Lesson Plan Title : Collaborative Writing

Age Range: Kindergarten through Grade 2 (Early Elementary Level)

Duration: 45 minutes

Description: This lesson introduces children to the writing process through collaborative writing. After listening to a recording of jungle sounds and reading Where The Wild Things Are, students will develop a jungle story of their own.

Goals:

Students will make written, oral, and visual presentations.

Objectives:

1. After listening to a recording of jungle sounds, students will be able to brainstorm a list of things they felt, saw, or heard.

2. Students will be able to assist the teacher by verbally completing a sentence for the "jungle" story.

3. Students will be able to draw a picture that illustrates a sentence in the "Jungle" story.

Materials:

Whiteboard

Recording of jungle sounds

Copy of Where the Wild Things Are

Crayons or markers

Activities:

Begin by explaining to the students that just like in Where the Wild Things Are, they are going to be making up their own story about a wild place. Explain to them that you will be reading them the story and then listening to sound of the jungle to help them imagine what they would see, hear, and feel.

Read Where the Wild Things Are for the students. While reading as questions such as How do you think the creatures felt? How do you think the boy felt? Describe what you think he saw?

Play Jungle sounds for the students. Ask them to close their eyes. Their attention span will be short so before playing remind them to think about how the sounds make them feel. Play for about one minute.

After listening to the recording have the students tell you what they saw and felt while reading the book and listening to the jungle sounds.

On your whiteboard write I heard, I saw, I felt and have students give you words to fill in those categories.

Session 2: Have several sheets of paper taped on the walls. These sheets will each have sentence skeletons for a story. Examples might include:

The first thing I saw on my trip was a _____.

I ran by a scary _____.

I was beginning to feel _____.

On my way home I heard _____.

Have enough for each student

Have each student choose one and try and fill in the missing word.

Next have students draw an illustration of their sentence on the page they filled in the missing word on.

Collect papers and put them together.

Read the completed story to the students.

Assessment: During the graphic organizing and the writing of sentences, have a checklist of class names to verify that each student has contributed to the story. The final illustrations will be assessed to identify if the students have

Extensions: Students could act out each sentence of the story that they draw and write out.