how to write a friendly letter by
looking at their letters once they are completed. If a student(s) do not have all of the
proper components of the letter I will pull them individually or in small groups
(dependent on how many) and I will reteach it and we will write an example letter
together.

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 VII. Review learning outcomes / Closure
 I will ask one or two students that I know have exemplary letters to share them with
the class as another example of a friendly letter.

PLAN FOR ASSESSMENT

Formative:
 I will collect the students letters to look over them before they are officially sent to
their pen pals. I will look for a beginning, a body with information about themselves
and questions for their pen pals, and end it with a closing and their name. There will
be a rubric that I make to go along with this.

REFLECTION AND POST-LESSON ANALYSIS

1. How many students achieved the lesson objective(s)? For those who did not, why
not?
2. What were my strengths and weaknesses?
3. How should I alter this lesson?
4. How would I pace it differently?
5. Were all students actively participating? If not, why not?
6. What adjustments did I make to reach varied learning styles and ability levels?
7. Were students asking their pen pals good questions?
8. Were students engaged with this topic even though they do not like writing?