Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Lesson Title: Kindness Letters

Name ____Hannah King_______
READINESS
I. Goal(s)/Objective(s)/Standard(s)
A. Goal(s)
Students will write with detail and emotions.
B. Objective(s)
Students will write a friendly letter showing appreciation for someone in their life.
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.
2.W.4: Apply the writing process to Generate a draft by developing, selecting
and organizing ideas relevant to topic, purpose, and genre; revise writing, using appropriate
reference materials, by adding details (e.g., organization, sentence structure, word choice); edit
writing for format and conventions (e.g., spelling, capitalization, usage, punctuation); and
provide feedback to other writers. Use available technology to publish legible documents.
Management: time, materials, space, behavior
Time : 30 45 minutes
Materials : writing journals, pencil,
Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ed5TBASg2I)
Space : Students will be at their desks.
Behavior: Students will be expected to stay in their seats throughout the lesson. If
necessary, students will receive a verbal warning and next be asked to flip a card.

II. Anticipatory Set

Have you ever heard of someone doing something as a Random Act of Kindness? This
might be something small helping someone load their groceries into the car, holding a door
open or the acts might be bigger such as shoveling someones drive way or walking their dog.
Maybe your mom doesnt ask you to wash the dishes but you go ahead and do it. These acts are
out of kindness. Here is a quick video of someone doing an random act of kindness?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ed5TBASg2I - (1 minute, 20 seconds)

Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

What do you think the person behind him thought? What kind of emotions did they
experience?
Why do you think the man decided to do pay for that persons food?
III. Purpose: Today we are going to do our own act of kindness; we will be writing letters to
someone
INSTRUCTION (Direct)
IV. Lesson Presentation
Our letters will be our act of kindness. We are going to write to someone to let them
know that we appreciate them.
Does anyone know what the word appreciate means? (bounce off discussion)
That we value them, we are thankful for them and what they do for us
So take a moment, a silent moment, and think about who you are thankful.
Why are you thankful for them?
What do they do for you?
We just did some in our head brainstorming and now we are going to brainstorm for our
letter.
In my head brainstorm, I was thankful for my mom. She always makes supper and is
always willing to offer advice.
So now for the real brainstorm, I would write down all the thoughts in my head.
Pull out our writing notebooks and turn to a new page
When we brainstorm, we dont write in complete sentences but just get all our thoughts
out on paper
Im going to ask the questions again and this time you will write your answers
Who are you thankful for? Who do you appreciate in your life? Think of all the answers
you brainstormed before and now select one
Why are you thankful for them?
What do they do for you?
V. Guided Practice
Now we are going to use our written brainstorm as we form our letters. I have my
written brainstorm to look at as you write your letter.
Our letters are to make sure our person knows that we appriacte them and all they do!
What are some of the things you brainstormed?
(Give some example sentences that show the blessing, create an example letter)
Today, we are just writing drafts of our letters. Later on we will have editing sessions
before writing a final draft. Our final draft is the letter we will send out for our kindness act.

Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

(Walk around as students write their letter, help with spelling, formatting, and sentence
crafting)
VI. Closure:
You can do acts of kindness all the time! Kindness can be shown in a lot of ways. We started
the process of writing a letter and will be continuing it so that we can hand them out later.
Turn to your neighbor and discuss some other ways kindness can be shown. Im going to
pass out a sticky note to each person and that will be your exit ticket for the day. Write on act of
kindness you could do.
What is one act of kindness you could do?
VII. Independent Practice/Extending the Learning
If students get far enough in their letter writing process, I will pair two students together
to review. I will have a guiding checklist for students to help edit each others letters.
VIII. Assessment
Formative: I will be observing students thought process and walking around the room
throughout the whole lesson.
Summative: At the end of the writing process, students final letters will be graded.
IX. Adaptations:
Remediation I will review students drafts and be prepared to meet with students who
need further assistants next time. I will be walking around the room to provide help.
Enrichment Due to the writing nature, students can take the project further by making
the letter longer or more detailed.
ESL Depending on the need, I may write as the students tells me the letter. The student
may have acess to a program that orally repeats the word typed.
X. Technology Inclusion
I will use the projector to play the video.
I will also use the smartboard to write my brainstorm list example
EVALUATION
Self-Answer Questions
1. How many students achieved the objective? For those that 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?
a. Blooms Taxonomy
b. Gardners Multiple Intelligences
7. Did students connect to the Acts of Kindness examples? What did they mention in response?