Grade 4 – English Language Arts

Subject/Grade: English Language Arts 4

Lesson Title: Haunted House Descriptive Writing

Teacher: Miss Shayla Taylor

Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

Outcome/Indicators:

CC4.4 Use a writing process to product descriptive, narrative, and expository compositions that focus on a central idea, have a logical order, explain point of view, and give reasons or evidence.

(d) Write clear, coherent sentences and paragraphs that develop a central idea.

Key Understandings:

  • I can write a descriptive paragraph.
  • I can follow paragraph procedures.
  • I can follow writing procedures of pre-writing before drafting.
  • I can use my imagination when describing my haunted house.

Essential Questions:

  • What is the process of writing a paragraph?
  • What are the parts of a paragraph?
  • How do you write descriptive paragraphs?

Prerequisite Learning: (Students must know…)

  • proper sentence and paragraph structure.
  • the parts to a paragraph.
  • transitioning words.
  • how to describe.

Instructional Strategies:

  • Group discussion
  • Independent writing

Stage 2: Determine Evidence of Assessing Learning

Formative:

Assessing the paragraphs written by the students for understanding. Are they following paragraph and sentence structure?

Stage 3: Learning Plan

Materials/Resources:

Set (Engagement):

  • Explain to the students that we will be writing a descriptive paragraph of what their haunted house would be like.
  • Review proper paragraph structure. (Hamburger style – bun = topic sentence, burger & toppings = supporting ideas, bottom bun = concluding sentence)
  • As a class, brainstorm “spooky” describing words (eerie, terrifying, screeches, creaky, creepy, dusty)

Development:

  • The students will use this time to create their paragraphs.
  • After they have created their paragraphs, they can draw and colour a picture of their haunted house.

Learning Closure:

  • If the students want, they can share with a partner or the class the picture they drew of their haunted hour.

Possible Adaptations/Differentiation:

  • Write an example on the board if the students are struggling with paragraph structure and transition words.
  • Provide students with common transition words for their sentences.

Management Strategies:

  • Group discussion at the beginning of the lesson to engage students in the activity.
  • Walk around the classroom to ensure students are staying on task – some collaboration is okay.

Safety Considerations:

  • Follow Covid protocol

Stage 4: Reflection

This lesson went over very well with the students. When brainstorming “spooky” descriptive words, I wrote them on the board so the students could see them while they were writing. My worksheet was not laid out as the burger style, so the students found it confusing on which order to put them in their paragraph. This could be fixed by adding numbers to the circles of the desired order of the idea, leaving it the same to allow the students to decide what order they wanted them in, or changing the worksheet to a burger that they can fill in. Overall, this was a great lesson to work on descriptive and paragraph writing. I will be using this or a similar lesson in the future.