All About Posters - Informative/Explanatory

Lesson Plan Template WCSD Writing Program Teacher’s name: Jodie Black Teacher’s school: Rollan Melton Elementary School

Writing Type/Genre: Text Types and Purposes: Informative/Explanatory Lesson Title: All About Posters Standards-based Outcomes: Standard 2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which students name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

Student Outcomes: At the end of this series of writing lessons, begun in January of the kindergarten year, students will be able to independently write an All About Poster in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic. Because I introduce this genre mid-way through the year, I have the expectation that all the children will be writing, not drawing or dictating the text of their posters.

Audience and Purpose for Lesson: In kindergarten our first audience is always each other as students learn to share and borrow ideas from each other and from the content they are encountering in class study. The purpose of the All About Poster is to train students to use a simple format to organize their non-fiction facts about a chosen topic. This lesson relies on the philosophy of “Write to Read.” The children will be able to read and reread their posters to themselves, classmates, cross-age buddies and parents.

Pre-requisite Skills/Background Knowledge: Students must have a solid knowledge of the letter/sound correspondences and be able to generate rudimentary text by employing these strategies: 1) Use a word wall, spelling list or other resources to access the spelling of frequently used words. 2) Independently sound out words using letter/sound knowledge to spell words necessary to drive the narrative. 3) Listen to and use lessons about concept of word and sentence to begin structuring simple sentences. The genre of writing described in this lesson is best tackled as part of a Writer’s Workshop environment in your classroom.

Students should be able to make some choice about what to write and have an extended period of time to develop their ideas, go about the task of writing and have input and assistant from the teacher during the workshop time frame.

Resources/Supplies Needed: The graphic organizer contained in this section will be helpful in organizing student writing. Pencils, crayons, markers or colored pencils can be used for illustrating text.

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Mentor Text(s): Any non-fiction reading or read alouds that you are doing with your students as part of your content curriculum will serve as mentor texts for this type of writing. By hearing lots of informational texts, students will be able to draw upon the facts they are learning and reproduce the sentence structures inherent in this genre.

Brief Overview of Lesson: I have a rule in kindergarten that the children have to be able to do more of the work than I do for them on any given project. So in this unit I am making writing in a non-fiction format accessible for kindergartners. Your students will use an open ended graphic organizer to help keep track of ideas as they build an “All About Poster.” The intent is that after teaching this genre and format to students, they can return again and again to this writing task. I do not introduce this genre until January of the kindergarten year.

Steps in Implementation: Lesson 1: This lesson might take a little time as you describe the idea of an All About Poster.

Show the children how to use the organizer, which is included in the attachments for this lesson. The idea of an All About Poster is that the topic is non-fiction and the sentences put on the AAPWP (All About Poster Writing Pages) are true facts. Make a transparency of the AAPWP and write a poster of your own on the overhead or active board as the children watch. For example, you might start with, “I’m going to make a poster to tell a lot about something I know a lot about. First I have to think of what I know a lot about.” Take some suggestions from the children of what they know a lot about. My students say things like, puppies, Legos, gymnastics, soccer, movies and cats. Think aloud as you decide the topic of your poster. “I’m going to write a poster about pizza because I know a lot about pizza.” As you think and write, this is the time to make a distinction between fact and opinion. “I love pizza, but I can’t write that because some people don’t like pizza. If someone could disagree with me about loving pizza that means that sentence is an opinion. I could write I make pizza with dough and sauce and cheese. That is a true fact.” As you proceed through the facts you are writing, continue to distinguish between fact and opinion. Depending on the attention level of your students, you may wish to write between 3 and 5 facts during this period.

Lesson 2: On this day, I would review the work I did on my poster from yesterday. Reread the facts and think aloud about how one can tell facts from opinions. Now it’s time to demonstrate how to construct the poster when the facts are done. When the children complete the fact sheets, with one sentence on each sheet, they read the whole thing over to themselves, revising along the way. They read what they’ve written to the special friend sitting right across from them at the table. Then they WAIT and make their pictures better. You do not want the 2

children to raise their hands when they feel done. They must continue to work purposefully until you come to them so as not to interrupt you and their entire table.

After reading to the teacher, students then get the legal sized paper for the poster, title it (including the author’s name) and glue the fact sheets to it. My students record a finished product with an X on a class list and then put their poster on the Author’s Chair for later sharing.

Lesson 3: When a child determined to make a poster, they had to tell me and tell me what their topic was going to be.

This remained necessary because for example, Mackenzie, who had just started gymnastics class wanted to make many posters about that topic. That was fine with me, but we had to talk over how each poster could be different even though the big topic was the same. So Mackenzie had a poster about the gymnastics teacher and another one about the activities at gymnastics and a third about the equipment at gymnastics. It was interesting that at Author’s Chair, the children were quick to say, “You already made a poster about gymnastics.” This provided a perfect opportunity to point out how Mackenzie had made each poster unique by dividing her topic into sub-topics. This lesson proved useful for many of the other children who were obsessed by a single topic.

Lesson 4: The hardest part about All About Posters was trying to make sure we wrote facts and not opinions. Keep doing lessons to reiterate the difference, but frankly, I eventually had to loosen up on this rule a little because kindergartners were insistent on saying they LOVED cats if they were making a poster about cats!

Lesson 5: It turned out that one fact per fact sheet was the single most effective assistant in making sure that a sentence had one capital and a period at the end. It emphasized that a sentence is one complete thought. It can’t be overestimated how difficult that concept is and our expectation for kindergartners to use periods consistently and with understanding is mostly ill timed. So I appreciated a chance for them to use periods correctly and consistently in a format that presupposed the “why” of the period. As you continue with lessons on these conventions your students will gain mastery over capitals and periods for one sentence.

Notes: You’ll notice on my samples, the children are using transitional spelling and I am not requiring them to recopy their work. I am interested in the children’s spelling improving from work to work. I conference with students at their spelling level. My expectation for their spelling accuracy is based on individual levels and also on individual patience levels and

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attention spans. I balance correct spelling against volume. The more they write, the better they get at writing and at spelling.

If your students do some sort of “Read the Room� activity, a display of All About Posters in the hallway adds a whole new venue for authentic reading.

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Revision Strategy: Revision in kindergarten is a delicate and tricky process. My 27 years of experience teaching primary children, 16 of those being in kindergarten, have taught me these rules for revision: 1. If a child gets so messed up that they can’t continue, throw it away and start over!

2. If a child doesn’t like what they’ve done, throw it away and start over!

3. Be realistic. Kindergartners are just learning to write. Revision is every new thing they do.

Every new letter, every new sound, every new word, every new sentence, every new genre is new. Every time a student does something they have never done before, that’s revision.

Kindergarten revision can be called envision!

4. Changes do not need to be made in a current piece of writing. An idea for how to make a piece better can be applied to a future work. This is revision for kindergartners.

5. Very often share completed work in class. Let the comments and suggestions of classmates be a subtle and effective pressure to revise in a future document. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“What was the dog’s name?” “I can’t tell what your picture is showing.” These comments coming from classmates are powerful to kindergartners and will spur revisions.

6. There are no such things as “dead words” in kindergarten. “Said” cannot be dead when we don’t even know how to spell it yet. About the only word I ever suggest they use less is “then.”

And even then only if they know how to use it before I limit it.

7. 3 Red Dots: Occasionally, when a student has made a similar error throughout a piece of writing, for example writing “hav” in several sentences, I use this trick: Using a skinny marker, I put a tiny red dot under each error. I tell the child how to fix the error and walk away while they fix it. If the errors are dissimilar, put no more than three dots! They can’t remember what they were meant to fix when you add more items.

8. Gray It Out: When a child has erased and erased and the text is no longer legible, but the paper still has room to write on it or text that is satisfactory, I instruct the children to “gray out” the ugly part. Using a gray crayon, the student colors right over their errors, hiding them, but leaving room for the existing or more correct text without discarding the whole.

9. Do more than one lesson demonstrating how to make a text more interesting and informative by adding additional sentences. Students who are ready to hear this idea will and those who aren’t ready won’t.

10. Do more than one lesson about using conjunctions to make simple sentences complex. Give your students a spelling list of these words for referencing and teach them how to reference it.

From Jodie Black, www.teacherjodieblack.com 2012

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Rubric:

Standard Posters

Emerging/ Developing

Approaching Meeting

Exceeding

Early posters: 1-2.

(January)

Student writes on a topic, but is unable to compose complete sentences or factual sentences.

Student writes less than 3 factual sentences on a topic.

Student writes to compose an informative/explanatory poster in which they name what they are writing about and supply at least 3 facts about the topic.

Middle posters: 2-4.

(February)

Student writes less than 2 factual sentences on a topic or sentences are not factual.

Student writes 4 factual sentences about a topic, but is missing key conventions.

Student writes to compose an informative/explanatory poster in which they name what they are writing about and supply at least 4 facts about the topic, using a capital and period for each sentence.

Late Posters: 4-6 or more.

(Mar.-June)

Student writes less than 3 factual sentences on a topic or sentences are not factual.

Student writes on a topic, but composes only 1-2 complete sentences or some sentences are not factual or student needs assistance.

Student writes on a topic, but composes only 2-3 complete sentences or some sentences are not factual or student needs assistance.

Student writes on a topic, but composes only 3-4 complete sentences or some sentences are not factual or student needs assistance.

Student writes 5 factual sentences about a topic, but is missing key conventions or has not made reference to a mentor text.

Student writes to compose an informative/explanatory poster in which they name what they are writing about and supply at least 5 facts about the topic with capitals and periods.

Student indicates reference to a mentor text.

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Student Samples:

Annotation The writer of this piece is emerging/developing for this standard because she is unable to compose complete or readable sentences. demonstrates knowledge of left to right directionality and uses letters only.

The student indicated that this text made reference to aspects of the Sponge Bob cartoon and its characters.

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Annotation The writer of this piece approaches the standard by composing several sentences, but the student needed assistance sounding out each of the words. demonstrates command of some of the conventions of standard written English. Each fact is a complete sentence. Each sentence ends with a period.

All About Monkeys by _____ Monkeys are mammals. Monkeys have long arms. Monkeys have four legs. Monkeys eat bananas.

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Annotation The writer of this piece meets the standard by writing four facts about the topic in complete sentences. demonstrates command of some of the conventions of standard written English. Each sentence begins with a capital, ends with a period and spacing is accurate.

All About Soccer by _____Soccer is exercise. Soccer is sports. Soccer is hard work. You have a goal in soccer.

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Annotation The writer of this piece exceeds the standard by writing five complete sentences on the topic and includes evidence from mentor texts that had been read in class by putting dogs in the mammal group in sentence five. demonstrates command of some of the conventions of standard written English by using capitals, periods and spacing accurately. Each sentence is a complex sentence.

All About Dogs by _____ Dogs have two eyes and two ears. Dogs have one nose and one tail.

My dogs don’t play because they are old. I love my dogs because I like pugs. Dogs are mammals because they have fur.

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Universal Access: The “All About Poster� format is especially accessible for other student populations. The organizer allows the teacher to determine the level of control to maintain when assisting a student. One fact per page allows low ability students to keep track of their information and arrange or rearrange it as necessary.

Connections/Extensions: Information recorded on a poster can be considered a rough draft for older or more capable students. The poster could be copied over or word processed. Facts from the poster can be considered the main points of an outline and details could be added under each main point heading. A poster format can serve as an assessment for practically any subject area that has been studied in or out of class.

Additional Resources: NNWP.org Writingfix.com For further help with teaching beginning writers see: Jodie Black, Website: Start to Learn at www.teacherjodieblack.com. Click on Start to Write: Second Edition 2012 for downloadable text.

Credit: Fletcher, Ralph and Joann Portalupi. 2001. Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing K-8.

Maine: Stenhouse.

Wormeli, Rick. 2005. Summarization in Any Subject: 50 Techniques to Improve Student Learning. Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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All About Posters Writing Pages (Cut into thirds.)

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