Introduction
This lesson is in my Sea Life Unit.  It will be to write a three paragraph story with a prompt about a  " fish tail."   The story will have at least one telling sentence, one asking sentence and one emotional sentence. They will use correct punctuation and spelling. They will draw a picture of their "fish tale" and read their stories to the class.

Subject: Sea Life
Topic: creative writing about a fish tail
Grade Level: first grade
Student Lesson name and URL:http://ctap295.ctaponline.org/~lpeek/student/

The standards for written and oral English language conventions have been placed between those for writing and for listening and speaking because these conventions are essential to both sets of skills.

Written and Oral English Language Conventions

Students write and speak with a command of standard English conventions appropriate to this grade.

Punctuation (grade one)

1.5 Use a period, exclamation point, or question mark at the end of a sentence.

1.6 Use knowledge of the basic rules of punctuation and capitalization when writing.

Capitalization (grade one)

1.7 Capitalize the first word of a sentence, names of people, and the pronoun I.

Spelling (grade one)

1.8 Spell three- and four-letter short-vowel words and grade-level-appropriate sight words correctly.

Instructional Objectives

1.  After giving students several prompts, students will choose one prompt and write a three paragraph story about the prompt they have chosen.

2.  Students will use correct punctuation marks, capital letters and spelling.

3.  Students will demonstrate correct usage of the different kinds of sentences: telling sentences, asking sentences and emotional sentences.

Introductory Activity
In September we will start writing bare bones sentences.  A bare bone sentence can have as few as two words.  A subject (noun)  would be a person, place or thing and an action (verb) or movement, would be an  example of a bare bones sentence.  We will learn this be cutting out pictures from magazines and catalogues.  We will be putting thepictures of subjects on three separate posters.  One poster will be of people, one poster will be of places and one poster will be for things.  They will make a separate poster for action pictures.  They will then make their very own " My Subject Booklet" with two pieces of white paper folded in half.  The smallest page will have the word "people" at the bottom of the page, the middle page will have "places" at the bottom and the biggest page will say "things" at the bottom. The students will keep these in their desks all year.  We will also be reading several bare bone books.  We will be working on this concepts for the rest of the year.

Enabling Activity(ies)
We will practice writing two word sentences and then expand them. The students will learn to expand the subject word, action word or both.  We will start writing a primary paragraph.  I will start with a prompt.  We will do prewriting together.  The students will give me words pertaining to the prompt and I will write the words on the board.  We will write a rough draft with some of the words on the board.  I will collect them and then pass them out to different students to edit.  Then we will do a final revision. We will do this many times before they write their "fish tail." 

Culminating Activity
As we learn more about Sea Life, my students will have lots of knowledge of the various fish, whales, dolphins, seals and sharks. We talk about penguins in January, so I will  refresh their memories about these " birds."   As we finish this unit on Sea Life I will ask them to start thinking about what they want to write about, they may ask friends and family.  I would like them to have some ideas before they start writing.  On the last day of our Sea Life Unit the students will write their three paragraph story on  one page.  After they finish their stories they will reread them, correct any mistakes and hand them in to me.  After they finish and they are turned in they may start designing their "fish tale" art project.  I will give them  time later to work on this project.  After I have read all their stories and given them a grade with a rubric, they will read them to the class.  This is a fun way for the students to remember their "tales" and other students "tales."

Assessment

Each rating for this domain has particular characteristics:

 

1 point - Minimal attempt to complete the task and/or content frequently inappropriate

• The student makes an effort but falls short, possibly missing required elements.
• Response may be unrelated to the assigned task.
• There may be very little ratable material.

2 points - Partial completion of the task, content mostly appropriate, ideas are undeveloped

• Response is mostly relevant but lacks appropriate details.
• A required portion of the task may be missing.

3 points - Completion of the task, content appropriate, ideas adequately developed

• All required elements are present.
• Response directly relates to the task as given.
• Response has sufficient information or detail based on learned material.
• Response may show organization.

4 points - Superior completion of the task, content appropriate, ideas well developed

and well-organized

• All required elements are present.
• Student is able to use a variety of learned expressions to provide detail.
• Response is usually well-organized and cohesive.

I will have a four point rubric to grade their final product.  Number 1 will stand for "needs improvement", number 2 will be for "basic paper", number 3 will equal "proficient" (or meets Standards) and number 4 will mean it's "exemplary" (it exceeds Standards). I will be looking for several areas of concern: 1.   does their story represent what it is supposed to  2.  all words that are supposed to start with capital letters do  3.  all periods, question marks, exclamation marks and commas are correct and  4.  there are three paragraphs, an opening paragraph, a body paragraph and a closing paragraph.

I would also like all of my students to take a short test on what they already know about sea life on the Web page Kindergarten-Science-Life in the Sea http://www.kidport.com/GradeK/Science/Seals.htm.

They can take this test again at the end of this unit.

Introductory Activity
There are many excellent web pages for sea life.  Some of the better ones I found are: The International Year of the Ocean, http://www.yoto98.noaa.gov./

Another good one is the Home page dedicated to Sea Life Park Hawaii, www2.hawaii.edu/~atakahas/slp.htm

My favorite web site is the Sea Life Web Site  www.kent.webnet.edu/staff/mmoran/Sealife.htm

Enabling Activity
List and link the web resources for your learning activity(ies) here. Also link supplementary materials such as PDF files and /or document files.tm

Culminating Activity
List and link the web resources for this activity here. Also link supplementary materials such as PDF files and /or document files.

Finley Elementary School
Holtville, California 92250
Lisa E. Peek

lisa29peek@yahoo.com

last revised 7/30/00