What's Happening Now?

This comprehension and writing lesson helps the student develop skills in predicting what will happen next and sequencing. It also develops the ability to answer what, where, when, and how questions. It can also include a writing activity that teaches writing in a newspaper format by answering the "W" questions and creating a class newspaper book.

A lesson plan for grade 1 English Language Arts

By Nancy McGowan

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Related topics

• Learn more about English language arts.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• make predictions-tell what happened before and what will happen next.
• answer “W” questions about a picture.
• write a newspaper style description of their picture answering the “W” questions.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

2.0 hours

Materials/resources

• tape
• scissors
• poster board
• laminator (optional)
• large teacher made question mark with interchangeable dots with what, when, where, and why written on them as a visual (see attachment)
• interesting pictures from magazines and/or newspapers
• construction paper
• sentence strips (optional)
• markers
• 11×14 paper with space to glue picture for each student

Technology resources

• computer - optional
• writing process program - optional

Pre-activities

• Glue pictures on construction paper-laminate for future use.
• Make large question mark and dots with question words (See attachment for sample).
• Cut out large question mark and dots with question words.
• Glue question mark on poster board. Laminate question mark and dot words.
• Attach tape to back of dot words. Place words around question mark.
• Students will need some previous experience with sequencing and predicting what will happen next.
• The teacher will read a short newspaper article. (You can create your own brief article about the class or about a picture to model how a newspaper article answers the “W” questions.)

Activities

1. Show students a picture and ask questions such as, “What do you think is happening in the picture?” “What would be in a picture that came before this picture?” “What would happen next?”Discuss several pictures. Elicit responses from class.
2. The next day, give each student a new picture.
3. Have the students glue the picture at top in the middle of a sheet of paper (11×14) turned sideways. You can have them fold it in three sections for each sentence and/or picture.
4. Then have student draw and/or write a picture and a sentence for before, and a sentence for glued in picture and a picture and/or sentence for what would happen next.
5. Have students share their work.
6. On another day, show the question mark and dot “W” questions. Move the appropriate dot word under question mark as you ask each question. For example, “Who is the picture about?” Have the students answer questions about several new pictures. Model writing an article about the picture.
7. Give each student a new picture or use pictures from previous lesson.
8. Have students create their own articles about their pictures by answering the “W” questions. You can have the students type it on a writing program and edit.
9. Create a class “newspaper” by attaching pictures to typed stories and put together a class book.

Assessment

• Student can orally predict what happened before what is pictured, what is happening in the picture, and what will happen next.
• Student can orally answer “W” questions about picture.
• Student successfully writes and/or draws before, now, and next responses to picture.
• Student successfully writes sentences that answer questions about picture to include in class book.

Supplemental information

None

Related websites

N/A

Comments

If you want to do this at higher level, you can write a sentence on a sentence strip and elicit responses for what would happen before and what would happen after and write them on sentence strips. Then you can give each child or group a sentence and have them create before and next sentences.