Claire Straub

ECI 509
Fall 2019

Writing Lesson Planning Template (Adapted from Tompkins, 2013, p. 22)

Lesson plan based on the following resources:

Brenton, L. (n.d.). Teaching Strategies: Videos as Visual Writing Prompts. Retrieved from

https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-videos-visual-writing-prompts.

Culham, R. (2018). Teach writing well: how to assess writing, invigorate instruction, and rethink

revision. Portsmouth, NH: Stenhouse Publishers.

Graham, S., MacArthur, C. A., & Fitzgerald, J. (2013). Best practices in writing

instruction (Second). New York: The Guilford Press.

Grade level: 2nd Grade

CCSS: W.2.3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence
of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal
words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

SL.2.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2

topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Objective(s):
- The students will identify the purpose of narrative writing
- The students will identify characteristics of narrative writing in a mentor text
- The students will generate ideas and content to develop a topic

Materials (including mentor texts):

- Optional: Paleontologist hats (for teacher and 1 per student)
o Can be purchased on Amazon here
- Document camera
- Graphic organizer (Appendix A)
- Class word bank
- Class enlarged graphic organizer
- Sticky notes
- Observational checklist (for teacher, formative assessment)
- Fossil by: Bill Thomson

Academic Language (vocabulary and/or other language objectives):

Vocabulary:
Narrative Prewriting
Fossil Setting
Paleontologist Events
Shell Problem
Dinosaur Solution
Claire Straub
ECI 509
Fall 2019

Procedure:

Introduce the topic:

Tell students that writers write for different purposes or reasons. Authors can explain,
entertain, and persuade. Explain that in this module our authors purpose is to entertain and tell a
story to our audience (Culham, 2018 p. 58).

Activate prior knowledge:

Tell students, “We have been learning about discovering fossils, does anyone remember
what scientists who look for fossils are called?” Provide a minute of think time and then call on a
student to answer. “Yes, scientists who study fossils are called paleontologists!” Add the words
fossils and paleontologist to the vocabulary word bank (if not already there).

To activate prior knowledge around our topic (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013 p.
205), remind students of the Stone Girl, Bone Girl text they have been reading in class and pose
the question “What are some things that Mary Anning did as a paleontologist?” Have students
turn to their think, pair, and share partners and take turns sharing their ideas. Circulate around the
group and listen to partner conversations or provide sentence stems for those students who
require them. Have students share out their responses to the class.

Say, “we are going to be paleontologists and our job is to tell our readers a story of when
we discovered a fossil!” Pass paleontologist hats to all students.

Mentor Text:
Call students to the carpet and explain that one-way second grade authors can add to their
writing is by reading mentor texts with a writer’s eye. Tell students that reading with a writer’s
eye helps us notice an author’s writing and gives us ideas to help develop our writing to become
stronger authors. Tell students that today as we read with a writer’s eye, they should notice the
setting, characters, problem, events, and solution. (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013 p.
87)

Tell students that today our focus is the prewriting step of the writing process. Our goal is
to generate as many ideas for our fossil stories as possible, so that we can write exciting stories
filled with details. Introduce the story Fossil by Bill Thomson. The use of a wordless book is
intentional for the prewriting step in the process, it is intended to be a visual writing prompt and
encourage reluctant writers to generate their own creative thinking around their narrative topic
(Brenton).

Explain to students that this is a special wordless book, but that we can still read wordless
books just like books with words. Tell students that wordless books can be even more exciting to
read because they must really use their imaginations. Say “I chose this special wordless story for
our prewriting mentor text because it allows us to be extra creative as writers and use our
imaginations to generate ideas for our own fossil stories!” Remind students that as we read to use
their writer’s eye to be on the look out for narrative story elements like characters, setting,
problem, events, and the solution.
Claire Straub
ECI 509
Fall 2019

Slowly move through the pages, stopping periodically to allow students to think, pair, and
share with their partners about anything they noticed with their writer’s eye. Use the document
camera to revisit certain pages that introduce characters, setting, problem, events, and solutions.

Share examples/model:
Using the document camera and Paleontologist Toolkit graphic organizer begin modeling
the Simply Think prewriting strategy (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013 p. 207).

Begin with characters, thinking aloud about characters you want to use in your story.
Modeling example: “This narrative story is about me as a paleontologist finding a fossil so I
must be a character in my story. Today in our mentor text, the boy had his dog with him when he
discovered a fossil. I know that I want a friend to help me discover the fossil too, but I want my
friend to be my sister. My sister’s name is Emily, but I think Fran is a better name for a fossil
finder!”

Continue to Simply Think (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013 p. 207) and think
aloud. Generate potential settings, events, problems, and a solution for your story.

Provide information:
Remind students that today we are pre-writing, our job is to come up with as many
creative ideas for our fossil stories as possible.

Explain to students not to worry about spelling or organizing their ideas, we will do that
later in our writing process. Tell them that today is all about generating as many ideas for our
narratives as possible so that we will have enough “tools” to write with when we begin our rough
drafts. (Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013 p. 203)

Guided practice:
Give students sticky notes to generate ideas about a paleontologist story. Allow them to
go back to their seats and brainstorm with their teams to come up with ideas for what kind of
characters, setting, problems, events, and solutions we could use in our fossil stories. Table
teams write their ideas on sticky notes and add them to the class Paleontologist Toolkit anchor
chart. Have students choose one to two ideas from their sticky notes to share with the class
before adding them to the anchor chart.

Have students return to their desks. The students will work on their own Paleontologist
Tool Kit organizer to generate ideas that can be included in their narrative story. Students will
brainstorm ideas for their characters, setting, problem, and solution and record them in on their
prewriting organizer. As students work, circulate throughout the room with the teacher’s
Claire Straub
ECI 509
Fall 2019

observation formative assessment checklist. Document student behaviors and provide any
support needed for struggling writers (Culham, 2018 p. 60).

Peer Collaboration:
During share time, students will work with their writing buddy to share their ideas. They
can modify and add to their own “tool kit” of ideas.

Closing:
Gather students together on the carpet once more, have students share out ideas that they
liked from their partners and anything they may have added to “their tool kit.” Have students
place their Paleontologist Tool Kit graphic organizers in their Write-On folders in the prewriting
pocket (Culham, 2018 p.107). They will need this tomorrow when they begin to expand and
organize their ideas.

Assess learning:
Teacher observation (formative assessment):

Student Name Has generated at Has generated an Has generated Has generated a
least two appropriate setting at least two possible
appropriate events. problem and
characters solution
Claire Straub
ECI 509
Fall 2019

Appendix A

Prewriting Graphic Organizer

The graphic organizer that students will use during their prewriting. Students will generate ideas
for each of the narrative elements and record them in their corresponding boxes. They will later
use this to add to the class organizer and share their ideas with a peer.