Writing workshop: Helping writers choose and focus on a topic
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=314
A lesson plan for grades K–2 English Language Arts
This lesson from ReadWriteThink helps young writers bring greater focus to their writing. Students use a timeline to break a larger topic into several events or moments. They then select an event to write about from the timeline. Students first work with a whole-class topic, then apply this strategy to self-selected topics. Students share their writing and respond constructively to one another’s efforts. Finally, teacher-student conferences help students incorporate feedback and work on specific weaknesses.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
English Language Arts (2004)
Grade 1
- Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
- Objective 4.04: Extend skills in using oral and written language:
- clarifying purposes for engaging in communication.
- using clear and precise language to paraphrase messages.
- engaging in more extended oral discussions.
- producing written products.
- completing graphic organizers.
- Objective 4.05: Write and/or participate in writing by using an author's model of language and extending the model (e.g., writing different ending for a story, composing an innovation of a poem).
- Objective 4.06: Compose a variety of products (e.g., stories, journal entries, letters, response logs, simple poems, oral retellings).
- Objective 4.04: Extend skills in using oral and written language:
Grade 2
- Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
- Objective 4.06: Plan and make judgments about what to include in written products (e.g., narratives of personal experiences, creative stories, skits based on familiar stories and/or experiences).
- Objective 4.07: Compose first drafts using an appropriate writing process:
- planning and drafting.
- rereading for meaning.
- revising to clarify and refine writing with guided discussion.
Kindergarten
- Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
- Objective 4.06: Write and/or participate in writing behaviors by using authors' models of language.
