Whole Class

Writing Planning

Term 1

Teacher Notes:

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Remind the kids that when they are writing their blurbs they need to think about a number of important things. Emphasise:

• Making it unique! Make your blurb creative and different to everyone else's blurb.
• Making it relevant! What makes you, you in 2017?
• Making it short and sharp! Grab the attention of our audience and make them want to read more.

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• Let students know their task for today is to rewrite their All about Me for their blog. Go through their work and discuss the purpose and structure of their writing.
• Discuss how at the end they will mark themselves on the rubric identifying where they are working at for sentences.
• Review what kinds of sentences that we want to use when writing their blurb. Remember to focus on using different beginnings for every sentence. Model this for the students

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Ensure learners are aware of how to keep themselves cybersmart when writing their blogs: Cybersmart lesson/discussion as part of this lesson e.g. ensuring students realise it is NOT ok to write things such as the road they live on!

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Lesson Name: About Me (Week 1&2)

Teacher Notes:

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Experience

Explain to the class that we are going to be doing recount writing this year, and need to do experiences so that we have something to write about. I will have the class together and will explain to them the rules of the challenge. They will get 25 sticks of spaghetti, 91cm of masking tape, 1 marshmallow and have 20 minutes to build the tallest tower. The marshmallow must be on the top of the building and they cannot use walls iy must be free standing from the table.

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Writing

The students will then use the writing rubric to create a recount about the marshmallow challenge.

• The introduction must introduce what it is that they will be talking about in their recount
• The second paragraph will need to include what they were thinking and feeling at the time of the instructions being given
• The third paragraph will include what they did and how they made the marshmallow tower.
• The fourth paragraph will look at the final product and how they could have done it better next time
• Lastly they will conclude the recount - remind them not to add in any new information here they should be summarising the key main points from their writing.

Key information:

• Remind the students that it is not a narrative it is a recount
• Look at words such as next, before, after that, during this time and so on.
• Remind them to use simple sentences and put a full stop where is necessary so that they are not just writing and then and then.

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Lesson Name: Marshmallow Challenge (Week 3)

Teacher Notes:

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Experience

Explain to the class that we are going to be doing recount writing this year, and need to do experiences so that we have something to write about. The students will be told the instructions on how to play “Who am I?” they will then split up into pairs and will have 5 minutes to complete this activity.

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Writing

The students will then use the writing rubric to create a recount about the activity Who am I?

• As a class we will go through each section
• Introduction - will discuss key points of what they should include here then they will have 5 minutes to plan this by themselves then we will come back as a class.
• Body 1 - will discuss key points of what they should include here then they will have 5 minutes to plan this by themselves then we will come back as a class.
• Then will follow on for each section of the writing rubric until they have written a recount.
• They will then buddy share and make sure all of the main points of a recount are there. �

Key information:

• Past tense - we are writing about something that has already happened
• Chronological order - write it in the order that you completed the experience in
• Use who, what, why, when, where and how
• Talk about how you felt during this situation add emotion
• Don’t just tell the reader what you did show them through your use of language features.
• CHECK spelling and grammar and PROOFREAD

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Lesson Name: Who am I? (Week 4)

Teacher Notes:

As a class we have been looking at pollution and how it can affect our environment we had a large focus on plastic bags and what damage they can cause. We looked at a petition that was created by Joe who wants plastic bags to be banned from New Zealand. I wanted the students to have a chance to voice their own opinion and express why they agree or disagree with Joe.

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Writing

The students will then use the writing rubric to create this letter to Mr McKenzie

They will need to include all of the information that is needed in a letter, we will discuss this as a big group and then if there are any questions I will set up workshops for the children to come to so that I can help them with particular aspects of their writing. This will be done by wandering around the classroom and observing what things the students are finding difficult.

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Key things for discussion

Each of these points will be discussed with the class before they begin their writing - this is so that we can discuss what a letter is and how it should be written and also how to include their own opinion in their writing.

• What are the key point of a letter? Why do we write one?
• When we write with our opinion do we include one side? No - discuss how and why we look at both parts of the argument and why both sides need to be there to strengthen this.
• What kind of language to we use in letter writing? Do we use slang?
• Why are we using formal langauge and what does formal language look like?
• CHECK spelling and grammar and PROOFREAD

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Lesson Name: Letter to Mr McKenzie (Week 6)

Teacher Notes:

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Experience

The class will be writing about their experiences from camp last week. Before we begin the lesson I will show the students a slideshow and photos that I took from camp to get them to start thinking about what they did and what their favourite parts of camp were. Then we will have a discussion about what they liked best about camp. We will also discuss how it is important to think about thanking people in our writing too as there was a lot of help given to us from all the teachers, staff and families of Pt England School.

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Writing

The students will then use the writing rubric to create a recount Camp 2017

• As a class we will go through each section of the rubric and discuss what should be in each section to ensure that the reader is going to be wowed by their writing.
• Will also discuss how important it is that we think about these ideas now as our next writing activity will be adding more detail and depth about camp. �

Key information:

• Past tense - we are writing about something that has already happened
• Chronological order - write it in the order that you completed the experience in
• Use who, what, why, when, where and how
• Talk about how you felt during this situation add emotion
• Don’t just tell the reader what you did show them through your use of language features.
• CHECK spelling and grammar and PROOFREAD

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Lesson Name: Camp! (Week 7)