Title – Creative Writing with Animals

By – Kelly Pierce

Primary Subject – Language Arts

Grade Level – K-2 (Special Education)

Content:

• Students will write a non-fiction story about animals and learn to use creativity to present facts and new materials.
• They will learn outlining, use punctuation, grammar and spelling while focusing on the continuity of facts.
  

Benchmarks:

Use the same outline as provided by the state/school curriculum guide and a rubric which focuses on the students attention and behavior, as much as on the completion of the assignment. (

Benchmarks are difficult for me because I am a Special Ed major.

)

Learning Resources and Materials:

• Handwriting utensils
• Selected text for reading

Development of Lesson:

Introduction:

• Prepare students for the lesson by reading the text aloud in class and by conducting fact-finding together.
• Instruct students to partner and begin to write key facts.
• We would then brainstorm together on how to complete a smooth and creative connection in writing from all of the facts presented by the group.
• Encourage students to be reminded of past experiences at the zoo, etc. regarding the animal in the text and to use that information from personal observation in their writing.

Methods/Procedures:

• Students will pair together to find facts; all students will work together with teacher and paraprofessionals to assemble the final class product.
• The instruction starts out directly to the class, then among small peer groups, then back to the collaborative entirety.
• Task analyzing and prompting will be constant in keeping students active in their sharing of ideas.
• Ideas will be rewarded with loads of positive reinforcement.

Assessment/Evaluation:

• Each student should work to their ability and will be evaluated based on their individualized education plan.
• Assessment must be tailored to each individual IEP, because concerns regarding behavior and focus are just as important as comprehension, participation, creativity and the academic aspects of writing/reading.
• Feedback will be overwhelmingly positive regardless of the product; Applied Behavior Analysis should be used. Basically, every student should be rewarded as if they met the expectations, but note in their rubrics and IEP evaluations whether or not the skill set was reached.
• Learning will be proven when students are able to use these concepts and move on in their comprehension and reiteration.

Closure:

• Continue discussion about the animal of the text to see what was retained.
• Based on the discussions, ascertain how each student’s comprehension/retention is coming along and what other types of lessons would be appropriate for this group.
• The main focus of this benchmark based on Seminar B met standards was the issue of creativity, which would be no problem when talking about animals!

E-Mail

Kelly

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