​

ENGLISH LESSON PLANNING TEMPLATE ONE

Class: Stage 4 Year 7 Time: Period 3 (1 Hour) 8/8/17

Pre-service teacher’s Objectives

I intent to focus on improving class contributions during this lesson.

​Lesson objective

For students to create engaging writing with broader vocabulary use (adjective and word choice).

Outcomes
EN4-2A ​effectively uses a widening range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for
responding to and composing texts in different media and technologies

Materials

Restaurant image:
Times Square Scott, C. (2013, December 4). ​College students ditch the kitchen this Thanksgiving
[Photograph]. South Florida accessed at:
http://www.soflasun.com/college-students-ditch-kitchen-thanksgiving/

Times Square image:

​
Savulich. (2009, May 25). ​Walk, bike or sit, car-free, in Times Square and Herald Square [Photograph].
New York, accessed at:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/walk-bike-sit-car-free-times-square-herald-square-
article-1.374694

Procedures
Time Organisation Teaching/ learning activities

0-5 Teacher marks roll, Teacher greets students and marks the roll. Teacher then introduces the
and begins lesson. lesson as ‘Interesting and descriptive language’.

Students settle and get

out their books.

5-20 Teacher instructs, and Teacher projects the image of the restaurant on the board, and asks the
students contribute as class what is happening.
appropriate to class After a few responses the teacher asks for more detail in the scene.
discussions. Teacher writes one of the responses on the board. eg: ‘ They are eating
Italian food with their friends.’ Teacher instructs students to copy the
sentence down in their books.
Teacher then underlines words on the board that could be changed to form
a more interesting sentence. eg: ‘​They​ are ​eating​ ​Italian​ ​food​ with​ their
friends​.’ Teacher suggests that actually all of the words could be changed,
but that these are the words we will focus on now.
 Teacher asks students for a replacement for ‘They’. Writes all suggestions on
the board in a different colour. Then asks students for a replacement for
‘eating’ and etc until each word has been changed.
Teacher then asks for examples of the new sentence and writes several of
these on the board.
Teacher asks students why one of these new sentences is great, while the
original sentence is okay, but not great. As a class discuss these answers.

20-30 Teacher instructs Teacher projects image of Times Square on the board. Teacher: ‘Let’s have
students to consider an exciting sentence for this scene. Have a quiet think about what could be
the image, then allows happening, and remember you can focus on any character in the image.’
for suggestions. After a minute or two the teacher allows contributions. Each suggested
sentence gets commented on, and has further suggestions added to it, to
Students suggest. create a really interesting scene.

30-50 Teacher circulates the Teacher encourages students to create a short paragraph in the remaining
room to help students. class time about what they see while using descriptive language. ‘Paint the
scene for me with your words, what can the characters hear, smell, touch,
Students write a short feel around them? How are they feeling? Why are they feeling it? Tell me
paragraph about the everything worthwhile about this image, so that I don’t even need to look at
image using descriptive it.’
lanugage. Teacher circulates while students create their paragraphs and offers
suggestions.

50-60 Teacher facilitates Teacher asks if anyone would like to share their short paragraphs, and
sharing, sets offers praise to any students who do.
homework and Teacher then sets homework and dismisses the class.
dismisses the class.

Homework Students to complete the Times Square image activity if not already
completed.
All students to come prepared for the next lesson with a new descriptive
word and its definition written in their books.

Evaluation / Extension
I believe students will be moving towards the stated outcome if they can write a coherent
descriptive paragraph by the end of the lesson. As this is the first lesson in a series, I would not
expect students to have mastered the concept of vivid descriptors, and would expect them to be a
little heavy handed, or still a little tentative with the adjectives and descriptors, but this is to be
expected. Their skills will be finessed in further lessons, the point of today was to get them moving in
the right direction and used to the idea of vivid imagery and language.
I will also know that they are moving towards the outcome through their outloud contributions to
the class discussions. I expect that contributions towards the end of the class would be far more
relevant than the first few of the lesson, and this demonstrates learning and growth from the
students.
In retrospect
I expect that this lesson should go well, though I see room for students to become off-topic during
the individual writing moments.
 ​ENGLISH LESSON PLANNING TEMPLATE TWO

Class: Stage 4 Year 7 Time: Period 1 (1 Hour) 10/8/17

Pre-service teacher’s Objectives

I hope to improve on clarity of instruction during this lesson.

Outcomes
EN4-4B: ​makes effective language choices to creatively shape meaning with accuracy, clarity and
coherence

Materials

Short story worksheet

Procedures
Organisation Teaching/ learning activities
Time

0-5 Teacher marks roll, and

begins lesson. Teacher greets students and marks the roll. Teacher then introduces the
lesson as a continuation on the idea of interesting and descriptive language.
Students settle and get
out their books.

Teacher shares their new
5-10 word, encourages
students to share theirs.
Students share.
Teacher shares their new word, ‘Ebullient, which means ‘cheerful or full of
energy’’ and then lets students contribute their homework words to the
class, asking for the word and the definition. Teacher praises all appropriate
contributions. ‘Look at all the new words we have to work with today. I hope
we get to try some of them out, they all sound so intriguing and descriptive’.

10-15 Teacher hands out
worksheet and reads the
text. Leads a quick
discussion on what
happened in the text.
Students read along.
Teacher hands out the worksheet and projects the text on the board.
Together the class reads the text, and considers what is being said.
“While walking up a hill a man saw a bird.
‘Hello bird.’ said the man.
‘Hello man.’ said the bird.
The man paused, then said, ‘I didn’t know birds could speak.’
‘I didn’t know humans could either.’ replied the bird.”

15-35 Teacher helps create the
new story.
Students share words to
shape the new story into
something more
Teacher asks for suggestions to make the language more interesting, and
writes all suggestions on the board. Reminds students that their homework
word could be appropriate.
Class discusses the merits of each suggestion, and then decides on how they
want each sentence to sound.
Teacher writes new sentences on the board next to the original sentences
 interesting. and students copy these sentences into the first half of the next text squares
on their worksheets.

35-50 Teacher facilitates class Class discussion of how this scene could go in different directions based on
discussion. the words used. “If the bird ‘chirped merrily’ in response the story is weird
and happy, if the bird ‘squawked menacingly’ the story is more aggressive
Students contribute to and scary. If the man was ‘running fearfully up a mountain’ vs the man
the discussion and ‘strolling casually through a field’ or the man ‘curiously saying’ vs ‘fearfully
complete their new story whispering’ or ‘confidently intoning’ how might the story change?”
on the worksheet. Students are given a few minutes to brainstorm the new direction of the
story with a neighbour, and then write down their new story in the second
half of the new text box. Students glue the worksheet into their books.
Teacher circulates and checks new work.

50--55 Teacher volunteers Students are asked to share their new individualised story with the class.
reluctant students and Students who contribute are given praise and further suggestions on
offers praise. improving their language.
If students do not volunteer, the teacher can suggest students whos work
Students share their they saw and was of good quality.
work.

55-60 Teacher praises all Teacher praises all students for their good work and participation in the
students, sets homework, lesson, then sets the homework and dismisses students.
and dismisses the class.

Homework ​All students are to come to the next lesson with a story idea of their own.
Story idea should be something they can write about for half the period, and
something they can use descriptive language with.

Evaluation / Extension

I will know students are moving further towards their outcomes by the completion of the worksheet
and with their contributions to the class discussion. Students who show the ability to create mood
and tone within their texts without the teacher's assistance are well on the way to meeting their
outcomes, while students who still need prompting to work well may be lagging behind slightly.
Teacher will continue to monitor students progress through the next lesson, to see which students
may need more help in further tasks.

In retrospect

I will assume this lesson goes well, but I can see students becoming off task if another suggests an
inappropriate word as their homework word, or if they joke around with the story task too much.
Resources:
Original text: Suggested enhancements: New text:

“While walking up a hill a man Walking - how else could he

saw a bird. move?
Hill - something more
dramatic?
Saw - more interesting -----------------------------------------
synonym?

‘Hello bird.’ said the man. Said - a more interesting

word?

-----------------------------------------

‘Hello man.’ said the bird. How is the bird talking?

-----------------------------------------

The man paused, then said, ‘I Paused - a more interesting

didn’t know birds could speak.’ word?
How is the man feeling?

-----------------------------------------

‘I didn’t know humans could Replied - something more

either.’ replied the bird.” descriptive?
How is the bird talking now?

-----------------------------------------
 ENGLISH LESSON PLANNING TEMPLATE THREE

Class: Stage 4 Year 7 Time: Period 4 (1 Hour) 14/8/17

Pre-service teacher’s Objectives

I aim to work on giving good feedback in this lesson.

Outcomes
EN4-1A ​responds to and composes texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis,
imaginative expression and pleasure

EN4-4B: ​makes effective language choices to creatively shape meaning with accuracy, clarity and
coherence

Materials

No teacher supplied materials.

Procedures
Time Organisation Teaching/ learning activities

0-5 Teacher marks roll, and Teacher welcomes students, marks the roll, and reminds students to think of
begins lesson. a story idea quickly if they have not already prepared one.

Students settle and get

out their books.

5-10 Teacher runs mini lesson. Teacher starts the lesson with a mini-lesson, ‘show don’t tell’.
‘It is important to try to always show, rather than tell, when creating
Students sit quietly and interesting writing. When you write ‘Mum yelled angrily at the dog.’ try
listen. painting the scene instead. She yelled, I know she was angry. You don’t have
to tell me that she yelled angrily. But you could tell me that ‘Mum was
perched on the couch when she suddenly screamed at the dog ‘No! Stop
chewing the cat!’ and this is a far more interesting scene. I can picture this in
my head. All of these words add to story and make it feel like I could be
there. Try and do that in your own writing. Make it exciting and vivid.’

10-15 Teacher begins
workshop lesson, directs
students as to their task
and the expectation of
quiet during the task.
Students listen and
prepare for the writing
task.
Teacher begins the creative writing workshop for the lesson. Instructs
students to think about their homework story idea, and how they could
incorporate that idea into an exciting descriptive story.
Teacher answers any questions about the task, and informs students that
they have 30 minutes to try and get their story to a natural break that can be
picked up later. (They actually have 35, but the smaller time limit is good for
encouraging their work.) They should try their best to get a lot of writing
done, and to use descriptive language throughout the story.
15-50 Teacher circulates and Students are then encouraged to begin their writing. They should write
helps or offers advice to quietly for the whole 35 minutes, and raise their hands if they have
all students. questions.
Teacher is to circulate during this whole time, seeing each student and
Students work on their commenting on their writing. Teacher is to offer constructive criticism on the
writing quietly. language of the story rather than the plot itself. Teacher is to pay particular
attention to any student who is failing to make progress on the task, and
follow up with them about this issue.

50-60 Teacher facilitates quick Teacher warns students that their time is almost up, and to finish the
discussion about student sentence they are working on. Students are then encouraged to share the
contributed work, praise topic of their story, or an interesting sentence or two of their writing.
all students who offered Teacher leads a quick discussion of how the provided stories are all great
to share. examples of vivid descriptive writing, and encourages students to keep using
these descriptors in their writing, because it makes the stories so interesting
Students share their work and engaging to read.
and then are dismissed.
Teacher dismisses the class.

Homework n/a

Evaluation / Extension
I will know students have achieved or are very close to achieving their outcomes when they
complete a 35 minute writing exercise focusing on the use of descriptive vivid language. Each
student will have a few minutes of the teachers time for a quick private discussion of their work, so
the teacher can get a personalised understanding of their progress towards meeting the outcomes.
Students who share their stories with the class are likely to be closer to meeting the outcomes and
more confident in their work. The teacher will keep an eye on any students who fail to make
progress throughout this lesson, and will make sure to help them in future lessons.

In retrospect
I will assume this lesson went well, but I can see how the extended writing time may prove
troublesome for some students. I can see how writing for 35 solid minutes might encourage some
students to become off task, or to doodle instead of write. Hopefully the teachers circulation around
the room and noticing this behaviour would be enough to encourage students to do their real work.
Justification:

These three lessons were created with the explicit goal of students being able to more
descriptively and engagingly present their imaginative writing. Each lesson builds on the skills learnt
in the previous lesson, so that by the end of the third lesson students have created an entirely new
imaginative writing piece that features descriptive language and the idea of ‘show don’t tell’. This
series of lessons are aimed at Stage 4 Year 7 learners, ideally in the first few months of the year. This
is so the students have the language skills learnt in these lessons for the rest of the year, hopefully
helping them with future assessments and class content.

The decision to focus on bettering descriptors in creative writing was influenced by Nancie
Atwells 1987 ‘In The Middle’, where she describes how many students are taught to use simplistic
language to get their point across easily, but could instead use more descriptive language to ‘show’
rather than ‘tell’. Atwell (1987) believes that through the use of ‘mini lessons’ students are able to
grasp skills like ‘show don’t tell’, and encourages their use within the broader lessons. A mini lesson
was included in this lesson sequence as it was not a big enough topic to take an entire lesson, but
was something that needed to be taught. The hope of this mini lesson was to impart knowledge
quickly and then move on to the meat of the actual lesson, the writing workshop. Ultimately the
hope for these lessons is that they provide the vehicle for students to succeed at multiple small
concepts and build them into one larger body of work.

The first lesson was designed to give students experience with specifically using and focusing
on descriptions and adjectives in a text, to give them the lower level skills at the bottom of Blooms
taxonomy (1956, as cited in Marsh, Clark and Pittaway, 2015) before progressing up the scale in
further lessons. The demonstration in the first half of the lesson provided the scaffold for students to
learn, while also encouraging them all to contribute as all answers were considered equally (Marsh,
Cark and Pittaway, 2014, chapter 8, and Hattie and Timperley, 2007). The creative writing produced
from the images should be unique to each student, and should demonstrate their understanding
thus far of how vivid language should look. The lesson’s key task asks students to imagine the action
of the scene in the image and describe it, giving students a starting point without detrimentally
affecting their creative abilities. This lesson has students meeting their outcomes when they create a
paragraph that uses imagery and descriptive language to tell a story in response to a given prompt.

The second lesson was influenced particularly by two chapters in The Artful English Teacher
by Boaz and Gazis, Rosie Kerins chapter 2 and Lindsay Williams chapter 9 (2016). Both of these
chapters investigated ways of teaching interesting and descriptive language, and both presented
unique ways of workshopping basic language into more interesting content. The worksheet scaffold
in the second lesson was inspired by one provided in Kerins (2016) chapter, and modified for use in
this class. The lesson around the worksheet was inspired by Kerins (2016) chapter, modifying her
sentence building activity to become a story wide modification. Students are encouraged through
this lesson to explore how language choice affects not only the presence or lack of vivid imagery in a
text, but how it can create tone through the careful selection of specific words.
 The third lesson was the culmination lesson (Hattie and Timperley, 2007), where each
student partook in one of Atwells (1987) writing workshops, taking a predetermined idea and
turning it into a story rife with imagery and description. The focus of this lesson was for each student
to have an authentic experience writing individually for an extended amount of time, with teacher
guidance when needed. This lesson aimed to provide students with the chance to see what they
could do with their new skills, and how it might have improved or changed their previous writing
style.

The lessons were ultimately designed to give students the tools needed to create their own
creative writing piece that demonstrated their comprehension of the previous lessons. This is in line
with syllabus requirement EN4-4B, but also captures the requirements of EN4-2A and EN4-1A
(BOSTES, 2012), each of these in essence requiring students to be able to articulate thoughts onto
paper using effective language in creative ways. Each lesson should allow students to progress
through their zone of proximal development (Harland, 2003), and be able to extend that zone a little
further during the next lesson. Ultimately at the end of this sequence students should have both the
ability to produce their own creative writing, as well as having a clear understanding of the
usefulness and practical application of descriptors in their writing.

Year 7 students are able to comply with NSW syllabus outcomes while experiencing
interesting lessons designed to maximise their engagement with the topic. This series of lessons
allows these students to understand the meaning that their choice of words imparts on a text, and
how the meaning of a whole story can be changed with the substitution of a few key words. They
also learn the power of showing instead of telling when using descriptors, and how engaging
characters and immersive texts can be created through vivid language. The culmination of this series
of lessons is that students learn how to create an engaging and powerful piece of writing, a skill that
will serve them well in the rest of Stage 4 and the rest of their lives.
References:

Atwell, N. (1987). ​In the middle : New understandings about writing, reading, and learning (2nd
ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Board of Studies Teaching & Educational Standards NSW. (2012). NSW New Syllabus Stage 4.
NSW Government. Retrieved from​ ​https://syllabus.bostes.nsw.edu.au/
english/english-k10/outcomes/

Boas, E., Gazis, S. (2016). The Artful English Teacher: Over 100 practical strategies for the English
Classroom. Adelaide, SA: The Australian Association for the Teaching of English.

Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. ​Review of Educational

Research. 77(1), pp 81-112.

Marsh, C.J., Clarke, M., & Pittaway S. (2014) ​Marsh’s becoming a teacher. Frenchs Forest,
Australia: Pearson Australia.