Submitted by Tricia Farner Christopherson
Objectives:
Content:
Students will: * write first drafts independently
* structure sentences into paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details
* edit and proofread first drafts
* use capital letters and end punctuation correctly
Cultural:
Language: Content Obligatory
Students will: * describe habitat, diet, young, enemies, and physical characteristics of their chosen animal
* use the 3rd person singular and plural present tense
* use adjectives to describe characteristics of animals
* write complete sentences and paragraphs * use appropriate grammar and word usage: basic subject-verb agreement, appropriate verb tense, and regular pluralsLanguage: Content Compatible
Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will provide feedback on another student's draft.
Time Frame:
6 Sessions of 45 minutes each
Materials Needed:
First Draft Checklist and overhead transparency copy
Description of Assessment (Performance Project):
Third grade students have been working on writing complete sentences and forming paragraphs since the beginning of the school year.
Day One:
Students will analyze the information that they have gathered to find what they would like to include in their paper.
Review as a class what makes a paragraph a paragraph.
Brainstorm ideas as a class as to a logical order their paper should follow. Which questions that they answered in their research would fit into one paragraph or should they all be separate paragraphs?
Have students write a numbered list of what topic each paragraph will cover.
Discuss topic sentences (anunciado) and give some examples.
Give the students a topic, ie. What elephants eat. With an assigned partner, have each pair write a topic sentence for that topic. Get some examples of pair work.
Students write a topic sentence for each paragraph that they will have in their informational paper.Day 2 & 3
Students work on their rough draftDay 4
Once a majority of the students have completed a rough draft, teacher will go over the checklist of what things a students should look for while rereading their own paper.
Students fill in their checklists of items that they have included in their paper.
Students pair up with a partner assigned by the teacher to proofread their paragraphs and fill in the second column of their partner's checklists.
Students review their first draft with the teacher.Day 5 & 6
Students will write their final copy.
Assessment:
Students fill in the checklists for their paper and have their partner fill in their feedback.
Attachments:
NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)First Draft Checklist