Team Project - Lesson Plan and Presentation

Third Grade Creative Writing

Name: Jorden Lisac, Elayna Warren, Sami Knutson, Johanna Tickett,, Marquette Miller
Date: May 2, 2019
Grade level & subject: Third Grade Language Arts

Standards:
Writing Standards Grade 3, Text Types and Purposes. 3. Use narrative writing to
develop real or imagined characters, experiences, or events using effective narrative
techniques (dialogue, description, elaboration, problem-solution, figurative language),
and clear event sequences (chronology).
Technology D: A student should be able to use technology to express ideas and
exchange information.

Step I
Our learners are third grade students who will be learning about narrative writing
through the use of plot generators. At the end of this lesson as part of the learning
objectives, students will be able to identify setting and characters in a story, include
descriptions, and organize their writing chronologically. This lesson will provide students
with a creative way to use technology tools to invent and edit stories, and to check their
work against a story map and rubric.

Step II.
Begin the class by introducing writer’s block, although it may be worded as
“sometimes writers run out of ideas.” One way that we can practice creative writing is by
being given a prompt and writing a story that follows a logical sequence. Technology
can provide us with tools that can help us get through writer’s block.
The teacher will introduce the Masterpiece Generator, an online story generator,
on which the class will collaboratively choose a style, opening and type of ending. The
teacher will select a handful of categories in which students can volunteer ideas, like
names of characters, adjectives, or type of music. The remaining categories can be
filled in randomly by the computer. The resulting story will be read out loud by the
teacher.
A plot generator differs from a story generator in that just ideas are given - not a
completed story. This is a great tool for students to improve their creativity and motivate
students that are reluctant to write. The students will now have the opportunity to write
their own stories on the website Scholastic Story Starters. The teacher will demonstrate
how to pull the levers for individual categories and the lever to change them all. The
students will start by exploring a themes adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, or a scrambler.
Scholastic Story Starters give students ideas for character, plot, and setting, which
students can change by “pulling” a lever. When students are satisfied with the choice
selection, they can begin writing. The teacher will circulate through the classroom,
responding, monitoring and prompting where needed. When finished, students should
self-evaluate their written work according to the given rubric, and make necessary edits
to grammar or content. They may also use the story map (below) to check for all
necessary components. Remind them to use expressive words as they check to ensure
that they have characters and setting, statement of the problem, summary of the
beginning, middle and ending, and the solution that relates directly to the stated
problem.

Step III.
Students will be working with technology throughout most of this lesson. As a hook
students will be working together to create a story using the plot generator website. The
second use of technology is through scholastic story starter website, students are
expected to create their own starter that they feel comfortable writing about.

Online content will be accessed at https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/story/ and

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/. A story map and writing rubric are
attached to the end of this document.

Step IV.
We presented the lesson to our classmates in ED 230, Introduction to Educational
Technology. We felt that although there were a few unexpected hiccups, such as a
microphone not working and not being able to share the screen for a PDF document on
Internet Explorer, we had prepared in advance and the lesson was able to proceed. We
had decided that each presenting group member would type an overview of their
segment on our shared Google document, so that in case anyone couldn’t make it, or if
there were unforeseen difficulties, someone else could step in. Students responded well
to the activity, and expressed that the class activity was enjoyable, engaging and
appropriate for its intended audience.

Step V.

- Did your learners successfully learn what you taught them?

Our goal of this lesson was to “use narrative writing to develop real or imagined
characters, experiences, or events using effective narrative techniques.” We also
wanted the students to be able to “use technology to express ideas and exchange
information.” This lesson hit both of these standards for the students to effectively use
technology while gaining knowledge in writing a creative narrative piece of their own.

- How did you assess their learning?

Learning was assessed through a rubric (attached at bottom) and observation of
student behavior. Students were expected to evaluate themselves using the rubric
before turning in their creative writing piece. Upon turning the work in the teacher should
be able to identify where the story takes place based on the students use of vivid
descriptions of landscapes, buildings, or explicit mention of a place name. The teacher
can understand and identify each character through clear physical or personal details.
The student showed their own personality using interesting and descriptive words.
Finally, in order to demonstrate an understanding of organization, the student was
expected to use transitional words to place events in sequential order, including a story
opening and closing. Class feedback given throughout was also important to gauge
whether or not students were learning each element of creative writing. In addition,
upon seeing the resulting written stories, we will be able to evaluate successful learning
more fully. A brief overview of the rubric (needs improvement to excellent) was given.

- What would you have done differently?

Throughout our lesson we did not include how long each activity should take. This is
something that was important for reluctant writers. There were a few students that
continued to spin and spin trying to find an interesting topic they felt comfortable to write
about. This took up most of the class period. Limiting the number of spins each child
can have will help them find their prompt quicker and begin writing.

References:

Group Story:
https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/story/
Individual Story Ideas:
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/

Creative Writing Rubric

Needs Fair Good Excellent
Improvement

Setting 1 2 3 4
Student uses vivid and
descriptive words to tell when
and where the story takes
place.

Character Development 1 2 3 4
Student provides a variety of
information to understand
characters and uses clear
descriptions.

Style and Voice 1 2 3 4

Student shows own personality
and uses interesting,
descriptive words.
Organization 1 2 3 4
Student uses transitional
words. Events are sequenced
and make sense. Story has
opening and closing.

Comments/Goals: Total:

The Story Map

Title_______________________________________Author____________________

Main Characters

___________________________________________________________________
_
Setting

___________________________________________________________________
_
Statement of the Problem

___________________________________________________________________
_
Summary of the Beginning of the Story

___________________________________________________________________
_
Summary of the Middle of the Story

___________________________________________________________________
_
Summary of the Ending of the Story
 ___________________________________________________________________
_
Statement of the Solution (directly related to the problem)

___________________________________________________________________
_
Story Theme (What general message is the author trying to tell you?)

___________________________________________________________________
_

http://www.scholastic.com

Individual Reflection

It was an entirely new experience for me to work with a group on a semester-long

project and only communicate through varying forms of technology. Not only was
technology our only outlet to organize ourselves, we were also given a large measure of
independence to use our time wisely and complete the work. In other words, we did not
consistently have anyone checking in on us to make sure everyone was doing their part;
the success or failure of our project was up to us.
At first, our group had a hard time finding a way to communicate effectively.
While I noticed other group boards on Blackboard were filling up with posts and
comments, I noticed ours was ominously empty. At one point, Ryan tried jumpstarting
the discussion by suggesting a different way to stay in contact, but the attempt received
little recognition. It was only at a couple of weeks after that, that our group found
communicating via email was much more effective. During these email exchanges,
Johanna, Jorden, and myself sent most of the messages, with Elayna and Marquette
chiming in every so often. Ryan never responded to any of the emails, nor submitted
any writing on the statement of intent.
Starting from the beginning, though, Jorden set up our shared Google Document
in which we could all write and edit the Statement of Intent. Along with Jorden, Johanna
was attentive in commenting and expounding on the document as we worked on it
together. I would like to say, though, whenever we needed someone to jump start a
conversation or check in with everyone before due dates, Jorden was our person.
Without any prompting, she became our informal group leader. Speaking of the
Statement of Intent, only three out of our six group members, Jorden, Johanna, and
myself, worked on the document.
For the final presentation, we met twice over Blackboard Web Meeting which was
very helpful in getting ourselves organized more quickly than we could via email.
Though I knew I would have to submit my own VoiceThread for the final presentation
individually, I attended these meetings so the content I presented would be very similar
to that of my group members. During this portion of the project, Marquette and Elayna
became more involved.
In wrapping it up, I would say our most glaring weakness was that not all group
members participated the whole semester, nor did they do so very reliably. Despite this,
however, I felt that for those who did take it seriously, not all of the work fell to one
person and we did a good job of sharing the workload.