Description
This lesson is designed to engage students in identifying and applying knowledge of parts of speech. The lesson also includes an extension of writing and use of the new-found tools for writing. The lesson includes a SMART Board presentation and an excerpt from the children’s book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. The lesson is designed for middle school students.
Duration
This entire lesson will take three to four 45-minute periods.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to define different parts of speech including verb, adjective, noun, proper noun, pronoun, adverb, article, and preposition.
Students will be able to identify parts of speech within text.
Students will be able to create a writing assignment in making a fictional town emulating the style of Judi Barrett in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Materials
SMART Board, SMART Board setup, SMART Board presentation, sentence practice with parts of speech, excerpt from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, colored pencils, and assignment sheets for fictional town.
Parts of Speech Sentences to LabelExcerpt of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"Prompt for Writing Assignment: Fictional TownSmart Board Presentation
Step-by-Step Procedure
Day 1
The teacher should start with a pre-assessment in order to gauge where the students are in their prior knowledge.
The students will start the lesson by taking notes on the parts of speech. Depending on the students, this will be an introduction or simply a review.
The students will then be prompted to give the teacher different terms that have to do with "weather" (cloudy, snow, hail, rain, etc.) As the students give various weather terminologies, the teacher will write them into different lists on the board or SMART Board without telling the students why.
When the teacher feels there is a significant amount of terminologies on the board, the teacher will stop the students and prompt them to infer why the teacher has separated the various terms. The students will (hopefully) infer that the teacher separated the words by part of speech.
The teacher will then have the students create sentences using the words on the board illustrating the fact that sentences must have a subject and verb. This will help students later in the lesson.
Day 2
Do Now: Attached is a handout with various sentences for the students to label with parts of speech to start them in the process for the day.
From this point, the teacher can introduce the story
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. The teacher can guide the students in comprehension with questions and seek understanding of the connection between the weather terms and the story from students.
At this point, the teacher will use the SMART Notebook presentation in order to begin the color-coding process. This process will help the students identify parts of speech within the text. The students will need the colored pencils and will need to make a key on their papers for each part of speech being identified. Starting out with four and adding more later maybe beneficial for students.
After modeling for the students, the students will continue to practice with the teacher on the SMART Board through an interactive model (See presentation attached). Students should then be prompted to complete the color-coding with partners for complete understanding.
Day 3 and 4
Students will now be fully immersed into the parts of speech and the teacher will guide them to use the model of the story to create their own fictional towns where all of the precipitation is food. Students will be in the same set of partners from the previous day. They must choose a title, a menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner, include a quote, and most importantly use vivid descriptions using the parts of speech. The teacher may also ask the students to color code their own work to ensure once again they are using the parts of speech, are aware of them, and can identify them.
Attached to this project can be a diorama project. This would include the students using real types of food, such as noodles, to create a representation of their town. This should also include a caption with vivid description.
Related Website(s)
www.brainpop.com
Assessment
The first assessment will be the Do Now document with the sentence labeling, the second assessment will be the color-coded excerpt of the story, the third assessment will be the student writing and the ultimate use of the parts of speech within the writing. The students will also be assessed during class during the use of the model of color-coding previous to work in pairs.
