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A short story The Beach

Cindy Pace
Writing
Grade 2 / Writing

Common Core Standards:


Grade 2
Text Types and Purposes
W.K2.2c Choose an object that represents a writing topic.
W.K2.3c Sequence events from a personal experience.
W.K2.5c With guidance and support, select details to strengthen writing.
W.K2.6c With guidance and support, explore digital tools to produce and publish writing.
W.2.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to
develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.
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.

Lesson Summary:
This lesson is a writing assignment short story. The purposes of this lesson is to get the second grade students
writing with using narratives and telling a story of what happened with details, order and closure. We will
make the story into a book. The students will be using descriptive words to describe the events that happen and
the things they find on a trip to the beach. They will use iPads to take photographs of collages for their book.
The students will take photos of each other for a book cover. The students will edit photos on PicMonkey and
make a book cover on Cover Creator. (hand written or typed)
Estimated Duration:
This lesson will take about two hours (170 minutes). The lesson will take five days for the students to complete
at 30 to 40 minutes a day. This assignment is not all writing so I feel the longer time range will be attainable
for second grade students.
Commentary:
Some children have not had the opportunity to go to a beach or family trip. This could be a challenge to for
them to imagine what it would be like. Taking photos on an iPad might take time to get a clear picture. I would
also make sure the office has a photo release for each student. I would get the children hooked by showing
them a finished book. Although not all children like to write they do like pictures of themselves. The book

cover using Cover Creator with an edited photo using PicMonkey will be a photo of the student. Typing may
be a challenge for some students. The students who have had some keyboard experience could type their story
and other students would write it in their best hand writing.

Instructional Procedures:
Day 1:
Getting ready
Introductory activity~
I will ask students to describe an object that I give them to pass around. They will feel the texture and look at
the details of the object. We will talk about the object and what they now know about how it feels and what it
looks like. We will pass around a few things until they get the idea of describing the object. This should take
about 5 minutes. Then I will read a short story as an example of the type of story they will write. We will then
talk about the story having a title, beginning, middle and ending. This should be another 5 minutes. Now we
will go around and one student will name an object and another student will give a word to describe it. This
will be a short 5 minute activity. (20 minutes)
We will now start the questions hand out. This is a starter to get them thinking about a story. Students
sometimes have a hard time getting started with an idea. I will pass out the hand out and we will go over the
questions. The students may ask me if they dont know what something is. I will remind them that the story
will be called The Beach. I want them to think about this when they answer the questions. I will give the
students 10 minutes to start answering the questions.(30 minutes total lesson time)
Day 2:
The first 5 minutes the students will finish their questions. They have time to read over all the questions and
correct spelling errors. The next 10 minutes will be working on the story I started. They will fill in the blanks
with words from the question page or fill it in with a word they think would work better. Now it is time for the
students to finish the story. They can use the words in the questions or use their own ideas. This is where it
gets fun. I will go around to help if they get stuck on what would come next. What they would do at the beach,
eat or activities they may experience. Last would be the ending of the story. I will give them 20 minutes for
this.(35 minutes total lesson time)
Day 3:
The first 5 minutes of class we will take a break from our writing and look at a book with pictures of objects
like the pictures we will be taking. I will quickly cover how to take a picture on the iPad, but most students
know how to do this. I will have things like sand, sea shells, a crab, bucket, beach towel ectWe will talk
about putting things together in a group to photograph. I will explain that the photographs will be in their
books. This can be a fun group project with a few students with the iPads and others putting the objects in
groups. The students with the iPads first will take pictures. Learning how close or far away they like the
picture. We will take turns with both jobs. I will give 20 minutes for this activity. The next 10 minutes they
will take pictures of each other. This will be a partner task. One student will take a picture or two and then they
will switch. They will show the picture to their partner and make sure they like it. (35 minutes total lesson

time)
Day 4:
The first 5 minutes I will start by going over a file. I will have all the photos in a computer file for the students
to view. The computers will be on and the photos ready to view. The students will want a few minutes to
enjoy this part. The next 35 minutes the students will select the photos for the book pages one or two of the
photos they took. Then they will print them. The other photo they will select will be for their cover. This photo
will be of the student. They will use PicMonkey to edit with simple edits like a hat or white teeth or red
cheeks. They will save their work and go to cover creator. This is where they will get the photo from the file
and add the title, author name and background color. I will be going around to help. We will print the cover
page. If we need more time we can continue on day 5.(40 minute total lesson time)
Day 5:
This is the final day! The students will be finishing any writing or typing of the book pages. The students
typing will type in word. The other students will write the story on their pages. I will have pages precut for this
project. The students typing will print on a heavy paper for their pages. This will be a finishing day and I want
the students to take their time with this final stage of the assignment. The students will put their book in the
order they would like adding the picture pages in between the text. I will put the books together and we will be
going over them together on Monday. (30 minutes+ total lesson time)
Pre-Assessment
As we start the lesson we will go over our topic (the beach). As we pass around the objects and the students
describe them we will talk about the object (the facts). After I read a story we will talk about the beginning,
middle, and the ending. [Text Types and Purposes] We will go over narratives of a short sequence of events. I
will make sure the students know how to put a conclusion to an event.
Scoring Guidelines:
This lesson is a beginning writing assignment and I will be scoring it informal. The students will conduct self assessments by circling words they feel might be misspelled (self- checking). I will use this assignment as a
guideline for their future writing assignments. The completion of the questions and filling in the blanks to the
start of the story will tell me where the student is in understanding the writing standard at this point
Post-Assessment:
The post assessment will be the finished book. I will put the books together and read them to make sure the
students had a good understanding of the flow and structure of a story. This is the beginning of the students
writing and I hope this will get them excited about story writing. The first book will be a good guide to look
back on as these young authors continue to grow as writers.
Students will experience some peer grading telling if the student reading his story has a beginning, middle and
ending. The Pacman game is a little quiz the students will play/take to test themselves. It is a fun way to
reinforce the lesson.
Scoring Guidelines:
My scoring for this post-assessment will be on a pass/fail. This is a beginning writing assignment. I want to see if the

students get the idea of finishing a story idea. The next writing assignment the students will choose their own topic. To pass
this assignment the students will have filled in the blanks with a word that works in the story, continuing the middle with a
purpose or event. They will need a text type or a structure. The story will need an ending. I want to see self -edits to spelling
and punctuation. The students completing the assignment will pass it. I want the students excited about writing and ready
for their next writing assignment. Even though I am not taking a grade on this first writing assignment, I made a rubric so I
am able to keep a record on how the students progress.

Differentiated Instructional Support


Gifted students should write a longer story and they will type their story. Not all of the second grade students
have had the same keyboard experience. The students with more experience could also spend more time on
editing the photos and using different founts for the title, sub title and authors name. They could help other
students with choosing what collages to make up for their photographs.
The student who struggle with this assignment could work with another student to help with photo taking.
Getting help on google for language barriers. The students with less experience typing will be writing the
story by hand.
Students struggling with fine motor skills like hand writing may find typing their story gives them a sense of
accomplishment.

Extension
www.education.cor
This link has writing activities. This would be great practice for summer writing.
www.abcyya.com/se This site students are on at school. You can continue on summer break and keep your
skills going. The vocabulary skills game is a great one to keep growing your vocabulary knowledge.

Homework Options and Home Connections


This is a great homework site parents and student can work on together.
www.vrml.k12.la.us/2nd/Homework/write/2_writing.htm
This is something the students can work on and print. They would bring it back to school and show me their
progress. I would recommend reading and more reading. The more reading the students do by themselves or
with a parent the better understanding of the written words. Parents that read to their child is also a great
home assignment. The more reading the better.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Reading fluency would work well with this lesson. Reading the stories aloud with voice and intonation
(personality) with a nice pace. The short stories are a good tool to use for timed fluency.(1 minute) Vocabulary
would also be a good content area to integrate with a writing lesson but very difficult to make assessments.
Reading comprehension would also work well in this interrelationship. After going over this lesson with a test
group of students I found that they did not know what a coast was or where or where to find one. This led to
geography. We looked up the united states on google and printed a map. We went outside to the playground
where a big map is painted. This was a great insight to another lesson.

Materials and Resources:

For teachers

I will need: A laptop to down load photos in a file, printer to print text and
photographs, websites for PicMonkey and Cover Creator, paper to print the book
pages, book binder, Objects for the students to photograph and pass around for
analyzing, The work sheet of questions and the start of the story, story book to read to
the class, a picture book to show the picture style, A laminator to laminate the book
cover.

For students

Students will need: Laptops to edit the photos and create the cover, IPads to take
the photographs, beach objects to photograph, printer to print pictures and typed text,
pencil to answer the work sheet and write the story, paper to write the story, computer
dictionary or book dictionary.

Key Vocabulary

Title, Author, Download, Image, Edit, Conclusion, Description, Coast line, Texture

Common core standards: W2.2 W2.3 Text types and purposes


www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/

www.mapsfordesighn.com
http://k6educators.about.com/od/GradingStudents/a/Writing-rubric.ht...
Ohio department of education:
https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Special-Education/Students-with-Disabilities/Students-WithDisabilities-(1)/OACS-E-English-Language-Arts.pdf.aspx
http://www.classtools.net/pac/201604_Ufk2TV

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