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Learning Experience/Unit

Story Rewrite (Cheese, Peas, and Chocolate Pudding) by St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES

Subject

English Language Arts (2005)

Grade Levels

Elementary, 4th Grade

Assessment

The students will be assessed in a variety of ways, both formally and informally depending on the stage of the project.

The first evaluation will be done using a rubric for the graphic organizer the students produce. The final evaluation for the students' completed writing product will also be done using a rubric.

During the story writing, lessons will include writing dialogue that is properly punctuated and writing compound sentences. These skills will be assessed through daily class work. Group and individual discussions will also be conducted throughout the entire project.

Grading Rubric

Learning Context/ Introduction

The purpose of this lesson is to promote the use of graphic organizers as a tool to enhance student writing by improving organization and including details. In addition, students are encouraged to use graphic organizers to organize their ideas when writing in other content areas.

To succeed in this project, students need the following prior knowledge:

basic story structure
proper punctuation when writing dialogue
compound sentences
computer programs Kidspiration and Microsoft Word

Duration

Planning is minimal once the teacher is fluent in using computer programs. Developing this project has taken me a considerable amount of time (2 hours at least), as I am still developing my skills with new technology to create teacher-made models.

Implementation was much longer than anticipated, as a result of conflicts in time scheduled in the computer lab, student absenteeism, the time involved with conferencing with students for editing, and high needs of the students this year. This lesson involved four (4) 90-minute periods at the computer lab, as well as time in the classroom to complete story revisions.

Assessment was done both formally and informally. Formal assessment using rubrics (for graphic organizer and final writing) took approximately 15 minutes per student.

Essential Question

How can students use graphic organizers to enhance their writing?

Instructional/Environment Modifications

Instructional Modifications:

Use of Kidspiration and Microsoft Word will help all students experience success with their writing
The writing project is broken down into three parts in order to make writing less cumbersome to students.

Procedure

Students use the writing process to "recreate" their own story based on the short story, "Cheese, Peas, and Chocolate Pudding" by Betty Van Witsen. In these lessons, the students learned how to improve their writing by adding details and dialogue to their writing, given a story format to follow.

Day 1:

After reading the story, the class discusses the basic story format (beginning, middle, and end, as well as story conflict and resolution.)
Students then brainstorm a variety of foods and the various ways they could be served.
Students discuss personal experiences of trying a new food and their reaction(s) to these foods.
In the computer lab, students are instructed on how to create a graphic organizer using Kidspiration. Students are provided with a teacher made example, which they can model their own graphic organizers on.
A grading rubric for the graphic organizer is distributed and discussed using the teacher model. Once graphic organizers are complete, students begin writing their story.

Days 2, 3, 4

Students create additional graphic organizers for the middle of the story, though this was optional.
Grading rubric for story is distributed and discussed using student examples from previous years.
Additional class discussion on story components and their personal experiences are held throughout the project.
Students continue writing stories.
(The writing is broken into smaller increments to make the writing less daunting to students who are struggling writers.)
Individual conferences are held with each student for the purpose of editing and revising their writing.
Students publish their final work using Microsoft Word.
Student work is assessed using teacher created rubrics for graphic organizer, as well as final written work.
(Throughout this project, students are given instruction about sentence structure and variation, as well as dialogue punctuation.)

Reflections and Feedback

This lesson was developed to assist students who are reluctant to express themselves through writing by utilizing a graphic organizer to help organize and expand their ideas.

This has been quite the learning experience for me, as I realized the students I work with are extremely reticent to write creatively. In addition, I learned that these students were not ready to write directly on the computer. They were easily bored, and as a result, it was difficult for me to have their cooperation and willingness to complete the rewrite using their own ideas. Editing and revising was done through individual conferencing and still they could not change the original story ideas into their own. This lesson has been done in the past and students were very successful. Some of the factors that had an impact on performance were student absenteeism, lack of confidence, and emotionality.

Things I would do differently:

Students use Kidspiration to create three graphic organizers for each part of the story (beginning, middle and end) then turn organizer into outline format for writing purposes.
Write drafts and revisions on paper before doing the final copy using the computer.
I would remove original story so that students create stories without relying on the original text for their ideas.