LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

English Language Arts — 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).

Additional related resources

We’re in the process of aligning our content for students to the Standard Course of Study. As we do, you’ll find it here.

General resources

Aligned lesson plans

Vessels in Greek art: Museum pre-visit
This lesson will focus on what vessels are, where we can find them in our everyday world, and the concept that vessels are containers that hold something. This lesson is the first lesson of two.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)
By Katie O'Connor.
Narrowing the focus: What's the main event?
In this lesson, students will learn how to narrow the focus of their personal narrative down to one main event by selecting a more specific title. Good stories are focused on one topic or main event. The reader should be able to tell the most important thing that the story is about. Instead of writing a story about a whole vacation that describes many events, it is a good strategy to write a story about one thing that happened on the vacation - one main event.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2–4 English Language Arts)
By DPI Writing Strategies.
Marvelous metamorphosis
Most kids love insects. This integrated unit will enable students the opportunity to observe, identify, and describe the life cycle a mealworm goes through during his metamorphosis into a grain beetle.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science)
By Pam Maness.
Make that chocolate sundae!
The student will write detailed directions for making and eating a chocolate sundae. S/he will then create and eat a sundae.
Format: lesson plan (grade 1–2 English Language Arts)
By Landa Latta.
Getting hooked: Introduction for a narrative
Students will be able to identify techniques for writing an introduction for a narrative and use them effectively.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2–4 English Language Arts)
By Leann Kelley.
Economic resources using thinking maps
This lesson uses several literature selections in order to identify and classify natural, human, and capital resources. Students will work together in small groups to gather information and individually complete a Thinking Map. The assessment includes completing a Tree Map individually and sharing group information with the rest of the class. This lesson will take two days.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
By Robin Campbell.
Collecting family stories
Students will interview relatives and compose a family story on the computer. This lesson was completed in conjunction with two other lesson plans (art and media) using the same theme but could be used alone. Student work from all three lessons was compiled in a student portfolio.
Format: lesson plan (grade K–5 English Language Arts, Guidance, and Social Studies)
By Amy Honeycutt, Chris Furry, and Diana Hicks.
The bear who wouldn't sleep
Intermediate-level ESL students will apply facts from a content-based reading passage to create a short story about a bear who doesn't hibernate with his family.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)
By Donna Kauffman.
The Red-eyed Tree Frog and PowerPoint
Students will read The Red-eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley then plan and put together a PowerPoint slideshow which retells the story.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 Computer/Technology Skills, English Language Arts, Information Skills, and Science)
By Jody Shaughnessy.
The Legend of the Blue Bonnet
Students will create their own version/retelling of The Legend of the Blue Bonnet by Tomie dePaola
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)
By Shari Peacock.

Resources on the web

Writing workshop: Helping writers choose and focus on a topic
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... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
What's the difference? Beginning writers compare e-mail with letter writing
In this lesson from ReadWriteThink, students explore the differences between e-mail and letter writing by contrasting and identifying different forms, and experimenting with their own e-mail and letter compositions. This lesson incorporates an “E-Mail... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade 1–2 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
What is history? Timelines and oral histories
This lesson from EDSITEment aims to help students understand history and recognize that the past is different depending on who is remembering and retelling it. There are four activities, in which students construct a timeline based on events from their... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade 1–2 English Language Arts and Social Studies)
Provided by: EDSITEment
Telling a story about me: Young children write autobiographies
In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students learn to develop ideas collaboratively, plan writing projects before executing them, and compose sentences related to a specific topic. The lesson teaches these skills while drawing from the lives of first- and second-grade... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
Teaching audience through interactive writing
This ReadWriteThink lesson supports young writers in learning about audience. Through interactive writing, students work together to create an invitation letter for a group of their peers. In addition, students work independently to create invitation letters... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
Teaching about story structure using fairy tales
The teacher guides students through read-alouds of fairy tales in this unit that introduces the concept of the beginning, middle and end of stories. After students use storyboards to identify common plot sequences in fairy tales, they work in groups to... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
Rain, ice, steam: Using reading to support inquiry about the water cycle
This unit of study allows students to discover the repetitive cycle of water. Read-alouds introduce the topic of rain and hands-on experiments and classroom centers teach students about the water cycle and how it functions. After introducing the topic of... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts and Science)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
Persuasive writing: What can writing in family message journals do for students?
This ReadWriteThink lesson shows children how they can use daily journal communication with families to serve their needs. By involving children in writing several messages with varied purposes, each related to school activities, this lesson helps students... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade 1 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
Our community: Creating ABC books as assessment
Students study the theme of community and collect vocabulary words and key concepts from areas they study in class. Using this information, they create alphabet books that relate each letter of the alphabet with a fact, keyword, or phrase from the unit... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–2 English Language Arts)
Provided by: ReadWriteThink
New takes on old tales
In this Xpeditions activity, students revamp a classic fairy tale so that it takes place in today's world. Related activities for parents to do with their children are also found on this page. (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–7 English Language Arts)
Provided by: Xpeditions