Steve Crimmin WU plan

Writing & the Common Core Assignment

Writing for Understanding Instruction

Teacher Plan

Teacher: Steve Crimmin Class: Language Arts Date 7-19-11 Writing genre Opinion/Response

Topic / Subject / Text

CENTRAL IDEAS

Content: (W.4.1) Write an opinion piece about the main character in a book, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. (In this case, about the character Nick Allen in the book Frindle by Andrew Clements.)

Reading: (RL.4.3) Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).

Writing: Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer's purpose. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.

Focusing Question

Focus (answer to focusing question)

What is your opinion of Nick Allen, based on his thoughts, words, and actions? Is Nick a troublemaker, or is he something else?

Nick can be a mischievous student, but his creativity and intelligence make him much more then a troublemaker.

Test Drive

Nick Is Creative and Intelligent

In the beginning of Andrew Clements's book Frindle, Nick Allen, the hero, appears to be a mischievous troublemaker who enjoys pushing limits in the classroom. But when he takes an idea from his fifth-grade teacher and decides to invent his own word for pen, it quickly becomes apparent that he is a creative and intelligent student.

In the first chapter, Nick shows his ability to make mischief by taking advantage of his inexperienced third-grade teacher to turn the classroom into a tropical island. He gets the other students to make small palm trees out of construction paper and tape them to their desks. He then has all the girls wear flowers in their hair and all the boys wear sunglasses and beach hats. He goes too far on the third day, when he turns the room temperature up to about 90 degrees and spreads fine white sand on the floor. When the custodian complains to the principal about the sand being tracked into the hallway, this episode comes to a sudden end. Although his antics are disruptive, they also show creativity and intelligence.

Nick also demonstrates creativity and intelligence when he turns an idea he gets from television into a means of annoying his fourth-grade teacher. After learning that a bird making a high-pitched peep is impossible for predators to locate because of the way sound travels, Nick begins to peep in his classroom. He and another student continue to peep off and on throughout the school year without ever getting caught.

In coining the word "frindle" as a substitute for pen, Nick shows even greater creativity and intelligence. What begins as a class-stalling technique becomes much more when Mrs. Granger explains to Nick that people determine that "dog means dog." She continues by saying, "But if all of us decided to call that creature something else, and if everyone else did, too, then that's what it would be called, and one day it would be written in the dictionary that way. We decide what goes in that book."

When a friend finds a pen while walking home with Nick, the discovery and Mrs. Granger's words combine to give Nick an idea that he quickly develops into a plan: to make the word frindle mean pen. He starts by going into a store and asking for a frindle, pointing to the ballpoint pens when the clerk looks puzzled. On each of the next five days, he has a different friend go to the same store and ask for a frindle. By the sixth day, the clerk reaches right for the pens and asks, "Blue or black?" The next stage is getting students in the school to use the word frindle instead of pen. The battle that ensues between the students and Mrs. Granger eventually leads to the word being used across the nation.

Although Nick's creative ideas often lead to disruption in classroom routines, they show remarkable intelligence and ingenuity. Mrs. Granger herself recognizes this by secretly encouraging Nick's frindle campaign, even as she seems to battle against it. In junior high school, Nick leads a student boycott of the lousy lunches served by the cafeteria staff that results in getting the school cafeterias to serve delicious food. This shows that Nick also was capable of using creativity and intelligence to improve his life and the lives of others. In the end, while Nick is in college, his creativity and intelligence are rewarded when the word frindle makes it into the dictionary.

Writing for Understanding Instruction

Teacher Plan

Teacher: Steve Crimmin Class: 4^th Grade Date 6-30-11 Writing genre: Reports

Topic / Subject / Text

CENTRAL IDEAS

Content: European exploration and settlement of the Americas produced costs and benefits for Europeans and native people.

Reading: (RI.4.3) Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

Writing: W.4.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. (A focus must be supported with evidence and reasons.)

Focusing Question

Focus (answer to focusing question)

What are the costs and benefits of exploration?

A European explorer's discovery resulted in costs and benefits for the explorers and for the native people.

Test Drive:

Columbus, Spain, and New World Natives

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west from Spain. He thought that he would find a shorter route to Asia. Instead, he landed in the Bahamas. His voyages led to the discovery of North and South America. Columbus’s discovery resulted in costs and benefits for the explorers and native people.

There were costs for the Spanish explorers. For example, Columbus left crew members from his first voyage to build a village called La Navidad on an island in the Bahamas. When he came back, Columbus found that the native Taino Indians had killed the crew and destroyed the settlement. But the costs were even higher for the natives. Millions died because of forced labor, starvation, or diseases brought by the Spanish. By the end of the 1500s, the Taino people were extinct.

The discovery of the New World also brought benefits for the explorers, Spain, and the natives. After Columbus, Spanish conquerors came and took control of the lands and people there. They found gold and silver that made Spain a rich and powerful country. The Spanish also learned about important foods, like corn, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, lima beans, peanuts, and cacao. The natives also got some benefits. The Spanish explorers brought new foods and animals to the New World. These included wheat, rice, coffee, bananas, and olives, as well as horses, cows, pigs, and chickens.

Columbus’s discovery of the New World brought costs and benefits to the native people and the Europeans who followed him. The Spanish and other Europeans gained new sources of wealth, useful crops, and new lands to settle in. The natives really got few benefits, but lost their freedom, their land, and often their lives.

Writing for Understanding Instruction

Teacher Plan

Teacher: Steve Crimmin Class: 4^th Grade Language Arts Date: 7-19-11Writing genre: Opinion

Topic / Subject / Text

CENTRAL IDEAS

Content: (W.4.1) Write an opinion piece about the main character in a book, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. (In this case, the short story "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes. A boy tries to snatch a woman's purse to get money to buy a pair of blue suede shoes. She stops him, drags him to her home, feeds him, and in the end gives him the money for the shoes. To answer the focus question, students must infer from what the woman tells the boy about her life.)

Reading: RL.4.1. Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Writing: Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details for a constructed respone. W.4.1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

Focusing Question

Focus (answer to focusing question)

Why does Mrs. Jones give Roger money for the blue suede shoes?

Mrs. Jones gives Roger $10 to buy the shoes because she feels sorry for him and because she can remember what it was like to be young and want things beyond her reach.

Test Drive

Why does Mrs. Jones give Roger money for the blue suede shoes?

Even though Roger tried to steal her purse, Mrs. Jones gives him money to buy the blue suede shoes he desired because she feels sorry that he lacks parents who care for him and because she remembers that she was far from perfect when she was young.

Mrs. Jones quickly learns that the boy lacks caring parents. Shortly after preventing him from stealing her purse, Mrs. Jones tells the boy, "Your face is dirty. I got a great mind to wash your face for you. Ain't you got nobody home to tell you to wash your face?

"No'm," said the boy.

When she gets Roger to her house, Mrs. Jones tells him that she was just on the way home to cook herself a bite to eat. "Maybe you ain't been to your supper either, late as it be. Have you?"

"There's nobody home at my house," said the boy.

Mrs. Jones shows sympathy for the boy by allowing him to wash his face and by offering to share her supper with him.

When Roger has finished washing and drying his face, Mrs. Jones surprises him by talking about her own past. "After a while she said, 'I were young once and I wanted things I could not get." This statement is followed by a long pause, during which Roger seems surprised.

Then Mrs. Jones said, "Um-hum! You thought I was going to say, but, didn't you? You thought I was going to say, but I didn't snatch people's pocketbooks. Well, I wasn't going to say that."

After another silent pause, Mrs. Jones lets Roger know that she was not perfect and that she can understand his mistake. "I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son – neither tell God, if he didn't already know. Everybody's got something in common."

So in the end, Mrs. Jones gives Roger the money for the shoes because she feels sorry for him and because she understands how he feels. I think she also believed that she had taught him a lesson he would remember for a long time.