EL Lesson Adaptation

Class Context
● Grade: First Grade
● Number of students: 27 students in class
● WIDA Levels: 1 (entering) and 2 (developing)
● Language Backgrounds/ Country of Origin: 3 ELLs, two Spanish speaking and one
Chinese
Unit Plan and Lesson Plan Overview
● How to form and write using your opinion and
supporting one's opinions with reasoning and
supporting facts

● Students will learn about writing opinion and

argumentative pieces. After reading Red is Best
students will write their own paragraph about their
favorite color and why it is the best.
Utah State Standards
First Grade English Language Arts
Writing Standard 1- Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the
book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide
some sense of closure.
Essential Questions
● How do I support my opinion?
● What are aspects of opinion writing?
● How do I form an opinion or argument?
● How can I support my opinion using facts?
Adaptation 1 and Rational
Procedure: Read Red is Best out loud. Every few pages the author states something red
they like and why it is the best. Ask students after each statement, “why does the little girl
like her red (stockings, mittens, etc.). Focusing on the supporting fact in
opinion/argumentative writing.
Adaptation: The girl is jumping so high, why is the girl jumping so high? Ask this to
students and have them think-pair-share.
Rational: Reducing risk, students feel less pressure to speak in small groups/pairs
compared to the whole class. (SIOP, Ch.6)
Adaptation 2 and Rational

Procedure: Student will be writing about their favorite color and why they picked that
color. Each student will work independently when brainstorming what color and their
reasoning.
Adaptation: Show students a visual of colors with their names, ask them to point to the
color they like the most. Students can put a name to the color they pick. And write the
color in that color marker on their paper
Rational: Promoting conversation and students to express opinions, while giving them the
tools to develop and understand their opinions in english. (SIOP, Ch.6)
Adaptation 3 and Rational

Procedure: Students will write three sentences of why the color they chose is their
favorite. Using sentence stems to guide students “I like … Because …”.
Adaptation: Have students brainstorm with a partner, pair students up who chose the same
color. Students will create a list of reasons of why they chose that color, then can choose
from that list when writing sentences later on.
Rational: Pairing/ grouping students of different levels allows EL’s to still share their
opinions even if they’re not able to write it all down. (SIOP Ch.6)
Adaptation 4 and Rational

Procedure: Students will choose from their brainstormed list to write three sentences about
their favorite colors. Sentence stem will be written on board for students to copy down and
finish sentence.
Adaptation: Students will each have a worksheet with sentence stems. “I like … Because
…”. Students can fill in the color (which is written on top of paper) and choose from their
brainstormed list for their reasoning.
Rational: Scaffolding supports, students have the outline of sentences to guide them to
write opinion based sentences (Wright Ch.9)
Adaptation 5 and Rational

Procedure: After finishing the three sentences and having them check by the teacher,
students will write a full paragraph of why their color is the best.
Adaptation: Students can use either a blank piece of paper to write their paragraph or a
graphic organizer. The graphic organizer, allows to the student to put in their pre written
sentences then their introduction and conclusion sentences, to form a paragraph.
Rational: Helping students organize thoughts and ideas by using a graphic organizer
(Wright, Ch.9)
References
Wright, W. E. (2019). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research,
theory, policy, and practice. Philadelphia: Caslon.
Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for
English learners: The SIOP model. Boston: Pearson.