ELL Writing Project-Lesson Plan

Candidate’s Name: Aviva Zussman              

Grade Level: 3^rd Grade          

Title of the lesson: Journal Entry

Length of the lesson: Two 45 minute class period plus homework

 

Central focus: ·         Develop and improve an ELL writing skills and ability to express himself in English. ·         Provide clarity and organization to thoughts to create coherent writing.

Knowledge of students: This student is able to converse easily in English. His vocabulary is mainly conversational and uses little words that are only found in writing (ex-therefore, etc).His first language is Hebrew and he spends the bulk of his day communicating in Hebrew with his friends and family members. He has strong phonetic awareness and often times reads and spells words phonetically (ex-brij instead of bridge). He writes basic sentences based on his vocabulary words in class consisting in four or five words. Sam works well when he has motivational contests and gets rewards for his work.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

Support literacy development through language:   In this lesson Sam will retell a trip that he went on over vacation. He will develop a writing plan with a list of vocabulary that will help with his sentence structure and content. The writing plan will also assist him with writing his narrative in sequential order.

Learning objectives ·         Sam will be able to develop his thoughts in writing. ·         Sam will use a higher level of vocabulary in his writing. ·         Sam will formulate more sophisticated sentences. ·         Sam will be able to write events in sequential order.

Formal and informal assessment: During the planning stage Sam will be assessed on his active engagement in the activity. When he tells over what he did over vacation he should use appropriate words and terms (ex-instead of saying that he went on a “thing with two wheels down the what’s it called” he should say that he “went biking on the path”). When his writing plan is completed and checked over by the teacher, he will then be assessed on how accurately he followed his plan. He will be expected to use all of the vocabulary words on his list in addition to including all of the events that he discussed before.

Instructional strategies and learning tasks: Sam will develop a list of vocabulary that will help with sentence structure (transitional phrases, sequencing terms etc. ) and content (words linked to his vacation like holiday, family, biking etc.). Sam will also write what he did over vacation in sequential order.

Instructional resources and materials used to engage students in learning: Sam will be able to use a portable handheld dictionary/thesaurus. This device has a speaking feature that allows the student to speak into it to get a definition or word that he needs. Sam can also use a digital graphic organizer to help him with planning.

Reflection Did your instruction support learning for the whole class and the students who need great support or challenge? This lesson was designed with helping my ELL student Sam. In theory however, I feel that the instructional methods that were used with him would also be beneficial when teaching an entire class. Modifications would need to be made on how to give each child an opportunity to speak out his or her ideas. Perhaps in a whole class setting students can discuss their thoughts in groups and the teacher can monitor these groups to help her students organize their writing plans. What changes would you make to support better student learning of the central focus? This lesson is meant to develop Sam’s English communication skills. Although Sam is able to carry a conversation in English with ease, I feel that one of his overall goals to work on throughout his schooling to develop his communication in both speech and writing. Specifically in this lesson I feel that in addition to working hard on organizing his passage writing, we should practice to orally retell in an organized fashion. Perhaps having Sam repeat his thoughts after short discussions on organization and vocabulary to improve his retelling skills would centralize Sam’s learning. Why do you think these changes would improve student learning? Support your explanation from evidence of research and/or theory. Developing ELL’s academic English skills is imperative for these students’ future academic success. The website Readersrocket.org suggests that specific time blocks throughout the day should be dedicated to teaching academic English skills. This can be done in a variety of ways such as using technical terms like compare and contrast, quote, etc. Having both the teacher and the students using these terms regularly will be very helpful for their language development.

 

Dr. Hui-Yin Hsu Spring 2014