INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING TEMPLATE
Overview and Context
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Title of lesson/activity:
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Overview of lesson:
Context of lesson:
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Alignment of Learning Goals, Assessments, Activities
Connection to
Standards
W
​ .K.1. Use a
combination of
drawing, dictating, and
writing to compose
​opinion pieces in which
they tell a reader the
topic or the name of
the
​book they are writing
about and state an
opinion or preference
about the
​topic or book (e.g., My
favorite book is . . . ).
W.K.8. With guidance
and support from
adults, recall
information from
experiences or gather
information from
University of Michigan, Elementary Teacher Education Program
For interns beginning the program in Fall 2014 and beyond
Sarah Schaefer
Kindergarten at Wines Elementary
Writer’s Provide Reasons to Support Their Opinions
March 8th – Afternoon
15 minutes
Students will learn how to add reasoning to their opinion
statements. Students will learn that they can use the word
‘because’ to give their reasoning after their opinion
statement. Students will then practice adding reasoning when
answering a new writing prompt.
Writing an opinion with reasoning to support it, focusing on
the word ‘because’
- Curriculum Resources
Learning Goals Assessment Brief summary of
aligned activities
Students will be able to The writing Students will be
use a combination of worksheet will given various
drawing, dictating, and showcase students writing prompts
writing to compose an ability to draw, that have to do
opinion writing piece. (S) dictate, and write an with things they
opinion statement. like to do at recess.
Students will have
to give their
opinion using one
of the sentence
stem structures we
learned about as
well as give at
least one reason as
to why their
opinion is what it
is.
Students will be able to The writing
use prior knowledge to worksheet will tell if
develop an opinion and the students uses
reasoning behind it. (S) their prior
knowledge of the
characters.
page 1 of 6
Rev. August 2018
provided sources to
answer a question.
L.K.1. Demonstrate Students will be able to The writing
command of the print many upper and worksheet will
conventions of standard lower case letters. (S) showcase students
English grammar and ability to print upper
usage when writing or and lower case
speaking. letters.

EEL.K.2. Demonstrate Students will be able use The writing

emerging emergent writing skills worksheet will
understandings of when writing their showcase which of
writing. opinion and reasoning. these skills the
(S) students have and
a. Capitalize the first where there can be
word in a sentence and improvements/more
the pronoun I. instruction.

b. Recognize and name

end punctuation.

c. Write a letter or
letters for most
consonant and
short-vowel sounds

d. Spell simple words

phonetically, drawing
on knowledge of
sound-letter
relationships.

L.K.6. Use words and Students will be able to The writing

phrases acquired
through conversations,
reading and being read
to, and responding to
texts.
use vocabulary such as worksheet will
‘because’ to give showcase students
reasoning behind their ability to use the
opinion. (K) word because to
give reasoning
behind their opinion.

Attending to the Learners

Anticipating student ideas: - Students will have an understanding of what an

opinion is and will have practiced writing opinion

University of Michigan, Elementary Teacher Education Program page 2 of 6

For interns beginning the program in Fall 2014 and beyond Rev. August 2018
Explain what you think will be
students’ prior knowledge about
the content, including the
alternative ideas or challenges
you anticipate students might
face and how you plan to work
with each of these challenges
during the discussion. Also
explain your ideas about how
students are likely to respond to
the tasks in the discussion and
how you might use these likely
responses to focus students on
the intended content.
Making the content
accessible to all students:
Explain what you are doing to
consider how to make the task
and the work make sense and
make it possible for different
students to get into the work.
Identify particular
students/groups of students and
what you are paying attention to
in terms of access as you plan
the lesson.
Anticipating issues that could
arise that might serve to
reproduce patterns that
marginalize some groups of
students: Identify things you
are doing specifically in this
lesson to counter particular
patterns that are prone to
marginalizing with respect to
particular groups of students.
Instructional Sequence
Materials: -Slides
-Writing Sheet
University of Michigan, Elementary Teacher Education Program
For interns beginning the program in Fall 2014 and beyond
statements using sentence stems for two days prior to
this lesson. These skills will not be solidified in
students but there will be previous knowledge.
- Students will be responding to the prompt: Who is
your favorite character? Piggie or Elephant?
- Students have a lot of background knowledge
on these books and should be able to come up
with at least one reason as to why their
opinion is what it is.
- Students are only expected to come up with
one supporting reason for this writing piece
but I anticipate there will be some students
who do more.
- The prompt for this writing activity is something that
all the students in the class will have background
knowledge on. We have spent many days in class
reading Piggie and Elephant books as a whole class
and individually.
- This lesson contains things that students will most
likely have background knowledge about or have seen
before.
- I will continue to work on calling on a variety of
students who have a wide range of ideas.
- Allowing extra support for students who need it so all
students are able to complete the activity for the day.
page 3 of 6
Rev. August 2018
Time Steps Describing What the Teacher and Students Notes and Reminders
Will Do (including management
considerations)
Introduct The teacher will: - Students will be seated
ion/Instr - “We have been working on writing opinions in their carpet spots
uction and for the last few days we have practiced - Remind students of
writing with our sentence stems. Can I have rug rules throughout
a few friends help me read our sentence the lesson.
stems? What is one of them? What color is - If necessary, table
that sentence stem?” spots where the board
- I like, I like ____ better, My favorite, is visible can be used if
or ____ is the best! students are having a
hard time focusing on
- “Let’s look at this example: ‘I like dogs the lesson.
because they are cuddly and they can do - Students who have
cool tricks.’ Can anyone tell me what assigned table spots
sentence stem they used for their opinion may sit on their table.
that tells us it’s an opinion?” - Ask students to tell the
- “Another thing that’s great about this class what the
opinion is that it gives us a reason WHY that sentence stems are.
is their opinion and they use the word Make sure to have
‘because’ to do it. The word ‘because’ is them identify the
helpful to use when we want to give the sentence stem and
reason why we feel a certain way about what color it is so that
something. Can everyone say the word you know they are
‘because’?” identifying the words.
- “Do you remember when we learned about
the difference between facts and opinions?
Facts are true statements about a topic. We
can use facts as reasons to support our
opinion statements.”
Guided - “Let’s look at a few examples of how people - Call on variety of
Practice wrote their opinions and then added students
reasons to support it.” - Go through two
- “I like winter. Can anyone tell me how they examples of good
know this is just an opinion?” opinions with
- “What sentence stem did they use?” reasoning as a class.
- “I like winter because I can play in the - call on a variety
snow.” of students in
- “Who can remind me of the order for all to
important word in the middle that get practice.
helps us share our reasons why? - When practicing
Can you underline it?” adding reasons to the
- “Let’s look at another one. Dogs are the opinion statements it
best pet. What part of this tells us it’s an will probably be best
opinion? What word?” to type in student
answers or write them

University of Michigan, Elementary Teacher Education Program page 4 of 6

For interns beginning the program in Fall 2014 and beyond Rev. August 2018
 - “Dogs are the best pets. This is because yourself on the board
they are cuddly and soft.” to model writing.
- “Who can remind me of the
important word in the middle that
helps us share our reasons why?
Can you underline it?”
- “We are going to read some more opinions
together and come up with one reason why
someone might feel the way they do. I will
read some or I may ask some of you to help
me read.”
- “Fruits are better than vegetables.”
- “Think of a reason why someone
might think ice cream is the best
dessert.”
- “What word should we use to add our
reasoning?”
- “because”
- “Fruits are better than vegetables
because…”
- “Who has a reason why this might
be the case?”
- Add students' ideas.
- “Pigeon is the best Mo Willems character.”
- “Think of a reason why someone
might think Pigeon is the best
character.”
- “What word should we use to add our
reasoning?”
- “because”
- “Pigeon is the best Mo Willems character
because…”
- “Who has a reason why this might
be the case?”

The students will:

- Participate in class lesson
- Understand how an opinion statement is
written with reasoning to back it up
- Be able to come up with reasons to support
opinions

Indepen The teacher will: - Reteach students who

dent - “Today you are going to get the chance to need extra help
Time write your own opinion with ONE reason - Use the sentence stem
about some characters that are very familiar chart for a visual for
students.

University of Michigan, Elementary Teacher Education Program page 5 of 6

For interns beginning the program in Fall 2014 and beyond Rev. August 2018
 to our classroom. Can anyone guess who
they are?”
- “You are going to write about who you think
is the best Mo Willems Character and tell us
why using at least one reason.”

The students will:

- Complete writing activity:
- Recess prompts

Post Teaching Reflection:

How students’ learning in this instance of instruction will shape the

planning and enactment of a subsequent lesson

How will the assessment data you
gathered from this lesson inform your
planning and enactment of a subsequent
lesson?
Based on what you observed about
students’ social, emotional, and academic
needs during this instance of instruction,
what is one goal you have for your
emerging practice?
- Looking over students writing from today will
help see how quickly we can move on to
writing more than one opinion. Many
students were able to think of reasons why
during the lesson verbally and I saw many
put it into writing. The next step for all
students is to emphasize how adding
reasons makes our opinions more convincing
and continue to work on the vocabulary of
our sentence stems and the word ‘because.’
- My goal is to always give my students time
to share and express their ideas and
opinions. My students are the most engaged
when they get to express themselves and
come share the pen.

University of Michigan, Elementary Teacher Education Program page 6 of 6

For interns beginning the program in Fall 2014 and beyond Rev. August 2018