Making a How-to Book:

A Procedural Writing Unit for First Grade Students

byAlison Smolin

In partial fulfillment of course:

CTGE 5910Computers and Technology for EducatorsProfessor Mark GuraFordham UniversityGraduate School of EducationSummer II, 2008

Introduction

Like many elementary schools throughout the city, the school in which I work inhas elementary students as young as the first grade studying complex literary elementssuch as procedural writing through the Reader’s and Writer’s Workshops. In the firstgrade, students study and learn procedural writing in the format of how-to books. Thisform of writing is traditionally modeled to the students through read alouds, sharedreadings and sometimes hands-on activities. During the creation of this project, I wasable to integrate the use of video, audio and colorful text illustrations along with thetraditional text models by using a blog that can be projected on a screen for the wholeclass to view and interact with. The blog serves as a bulletin board for daily instructionsas well as whole class activities, models and practice.Since the majority of my students are English language learners, this 15 day unitin English language arts is very important for them to build proficient speaking, listening,reading and writing skills for both academic and social language functions. With theimplementation of the blog and online technology, students who are less proficient inreading and writing have the opportunity to learn through different modes such as video,audio and illustrations/ visuals. The colorful and interactive design of the blog aims tomaintain attention and focus among young students during whole class activities, evenamong low-language or low-literacy level students.

Unit AIM/ Topic

: The creation of a how-to book using procedural writing skills.

Number of Students/ Grade/ Level

: 27 first grade ESL students, beginning toadvanced.

Class Format

: Self-contained, first grade ESL classroom.

Unit Objectives

ELA Objectives

:*Students will be able to become familiar with the structure and purpose of procedural writing through the form of how-to books.*Students will use sequence words that express order of events or actions.*Students will learn to follow written directions.*Students will be able to write and illustrate their own how-to books based onclass models.

ESL Objectives

:*Students will be able to read and write in English to understand and conveyinstructions and ordered events.*Students will be able to read, listen to and follow instructions in English in order to complete a task.

Technology Objectives

:*Students will be able to interact and respond to multi-media presentations projected from a blog post.

Unit Standards

ELA Standards

:*Standard 1: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information andunderstanding.*Standard 2: Students will read, write, listen, and speak for literary response andexpression.