Sharon Somers WU Plan

Writing for Understanding Instruction

Teacher Plan

Teacher Sharon Somers_________________Class _kindergarten________Date _July 18, 2011, _____Writing genre_____Narrative________

Topic / Subject / Text Building Community- This unit would be incorporated throughout the entire year as we spend the year in kindergarten working on personal and social growth.

CENTRAL IDEAS Content: We all must do our part to build community. Reading: Reading and re-reading helps us understand the text. Listen to read alouds, paraphrase, identify motive of characters.Talking about words and word meanings as they are encountered in books and in conversation. Standard 1.1 Reading Strategies Comprehension Strategies RK:7 Uses comprehension strategies (flexibly and as needed) while listening to literary and informational text. Using prior knowledge, predicting and making simple text-based inferences; generating clarifying questions; constructing sensory images (e.g. making pictures in one’s mind); or making connections (text to self, text to text, and text to world). Standard 1.3 Reading Comprehension, Initial Understanding of Literary Text.RK:10Demonstrate initial understanding of elements of literary texts read aloud by identifying characters in a story, Responding to simple questions about a book’s content. Writing: Children respond to the text depicting evidence of good community building through charts, labeling pictures and discussions, Standard 1.7 Response to Literature WK:6 In response to literary or informational text, students make and support analytical judgments about text by, using prior knowledge or reference to text to support a given focus, using pictures (pictures may include labels, which might only include beginning sounds and/or ending sounds) Expressive Writing;Narratives WK:11 in written narratives, students organize and relate a story line plot/series of events by Using pictures to create an understandable story line, when given a structure (pictures may include labels)

Focusing Question	Focus (answer to focusing question)
How can I help build community in our classroom?	Building community is working together and treating each other with kindness and respect.

Building Content Knowledge, Understanding of Writer’s Craft
• vocabulary • guided reading • text mapping • paraphrasing • summarizing • visualizing/ • imaging • dramatizing • oral processing / guided conversation / think-pair- share • experience • debating • taking notes (graphic organizers, T-charts, 2 column notes, etc.) • craft lessons (intro, transitions, conclusions, etc)	· Vocabulary: community, kindness, respect,working together, building friendships, responsibility, · T charts depicting how characters are showing community building · Summarizing/sequence story using pictures (teacher made) · Frayer Chart “community” Using this model with the teacher writing as the students process through think-pair-share and guided conversations · Web Chart “Friendships” Friends are… Feels like… Sounds like… Looks like… · Sing, Monday Night The Banjo, fill in blanks as to what the student is good at as a classroom helper. Rereading/singing the song, students illustrate their part. · Filling in missing words to poems about friendship · Teacher prepared pictures for children to sort and label showing good community building and not · Think-pair-share discussion, A good community is… A good friend is… · Dramatizing Act out a part where you see good community builders, where you don’t see good community building from the story. · Guided conversation What does this story make you think of? Can you think of a time when you needed help or a friend needed help? Turn and talk · Dramatizing: In pairs children will act a situation that would show good friendship/community building in the classroom or at school. (Teacher prepares situations previously for them to act out or students can think of their own situation.) · How is teamwork important? How would the story be different if the witch didn’t want any help? What do you do when you need help? Turn and talk · Guided reading: Poems on Friendships (see attached) Ø The Big Pumpkin by, Erica Silverman · The Enormous Turnip by, Alexei Tolstoy · Read Alouds: other stories related to topic (pending test-drives) The next five books I would test drive for this topic would be: 1. Fill A Bucket by Carol McCloud 2. Rainbow Fish. 3. How To Lose All Your Friends by Nancy Carlson 4. Share and Take Turns by Shari J Muners 5. Words Are Not For Hurting by Elizabeth Verdick This list has not been test driven but does have some great ways to continue this theme. Ø Learns to Listen by, Howard Wigglebottom Ø Hands are Not for Hitting by, Martine Agassi Ø Friends at School by, Tochelle Bunnett Ø I accept You As You Are! by, David Parker Ø Following The Rules by, Reginal G. Burch Ø I Like Myself by, Karen Beaumont Ø Share And Take Turns by, Cheri J Muners Ø Hooway For Wodney Wat by, Helen Lester Ø We’re Different We’re The Same by, Sesame Street Ø Freckleface Strawberry by, Julianne Moore

Structures How will students know how to organize their ideas and construct the piece of writing?

• graphic organizers • teacher-written models • teacher-and-student written models • various types of templates or frames (ex: Painted Essay)

· Labeling Friendship Hand Wreath- My hands will help our community by… · Teacher-and-student written Book- I Can Help Our Community · Frame: provided for student to fill in , I showed an act of kindness to my class when I _______. · Frame: I was a community builder today because____. · Interactive writing: Reading and filling in words in Friendship charts.. (see attached) · Discussions:How is teamwork important? How would the story be different if the witch didn’t want any help? What do you do when you need help?

Writing / Revising How will students draft / revise so that their final writing is clearly focused, organized, and developed to show understanding of the central ideas?
• group write, fully or in part • write section at a time • write full piece independently • revise /share full group • revise /share partners • proofreading in partners • proofread w/tubaloos	Group write class book. “I Am A Community Helper” each person helps write the class book on how they will do their part to be a good community helper in the classroom. Reread our Frayer chart and web charts “Is there anything we can add ot our charts? Delete from the charts?

Lesson Sequence What steps will I follow so that students are able to effectively show their understanding in writing?

· Gather prior knowledge, What is a community? · Read- The Big Pumpkin, The Enormous Turnip · Think-Pair-Share discussion Was there community building in this story? What did the character want? What worked for the characters? Did working together help? How? What wasn’t working? When the characters were trying to solve the problem on their own could they? Why? Why not? · What does Community Building mean? Did the characters show good community building at some point in the story? When and How? · Summarizing/sequence story using pictures (teacher made) · Frayer Model “Community” Teacher guided · Teacher prepared pictures-children sort pictures Good Community vs Not showing Community · Make a T chart comparing the two read alouds; What didn’t work in the stories vs. What did work in the stories? · Make a list of what our class can do to show that we can work together? · Make a Web Chart to place in the room for a year long reference;What does it look like? sound like? feel like? · Group book, I Am A Community Helper because… · Thumbs up/down; Listent to each scenario and show thumbs up or down if you think it is a good community helper. Teacher gives examples of each and children show thumbs up or down. Ex. Charlie uses a gluestick and doesn’t put the cap back on and leaves it on the table. Thumbs upl down? Sue finishes her snack and goes to center time without putting her stuff away. Thumbs up/down? Kevin sees Jim trying to open his milk and offers to open it for him. Thumbs up/down? Teacher makes the scenarios less and less obvious as they get more and more proficient. Ex. Sue tries to open her milk and struggles, Kevin offers to help, Sue says NO I can do it. Kevin helps her anyway. Thumbs up/down?

Assessment: How are students doing? What are my next steps as a teacher?

Make a class generated list of community building to check for understanding. How many ideas can the class generate without teacher guidance? Be sure to write children’s names next to each idea to check for all children’s understanding. Was everyone able to list at list one idea? Use Kindergarten rubric for our class book I Am A Community Helper Because… Check for carry over into Journal writing or Free Writing (own choice). Are they using this knowledge in their independent journals? Teacher uses Formative and Summative assessments. Can the students illustrate a time in the class when they were helping our community? Use class rubric

Next Steps: Gradual Release of Responsibility

Children will use class book and Web Chart independently for referencing while reading and writing. Children will decide who gets the weekly award as Good Community Helper in the class. We will use our criteria that we set up earlier from our charts. Read our Community Book and add to our classroom library Post our Community Web chart next to our Word wall for easy access for referencing Read other stories from the list as a year long lesson in community building and friendships. Perhaps start with Fill the Bucket and Rainbow Fish Friendship and Community Building Bulletin-Year long add names and what they did to be a good helper in our class. Students would be a part of deciding whos name would appear on the bulletin each week. This would be a weekly award type activity.