#3037. Mini Lesson for Journal Writing

Reading/Writing, level: 1-2
Posted Sat Oct 22 18:03:25 PDT 2011 by Danielle Donelson (Danielle Donelson).
Regis University, Colorado Springs, CO
Materials Required: Books, pencils, writing journals
Activity Time: 15-25 minutes
Concepts Taught: Making Connections

Regis University
Lesson Plan Template

Name: Danielle Donelson

Title: Writing Workshop Mini-Lesson: Point of View
Content Area: Language Arts: Reading/Writing Grade: 2nd Grade Duration: 20 minutes
Teaching the Lesson (Lesson Sequence/
Activities):

Motivation/Anticipatory Set: Explain today's introduction of the Writing Journal.

Pre-Assessment/Activating Background Knowledge: Today we will begin using a writing journal. This journal will not be corrected for spelling. It is a place where you can share your thoughts and feelings about the stories we read and how you can use those ideas in your own writing. It will be a lot like writing letters or emails to one another. I, your teacher, will respond to what you share with me.

Let's get our our new spiral notebooks and get started!

Pre-Assessment/Activating Background Knowledge:
Tell the students that, today, we will share "connections" in our Writing Journals.

Teacher Input, Modeling, & Checking for Understanding: Discuss with the students the story they've just read in their reading group from that day, whatever it happens to be. Ask them if they know what it means to "make a connection." If they don't know, share that it is to find a similarity that a story has with something else they already know about or have done before.

Teacher Input, Modeling, & Checking for Understanding:
Show the students how you, as the teacher, have just read the story of Cinderella. Share a few connections you can make with your own life, with another story you have read before, or with someone else's life. Write them down. Call on students to share what it means to "make a connection" to see if they understand how to do so.

Guided Practice: Discuss the plot of the story they've just read in their reading group from that day, whatever it happens to be. Have one or two students share their own connection to that story, and record it on the board, just as they would in their Writing Journals.

Independent Practice: Then, have students write down the name of the story in their journal, followed by two or three sentences about how they can connect the story to something they have done, seen, or heard in their own lives or someone else's life.

Closure: Students will share their connections with a neighbor, and then, if they want, in front of the entire class.

The teacher will remind the class that today they worked on making connections in their Writing Journals; tomorrow, they will receive feedback from their teacher in the form of a written response in their journal.