Dakota State University 

College of Education   
LESSON PLAN FORMAT 
 
Name: ​Reanna Fitzgerald  
Grade Level: ​2nd-4th Grade SPED 
School: ​Woodland Intermediate School 
Date: ​March 12th, 2019   
Time: ​2:15pm-2:45pm  
 
Reflection from prior lesson: 
It has been awhile since I have taught these two students in our writing group. One of the 
students was suspended the last week and the other student left early during our last 
session so we just finished academic testing with the other student. I do know from 
previous lessons that these two students can become pretty chatty. The students are 
able to write without having to copy a lot off the whiteboard but it does help when I write 
their thoughts down for them first, then have them copy. I have rewards in place for both 
students when they do their best work, they receive their reward. It’s hard to get them to 
start writing and write quality things so that’s why they have those rewards in place. 
 
 
Lesson Goal(s) / Standards:   
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.2 
Write informative/explanatory text in which they name a topic, supply some facts about 
the topic, and provide some sense of closure. 
 
Student’s IEP Writing Goal is:  
When given a writing prompt student will independently write a complex sentence that 
includes a conjunction to join an independent clause and a dependent clause (supports 
Washington State Learning Standard W.2.2) improving written language skills from 
writing a complex sentence with 30% accuracy to writing a complex sentence with 80% 
accuracy as measured by teacher observation and data.  
 
  
Lesson Objectives: 
Students will be able to choose a topic (picture) and make inferences from the picture 
and include them in their writing.  
Students will structure 5 complete sentences based from their picture with correct 
punctuation, grammar, and capitalization.   
 
 
Materials Needed:  
Writing Binder full of ideas 
Paper 
Pencil  
White Board 
 
  
Contextual Factors/ Learner Characteristics: 
There are only two students in this group and one student is new to being in our 
classroom (currently going through academic testing and being evaluated for special ed). 
I am still learning about the female student and the male student in the group is typically 
pretty shy. The two of these kids do get along well from what I have seen so far and they 
can get a little chatty. During this writing group, there are two other writing groups that 
are going on in the class as well. It’s hard to predict all that can occur in the half-hour that 
we are together. It’s easy for the students to be distracted during this group so I have to 
continually motivate the students by rewarding them with “stars” that earn a prize box toy 
and for the other student who goes to class with a break in the DSP room for the 
remaining group time. This little session is more of a mini-lesson type instruction and is 
only 30 minutes long (typically allow for a 5 minute break at the end of their writing).  
 
 
A. The Lesson  
  
1. Introduction (5 minutes)   
● getting attention 
● relating to past experience and/or knowledge 
● creating a need to know 
● sharing objective, in general terms 
 
Greet kids: “How are you guys doing today?” *Have small conversation. Allow them to 
get comfortable sitting down. “It’s been awhile since we have been in our group 
together! But today we are going to continue working on doing our best writing and 
choosing our topics we are writing about. Today we are going to work on taking our 
ideas from our head and getting them on our paper right away. Remember we need to 
make sure our sentences make sense and have correct capitalization and punctuation.” 
“What are you going to choose to write about today?”  
“What are some things that you notice about this picture that we could write about? What 
words can I write down that will help you write?” *Have students pick out keywords that 
they see in the picture and write them on the whiteboard or on the page directly for them 
to refer back to. 
 
  
2. Content Delivery (20 minutes; direct instruction, Learner-Centered Model, Discussion 
Method)   
“Today we are going to start writing using the pictures that each of you selected to write 
about! This is the beginning to our writing journey.”  
The two students may decide to choose two different images to write about…  
Ask each one of them what they are thinking about their image.  
“What do you think they’re doing?”  
“Why do you think that they are doing that?” 
“What do you think happens next?” Etc… These questions are also helping the students 
draw inferences, which is a reading skill!  
Have students write sentences continually throughout the lesson. Students will share 
their ideas as they write. (Hard to script this part because I am not sure what they will 
choose to write about or what they inferences they will draw based on their image!)  
Remind students to make sure they have the correct capitalization, grammar, and 
punctuation. Help guide students with ideas to write about as needed.  
Students at this time will be writing and also sharing their ideas verbally, exchanging 
ideas, and asking questions.  
Prompts:  
● Look closely at the pictures.  
● What do you want people to know about the picture? 
● Imagine a story built around this picture. 
● Can you imagine if you were there? 
● What kind of story can you build from this picture? 
   
3. Closure (5 minutes)   
When students are finished writing, have them read aloud what they have wrote. 
Compliment them on correct tense usage, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, etc. 
Congratulate them on completing their assignment! Award B.M with a star for his 
complete work and allow I.S to have a couple minutes for a reset break before she goes 
back to class. Dismiss them when I feel that their best work is completed.  
 
B. Assessments Used 
Formative Assessment- Analyzing student work, reading their writing and evaluating their 
ability to use correct grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.  
  
C. Differentiated Instruction   
 1. Allow students to look at pictures to write from instead of writing from a reading 
passage. Visuals allow students to pick out details to write about and continually 
refer back as needed.  
2. Use positive reinforcement throughout the lesson to continually motivate students 
to be writing and doing their best work.  
3. Use verbal prompting to help students come up with questions. Ask questions yes 
or no questions, give them two options to pick from, etc.  
 
D. Resources 
Common Core- ​http://www.corestandards.org/  
Writing Strategies Book- Photo Starts 3.4 
Serravallo, J. (2017). ​The writing strategies book: Your everything guide to developing skilled
writers.​ Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

I modified this strategy by using images they select themselves that seem interesting to them:

 
Lesson Reflection:
Overall, I thought this lesson went well. One of the students who is a part of this group was
unable to show up this day, but the other student was there. “BM” was a little shy this day,
mostly because the camera with my University Supervisor made him a little uncomfortable.
When starting this lesson, I could have done a better job of stating the ‘why’ of the assignment.
“BM” was constantly giving good ideas that he got from the picture he chose to write from. He
did get stuck a couple of times and needed redirecting or a question to promote some of his
ideas. One other thing I could have done to help “BM” is provide a graphic organizer for him to
get all of his thoughts down on paper before we start writing in a paragraph or sentence form.
Providing him with key words from the pictures and letting him help me come up with words
seems to be successful for him.
Dakota State University ~ College of Education

Scripted Observations

Teacher Reanna Fitzgerald 3/12/19

Candidate: Date:

Cooperating Sonya Stemkoski 2:15—2:45

Teacher: Time:

Content Area: Writing Visit #: 3

Grade Level: Elementary

Grouping: Individual x Small Group x Whole Class

Conceptual Framework guiding principles addressed during this observation:

x ​Knowledge (Content & x ​Managing the x ​Planning & Preparation

Pedagogy) Environment

x ​Technology x ​Instruction & x ​Professionalism

Assessment

Scripted Observation Notes

4:17 Do you have a pencil with you. . Grab one . .

-Helping students be prepared. . ready to learn
4:18 lot of activity going on in room , explain late start, 2 hour late start
-helped understand the difference
“What’s your goal? What work on? Writing . .lets get started .. . work hard
-good job of praising and encouraging
4:19 how start story about this man, how do you want to start? What are you thinking about .
. his emotions? or what?
-good wait time , gave him some ideas .. . emotions . . .
4:20 remember what you are working for . . how start this story . .
-idea: think of an audience to give purpose or motivation . ..
4:21 Gave idea.. start here and come up with another idea after
-good job of scaffolding instructions
 Good handwriting
-nice job of finding something to praise him with . . “Boys town”

4:22 Do you like sea? Seafood. .yeah.. how do you end a sentence . . period. Good job.
What did you forget? Remember, no star til the end
4:23 Now what . .how many pounds? If they didn’t see that picture, could they ask that
questions? I want to measure it. You want to measure it? Minecraft. Ben is that the biggest
or the smallest? Biggest? Ive never seen that before. Could you write about that?
4:24 Yes! Want to write about that? Complete sentence. Capital letter. How did you start
your sentence? That’s good . How spell seen?
4:25 sounded it out for him . see vs. seen . . good job . . . I’ve never seen a fish .
4:26 Remember if it’s not the beginning of the sentence do we need a capital? I always miss
that. . that’s ok. . You’re learning
-great positive feedback
Now punctuation. Great! Now what else can we write about on this paper?
4:27 Where are they at?
-maybe at the beginning, brainstorm questions that you want to answer , or create
“pototao head” of ideas about a topic . . complete a pre-writing activity to brainstorm ideas . .
4:28 Student said I’m afraid of sharks. . me too. . now strong fishing pole .how are we going to
write about that?
-good prompting
4:29 The fishing pole did what? Caught the fish. . ooh that’s good . .
-encouraging , with reminders of writing conventions . .
4:30 Read the sentence for me. . how end? Exclamation point . . exciting sentence and
what missing . .
-helped him edit it
4:31 Student read the passage . .
4:32 Should that be a capital or not ?
-important indeed to show concern for the student and desire to not be on camera …
What else write about this? I don’t know .. is it rainy? No sunny. . weather?
4:33 Nice day, on the boat. . .what do you want to write first? Wrote it down for student,
some boats could float in. .
4:34 speed boats . . yachts. . only for fishing . . on sunny days? Yes .. ok. . The boat was
used for fishing on sunny days.
4:35 Had student write the sentence . . be careful of how you start
4:36 Provided wait time for student to write
-could model how to write a passage . . so you were doing one at the same time . . then
you could turn it into a DOL lesson as well . .
4:37 I have a question. If you caught that fish? What would you do? Put it back in the water.
. really? Ok, say that. . If I caught that fish, I’d put it back in the water. Wrote sentence for
student.
-if you had own picture. . you could have student ask you a question and then model
how to write a sentence as an answer
 Danielson Framework Notes
DOMAIN 1: PLANNING & PREPARATION -evident knows student’s present level of
-​ ​Content & Pedagogical Knowledge performance
-​ ​Knowledge of Students -noted state standard
-​ ​Setting Instructional Outcomes -noted IEP goal
-​ ​Knowledge of Resources -modified a lesson from a strategies book
-​ ​Designing Coherent Instruction
-​ ​Designing Student Assessments
Tools: LP & Observation

DOMAIN 2: CLASSROOM -excellent management of classroom

ENVIRONMENT environment
-​ ​Environment of Respect & Rapport -managed student behavior with positive
-​ ​Culture of Learning in Classroom feedback
-​ ​Managing Classroom Procedures -great job of highlighting positives
-​ ​Managing Student Behavior
-​ ​Organizing Physical Space
Tools: Observation

DOMAIN 3: INSTRUCTION -good use of questioning to prompt student

-​ ​Communicating with Students response
-​ ​Using Questioning & Discussion -modeled expectation through writing proper
Techniques sentences out for student
-​ ​Engaging Students in Learning -used on-going assessment to tailor instruction
-​ ​Using Assessment in Instruction
-​ ​Demonstrating Flexibility &
Responsiveness
Tools: Observation

DOMAIN 4: PROFESSIONAL -receptive to ideas offered through

RESPONSIBILITIES post-observation review
-​ ​Reflecting on Teaching
-​ ​Maintaining Accurate Records
-​ ​Communicating With Families
-​ ​Participating in Professional
Community
-​ ​Growing & Developing
Professionally
-​ ​Showing Professionalism
Tools: Portfolio, Interaction & Observation
Action Items
1)​ ​Strive to introduce the lesson with a creative hook to heighten student interest and motivation.
2)​ ​Use graphic organizers as a tool to brainstorm and organize collection of thoughts
3)​ ​Model expectation through creating own paragraph, before student works independently and during
lesson.

Observer: Student Teacher’s Signature*

*Signature indicates that the contents of this observation were discussed.

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