Mary Rossi ELD308 Grade: 4th

Dr. McKool Writing Mini-Lesson

Common Core State Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 4 here.) Objective: Students will revise and edit previous writing to incorporate descriptive text. Materials: Crash by Jerry Spinelli, Pencil, Writing Notebook Procedure: Introduction: Writers today we are going to continue working on our stories from yesterday. However, before we get started I want to introduce a writing tool you will be using for the rest of the year. Recently we have been reading Crash by Jerry Spinelli. Who can tell me anything about his writing? Allow wait time. Jerry Spinelli uses a lot of descriptive language in this writing. He uses adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and figurative language. Well writers today we are going to learn to write like Jerry Spinelli. After I show you a few examples from the book and we do a couple of examples together I will let you start editing your stories from yesterday. Teach and Model: I want to show you how to identify descriptive writing in a text first and follow by giving you an example of how I would use it in my own writing. o It was coming from a funny-looking dorky little runt walking up the sidewalk. First I am going to think about what descriptive means and try to find out what the author is talking about. Now that I have read the sentence carefully I know the author is talking about a boy who is walking. He uses the words, funny-looking dorky little runt to describe the boy walking. I get from these words that whoever is talking does not seem to like this boy very much. By adding just those five words it changed the entire sentence. Now I want to show you how I would use descriptive language when I am writing. o The dog sat down. I will think to myself, what kind of dog am I talking about? I can now add, The big black scruffy dog to my sentence. I will finish the sentence like this, The big black scruffy dog sat down next to the neighbors porch and would not move. By adding descriptive text it makes your message to your audience clear and wanting more.

Guided Practice: Example 1 Extensive Teacher Help o Okay writers now that I showed you how to add descriptive text in your writing we are going to try one together. The boy stood. o Lets write this down in our writers notebooks. I am going to give you two minutes to add whatever you feel is necessary to this sentence. Allow wait time. Okay who would like to tell me what they wrote in their notebook? Great! Can anyone think of something else we could add to this sentence? Good job, writers! Does anyone have any questions before we move on? Do you see how easy it is to make a boring sentence such as, the boy stood. Into an interesting attention grabbing sentence like, The tall blonde haired boy stood next to his short friend reaching for the cat in the tree. Example 2 Less Teacher Help o Now that we have the hang of this I want you to try this next sentence on your own. When you are finished close your notebooks with your pencils in it. The girl fell. o Allow wait time. o Before we discuss what we have written down I would like you to turn and talk to your partner. Each of you should say what you wrote down and see if you could add any more to the sentence. Allow wait time. Who would like to tell me what they have written down and if your partner helped you add any text to your sentence. Allow a few examples. Great boys and girls I can tell you are getting the hang of adding descriptive language.

Independent Practice: Okay writers now that I see you are able to use descriptive language without my help I want you to take out your stories from yesterday and begin revising. Add as much detail as you can. I will come around to help anyone who needs it and to make sure you are all on the right track.

Closure: To conclude the lesson we will have a group discussion for the last five minutes of class. Students will discuss what they learned and how they applied it.

Assessment: The lesson will be successful if the students are able to properly use descriptive language within their writing and sentence structure. They will be assessed on their stories they have been working on.