Journaling (3rd Graders)

Natalia Howard and Ryleigh Jans

Teacher to Student Approach

Learning Goals
SWBAT (students will be able to) properly use adjectives and understand when they are
appropriate in context.

SWBAT write in their journals using and identifying adjectives that they learned in class.
Journals help students and ELLs as a guided writing source and help develop better writing
techniques (Wright, 2015, pg. 240).

Materials:
1. Index Cards
2. Journal Worksheet
3. Markers / Crayons / Colored pencils

Intro: Greeting then revisit the topic from last week: nouns. Talk about how this week we are
talking about the new unit of adjectives and will be journaling today.

“Welcome back class. Last week we talked about nouns. Can anyone remind the class what a
noun is? A noun is a person, place, or thing, good job. Now we are going to be learning about
adjectives today! Has anyone ever heard of an adjective and would feel comfortable enough to
share with the class? An adjective is used to describe nouns. Anyone have any examples?
Thank you”

Video: After open class discussion has been completed, we will show a quick video about
adjectives.

“Good job class! Now we are going to be watching a Schoolhouse Rock video, much like last
week, to get a better understanding of adjectives.”

Schoolhouse Rock Video: https://youtu.be/NkuuZEey_bs

 Activity:
Hand out index cards and assign each table a topic for which they discuss and come up with
different adjectives and vocab. Each person will write one adjective on their index card after
discussing as a group. Afterwards, they will share with the class by going up to the board and
taping their adjectives.

“Now that we have seen the video and discussed what an adjective is, we are going to assign
each group a topic and you all will brainstorm different adjectives based on the topic you get.
Afterwards, you will each write down a different adjective and do a drawing on your index
card and we will discuss them as a class. Let’s get started!”

Assessment (Part 1) / Activity (Part 2):

After students post their words up on the board we will discuss as a class each of the topics
and words.

“Good job class! Does everyone agree that these words match their topics? Now that we have
adjectives on the board, does anyone want to share why they chose those adjectives for their
topic? Does anyone notice if the adjectives work for other topics too? Now that we have our
word bank of adjectives, let's get started on our daily journal entry.”

(Part 2) Hand out the journal worksheets and students will write and illustrate based on any of
the prompts or their free-write. This will get students to use the adjectives we discussed in their
writing.

“Can we get some volunteers to pass out the papers? Thank you. These journal entries are
more of a guide than usual to help you use the vocab on the board. We want each of you to try
and use at least 5 of the adjectives we came up with and any new ones. Afterwards we will
share a few of the adjectives and stories as a class.”

Assessment (Part 2):

Ask students to share as a class any particular adjectives or sentences they journaled. Together
we will share any stories or words that stood out to them.

Closure: “Thank you to everyone who shared and participated. Great job today! That’s all we
have time for today, so everyone clean up your area and have a great rest of your day.
Thanks!”

Citations:
Wright, W. E. (2015). Foundations for teaching English language learners: research, theory,

policy, and practice. Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing.