Grades 4 and 5
Successful writing instruction depends on multiple exposures to core concepts, supported by personalized instruction. Each Grade 4-5 lesson-unit provides a series of learning opportunities over a timeline between two and five class sessions. Beginning with a learning game, each unit culminates in student independent writing.
GRADES 2-3: The eWriting for Kids! program will also include Grades 2-3 lesson-units in each genre. (Common Core genre standards begin in Grade 2.) Lessons may address basic skills such as recognizing sentences. Providing introductory lessons will also enable Grades 4-5 teachers to scaffold and personalize instruction, matching lessons to students’ performance grade levels.
Lesson 1
PERSUASIVE WRITING – WIN THEM OVER!
Objectives—Students will:
- Write a persuasive letter organized with: A) Strong opening; B) Two or more reasons to support their position; C) Two or more answers to reasons against their position; D) Memorable closing; E) Appropriate tone for their audience.
- Revise and edit their first drafts to strengthen organization, arguments and word choice, and observe conventions.
Synopsis:
TV host Jake invites students to jump into a game-show—write the best persuasive letter. The challenge: applying 5 keys to persuasion, pick the best arguments to convince your parents to buy a puppy. After organizing ideas and revising and editing a draft, winners earn the fun of playing with a virtual puppy.
*Temporarily, Win Them Over will not run on systems lacking Flash players, such as iPads and some Chromebooks. We’ll have that fixed soon.
Lesson 2
DESCRIPTIVE WRITING – SHARING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
Objectives—Students will:
- Write a descriptive essay sharing a personal experience about a person, place or thing;
- Use vivid sensory and feeling words and phrases as well as similes and metaphors;
- Organize compositions around a main impression, with a strong opening, 3 supporting paragraphs, and a memorable conclusion;
- Employ the five step writing process of pre-writing, first draft, revising, editing, and publishing.
Synopsis:
Carmen, editor of the Kids2Kids website, invites the student to build a blog post about an unforgettable day at the beach with friends. Short first-person videos immerse students in boogie-boarding, building a sandcastle, and singing and roasting hotdogs around a campfire.
Interactively, students choose language describing the videos, sort their words into sense and feeling categories, fill cloze-style blanks in a First Draft, and revise the draft by selecting more vivid words, phrases and similes.
Lesson 3 – in development
INFORMATIVE WRITING – JUST THE FACTS!
Objectives—Students will:
- Organize information logically, either chronologically or in order of importance.
- Introduce their topic clearly, with a general observation.
- Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details and quotations.
- Employ illustrations and multimedia.
- Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary.
- Provide a concluding statement.
Synopsis:
Students will play the role of reporters for their school website, covering kids’ efforts to help save the planet from global pollution and climate change. Students will research online and interview local scientists and activists, including doubters.
Lesson 4 – in development
NARRATVE WRITING – LET’S WRITE A STORY
Objectives—Students will
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
a. Orient the reader by establishing a setting, characters, and situation;
b. Introduce a change which triggers the plot;
c. Develop a conflict in response to the trigger event;
d. Bring the conflict to a climax;
e. Provide a resolution that follows credibly from the events;
f. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, description, and pacing;
g. Use a variety of transitional words, phrases, and clauses to manage the sequence of events;
h. Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.
Synopsis:
Students see a graphic-novel cover with the title: The Treasure in the Haunted Castle. A book editor invites the student to create a scary story in which characters dare to go in the spooky place and overcome a villain to capture the treasure.
Story-arc is modeled for students as a series of links in a chain: Set-up & Characters; Trigger; Conflict; Climax; Resolution. To build their stories, students will pick one of 3 options at the start of each link.
