Writing Lesson Plan 2!

The second lesson I taught involved speaking more about details and reflected on using question words to add in details to students’ stories. My original plans had said to read a story to the class and, using question words, discuss and write details from the story. This was going to help illustrate to the class how to find details in stories we were reading and how to help them formulate questions they could ask themselves when attempting to add details into their own writing. However, after talking to my CT, we decided to alter the plans a little and have me read to the children a short story I had written and to look for details in that. This portion of the lesson plan worked out very well and all children were engaged and contributing to the lesson. What a great feeling!


There was a little bit of confusion, however, when we got to the independent writing portion of the lesson. Students were going back in their writing with a blue writing utensil to add details to already written pieces. Because I had shown them punctuation errors and capitals in my group discussion and example, students were also going back in their writing and marking periods and capital letters with the blue pen. This is not entirely bad, just the fact that we are trying to get the second graders to distinguish between red for EDITING and blue for REVISING. I had to add a part to my lesson the next day to address the confusion and to tell students that we were only going back in our writing to add more details. I then gave the students additional time to return back to their stories and add only details to their narrative.s My CT was the one that brought this interpretation to my attention and I agree with her is saying that my example to the class may have caused this confusion. I had been following her method of writing pieces for the class and it had slipped my mind to not include punctuation errors that needed correcting when. The next time I would teach this lesson, I would make sure I am only adding details to my already written piece I share with the class. I would also not fill out a chart about whether or not a student fille din 3 details to their story and if they used a blue writing utensil. I think that verbal conversations and circulating the room would be beneficial in observing the writing processes and thoughts behind student thinking. Further, the students get confused when I add in punctuation and editing to a lesson where we are mainly focused on supporting details. I feel as if my students would understand the process of editing to add details better and would include more detail examples (and less punctuation correcting and editing) in their narratives after a future lesson.


After teaching this lesson, I have learned that my students can pay very close attention to what is being modeled for them in a lesson. Because of this, I need to be more cognoscente of what I am including in my lessons and what I chose to extend and speak about. My students get confused if we mention too many ideas at once, so keeping a lesson’s objectives simple and concise will help me in my both my teaching and planning.