Jason Resnick April 20, 2013

Lesson Plan: Writing Mini-Lesson Grade:5 Time: 25 Minutes

Standard: W.5.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. Objective: Students will write a narrative using descriptive details and effective techniques like those that are used in the book Thank You, Mr. Falker. Materials: Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco-original book for teacher Black and white copies of Thank you, Mr. Falker for students Pencils Paper Chart Paper Descriptive Details and Effective Techniques Lesson Sequence: 1. Lesson Introduction (Engagement) Boys and girls, do you remember when we read the story Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. In the book, the author Ms. Polacco used descriptive details and effective techniques in her book. Ms. Polacco has a way with her writing to bring her books to life; her words let you create a picture in your mind by the way she explains things with her descriptive details and effective techniques. I felt a good example of her using descriptive details in the book was when she wrote, The numbers looked like a stack of blocks, wobbly and ready to fall. One of Ms. Polaccos effective techniques is when she repeats a word a few times in a row to get her point across, an example of this is, Still other days she worked with wooden blocks and built words. Letters, letters, letters. Words, words, words. Ms. Polaccos use of descriptive details and effective techniques are reasons why she is such a powerful writer and why her books are so popular. 2. State Objectives and Purpose Today class, you are going to write powerful narratives like Ms. Polaccos Thank you, Mr. Falker. In order to capture the readers attention, make sure you use descriptive details and effective techniques in your narratives. 3. Teach and Model Have chart paper ready with the heading Descriptive Details and Effective Techniques.

Class, can someone tell me what descriptive details are? I will call on a student who volunteers to answer the question. If the question is not answered correctly or enough detail is not given, I will call on other students until the question is answered correctly and in detail. I will then reiterate what descriptive details are. Boys and girls, descriptive details are words that express a person, place or thing in such a manner that an image can be created in the readers mind. A way to portray an occurrence through descriptive details is by using some of the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste. Using descriptive details in your writing means using explicit adjectives and nouns and strong action verbs. Who can tell me examples of these? I will call on a few students who volunteer to give me examples. Some examples could be new, red, tall, run, talks, wrote, poodle, dictionary and Oreo. Another good writing tool is using effective techniques. Some effective techniques in writing are repetition of words or phrases and rhyming of words, both improve the depth of writing. An example of repetition of words is he was tall, so very tall and an example of rhyming could be Mike can spell very well. We are now going to look at the copies of Thank you, Mr. Falker book that I gave you, and we are going to look for examples of descriptive details and effective writing that Ms. Polacco used in the book. Lets first look and see if we can find descriptive wording in the book that tells us about Trishas new teacher, Mr. Falker. We are going to search for words that tell about what he looks like? On page 9, I see an example, look at the second paragraph, it says, There was a new teacher. He was tall and elegant. Everybody loved his striped coat and slick gray pants-he wore the neatest clothes. The author uses words like tall, elegant, striped, slick, gray and neatest, to allow the reader to be able to picture in their mind what Mr. Falker looked like. Now lets see if we can locate in the book where Ms. Polacco uses effective techniques. Ms. Polacco uses the repeating words in a row technique to get her point across in the book. Look at page 9 the first paragraph where it says, She dreamed more and more, and drew more and more, and she hated, hated, hated school. See how the repeating technique makes the writing more powerful. Ms. Polaccos use of descriptive details and effective techniques are reasons why she is such a successful writer and why her books are so popular. Boys and girls, I want you now to review the copies of Thank you, Mr. Falker book that I gave you, and I want each of you to write down three items in total on your paper; these items can be either descriptive details and/or effective techniques that you see in the book. After a few minutes, I will ask for volunteers to tell me one of their items that they have found, and we will discuss them, and then I will write them on the chart paper. Some of the items that I hope the students will find in the book are descriptive words like: littlest girl, redheaded brother, watch her do her magic with the crayons, You are the smartest, quickest, dearest little thing ever. Some effective technique examples are She was happy, so very happy. School seemed harder and harder. Who would like to share with the class one of the items that they have written on their paper? Great job students, you found some fantastic items, now that we have listed some descriptive details and effective writing techniques from the book; I want you to go back to your seats and write your own narrative that includes descriptive details and effective techniques.

4. Guided Practice Boys and girls before you start your writing, I want you to plan out what you are going to write about. Then write some descriptive details and effective techniques, like we saw in the book. Once you are done writing your outline, please come up to my desk for a mini conference, and once I approve your outline you can go back to your desk and begin to write your narrative." 5. Independent Practice/Assessment Send students back to their seats, to incorporate any additional changes or information into their outlines as was discussed in the mini conference. Have them begin writing their rough draft of their narrative. 6. Closure Writers that is all the time we have for today, I saw that many of you have gotten a good start on your narratives. When I say go, I want you to turn and talk to a neighbor and tell them briefly about what your narrative is about and tell them about some of the descriptive details and effective techniques that you included in your narrative. Okay, switch, now the other person in the group will tell their neighbor about what they are writing about. Stop. Great job today writers, I cant wait until your narratives are complete so that I can read all the descriptive details and effective techniques included in your narratives. Please put your drafts in your writing folder and put the pencils I have given you back into the pencil jar. We will continue to work on your narratives tomorrow during class." 7. How will you know the lesson has been successful? I will know if the lesson is successful if the students are able to write a descriptive narrative with effective techniques, and if they also incorporated all the information that I discussed with them during our mini conference in the narrative. 8. Differentiation I will differentiate the lesson by working with all the students individually during their mini conference. If a student has any problems deciding on a topic, understanding what a narrative is, coming up with descriptive details or putting effective techniques into their narrative, I will help them during the mini conference and if needed, have additional one on one conferences with them.

Descriptive Details & Effective Techniques