Grade/Content Area Lesson Title State Standards: GLEs/GSEs Or Common Core State Standards:

11th Grade English First Things First!

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.5 With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of disciplinespecific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Context of the Lesson This is the fourth lesson in a unit plan on argumentative writing. This lessons purpose is to help students understand how to write an introduction to their argumentative essays. At this point the student should have 3 relevant pieces of evidence and warrants to support their claims.

Opportunities to Learn Plans to differentiate instruction: Spatial: Students will be presented visuals to accompany their learning. Linguistically: Students will partake in class discussion. Intrapersonal: Students will write on their own during the writers workshop Interpersonal: Students will interact with others in group activities Mathematical: Students use reasoning (evidence/warrants) to formulate their claim, thesis statement. Accommodations and modifications: Any necessary accommodations and modifications will be made as required by any IEPs within the class. Any student that is exhibiting slow progress or major misunderstanding will be given appropriate accommodations/modifications to ensure they are able to better comprehend the material at hand.

Environment factors: The classroom is made up of approx. 25 students. The periods last for an average of 45 minutes. The desks are arranged in three separate groups with one row of desks at the back. Desks will be moved frequently to accommodate group activities. Materials: A projector to display the handout. First Things First! Handout Objectives Using the evidence/warrants from their mysteries, students will demonstrate the ability to write an appropriate thesis statement (claim). Using their thesis statements/claims, students will demonstrate the ability to write an appropriate introduction. Opening: Students will participate in an opening DOL grammar activity; this is something that they complete at the beginning of each class so they are fully aware of the routine. A student is chosen each time to lead the DOL grammar activity. The point is to try and let the students work through correcting the provided sentence on their own with my input when needed. I will ask students: Using your previous knowledge of writing introductions, can anyone tell me what is required in an introduction. I will briefly go over a basic introduction paragraph with the class before passing out the handout. Engagement: First I will go over the handout with the students: Explaining what belongs in an argumentative introduction paragraph, provide example. Explaining the hook/grabberwhy use one? Explaining the claim/thesis statement Explaining the focus Explaining the support (evidence/reasoning) As a class we will complete the bottom half of the handout in which students will identify the parts of an introduction in the sample provided. Once this is completed I will model the introduction that I have written for the poison murder

Instructional Procedures

mystery. Who would want to poison an innocent old man while he was eating breakfast? Thats the question Im trying to answer. Mr. Custers wife, Samantha, rushed into the doctors apartment and screamed out hysterically, My husbandhe took poisonhelp himquick! The doctor rushed over to see Mr. Custer dead, lying face down on the floor under his kitchen table. There are three possible suspects: Samantha Custer, his brother Toby, and his business partner Allan. All three of the suspects had been present in his kitchen in the last 24 hours before the murder. After looking over the crime scene, it is clear to me that Samantha poisoned her husband. She tried cleaning up before telling the doctor, she barely touched any of her food, and he was still lying face down when the doctor got there. After going through my introduction I will inform students that they are going to participate in a writers workshop. They have participated in these before, theyve even created their own class rules to follow during the workshop. Students who have written 3 pieces of evidence with 3 warrants and a claim will start to write their introduction. Any student who has yet to find and write 3 pieces of evidence and warrants will do so during the workshop as this is essential before writing an introduction. I will be walking around to see how well students are doing and offering any help or clarification when needed. During the next class period students will be given a chance to pair up and peer evaluate each others introduction drafts. The students will use a provided checklist to ensure that each part of the introduction is included. Students will also give constructive feedback. Closure: To close I will do a quick review of what we learned during the lesson. What an introduction does and what is needed within it. I like to go over the days lesson in the last few minutes of class so that any students who maybe struggled will get even more clarification as to what was expected of

them.

Assessment

I will assess students on their written thesis statements and introductions. I will look to ensure that students comprehend what a thesis statement is and what belongs in an introduction. Students will eventually peer evaluate each others introductions utilizing a provided checklist. Student Work Sample 1 Approaching Proficiency: Why would a wife kill her husband?Thats what I wanna know! Minnie Mouse called the doctor not 911. Why? She said he fell how would she what happened? Student Work Sample 2 Proficient:

Reflections

Would falling down the stairs kill you? Tiffany thinks it would or does she? Tiffany had already been home for 10 minutes. When her friends arrived she said Something terrible happened--Arthur slipped and fell on the stairs. He still had a glass in his hand--what shall i do??. My evidence is that the glass was not broken, food was cooking when he died and there was no mess from the drink. But if he fell down the stairs the glass would of broke. Why would there be food cooking while he was drinking it must of been the wife cooking for her friends coming over. If he fell down the stairs the drink would of spilled but their was no spill. So my evidence explains that the wife probably did it.
Student Work Sample 3 Exceeds Proficiency: All I heard was a terrifying scream that made my ears ring. In my mind I asked myself, Who in their right mind would murder an innocent person like Joseph? Then Minnie called the doctor and said, My husband had a fall and hes lying unconscious on the bathroom floor! Is the telling the truth or, or is Minnie lying to the doctor trying to hide the fact that she murdered her husband while he was in the bathroom? To me, Joseph was as dead as a

doornail. But who could have killed him? After observing the death scene, I am almost positive that Minnie is the person guilty of murdering her husband that day. I think this because she tried contacting a doctor making it as if she had no idea of what happened to her husband. Also, her towel was used during the time of the murder, and the footprints leading out of the shower are ones of high heels. If Joseph was showering he obviously wouldnt be wearing heels. Lastly, she hit her husband with a glass bottle which lays broken right in front of the sink at this time. Inside her head Minnie knows that she is guilty of committing murder, and is doing everything in her power to make sure nobody else finds that out.

Lesson Implementation: I always love the DOL activity that the students participate in just about everyday because it shifts the entire responsibility to the students. I loved seeing the students work together to find the grammar error within the provided sentence (RIPTS 2.4, 2.5. One student suggested an incorrect correction while another student stated that they disagree with the suggested correction. Implementing grammar through an engaging activity such as this can be a real challenge. Students need to understand the rules of grammar before they are able to effectively utilize them or even break them for certain reasons. I love that my CT uses this DOL activity because it not only provides a grammar reinforcement each day but it also gives me a few minutes in the beginning of class to take attendance and get situated. This was the first time that I have implemented a lesson plan that includes a writers workshop (NCTE 3.2.3 RIPTS 6.2, 6.3). I really liked what the writers workshop provided for the students and myself (NCTE 2.1). While the students were working quietly I was able to help the students who needed a little more help or push to finish up finding their evidence and writing their warrants (RIPTS 5.4). I could tell that the students that I helped really benefited from just the little discussion I had with them. I used questioning while talking to the students in order to help them find the answers themselves. I like to always bring their own life experiences into our discussion if I feel that it will help better clarify certain concepts (RIPTS 4.2). Most of them had the answers already it was just a matter of drawing it out of them. I could tell that the students themselves were enjoying the time to write as

some of them even finished their entire introductions. The one mistake that I made with this lesson is that I failed to really read over the paragraph that I provided to the students on the handout. The activity involved reading through as a class and finding the hook, focus, claim and evidence. As we were working through it I realized that it was not the best choice of paragraphs, it was quite challenging so I did my best to move on and recover. Luckily I had planned to model my own introduction that really gave the students a true understanding of what each of the elements involves (NCTE 3.2.1). My model introduction was much more straightforward and easier to identify. The first time I just underlined the 4 elements within my model for students to see but my advisor gave me the idea to use 4 different colors to box and label each part so that they can easily distinguish what is what (NCTE 2.3, RIPTS 7.1). I actually was able to implement this change later on in the day and I could tell that it certainly made it even easier for students to understand what the introduction involves. I also took out the paragraph from the handout and used just my model which proved to be much more effective. Another change that I actually had the chance to make was to allow more time for the closing. I find that I need some improvement on time management so I can allow more time for the closing. My CT helped me realize that allowing more time for the closing is tough because once students start working efficiently its hard to want to just stop them so we can wrap things up (NCTE 2.3, RIPTS 7.1). She advised me to not be afraid to stop the class even if some students havent finished because there will always be a few students who need extra time but it is essential that you have time to close the lesson. The closing gives students a final recap of what we learned and also reinforces the topics we covered. For the closing I had two students share their introductions, which were great examples. Hearing other peers share their work may encourage or help any struggling students. The change that I made was that I actually had a student put their handout up on the Elmo and as a class we identified the 4 elements just as we did for my model introduction. This closing change really reinforced their comprehension of an introduction.

First Things First!Writing Introductions Hook/Grabber: The first line of your introduction should include a hook or grabber, which gets the reader interested. You want to grab the readers attention and make them want to keep reading! Focus: Introduce the topic; let the reader know what the focus of your essay is going to be about. Provide some background information on the topic you are arguing. Claim/Thesis Statement: The most important line of your introduction paragraph. Your thesis statement should be towards the end of your introduction and will include your claim (what you are arguing for). Support (Reasons, Evidence): Let the reader know what your three main pieces of support are for your argument. Can you find the hook, focus, thesis statement/claim, and support in this introduction? We all agree that the environment is important. We have to; the environment is our home. Still, we need things. We need the things that are delivered by smog producing planes, trains, trucks, and ships. Further, we need to travelnot just for pleasure, but to eat, to work, to get things done. So, how can we protect the environment and still live normal, fulfilling lives? We can do this by striking an important balance. While we must concede that some pollution is necessary, we must all do our partand this means doing much more than we are doing nowto reduce that pollution and to clean up our ecosystem.