Quotes and Synonyms

Monday, November 29, 2010

Today I was observed during a writing lesson by my supervisor from my college. I have a major project due in a few weeks for a curriculum class that I should have been working on over the Thanksgiving break, but this lesson plan took up all the free time and energy I had! Phew...who knew putting together two small group mini-lessons could take so much work!

The first small group consisted of above grade level students who have shown through other works and writings that they have a firm grasp on writing and show an individual style. For them, I planned a mini-lesson on the use of quotations. I had seen the use of the quotations in their writing and the biggest pet peeve I have is stand alone quotes. I know that 5th graders haven't learned this skill yet, but I feel they were ready to learn a bit about the proper use of quotes. I found some great rules for using dialogue quotes that I was able to tie into research writing. I have the lesson, so won't talk about it here, but rather reflect on the group. :)

It went well! This group of children are a quiet and controlled bunch. I find that using the thumbs up, down, sideways really works to see where they are with the use of quotes. The groups had some great input about using quotes, and while much of the information was familiar to them, the use in their own writing was new, especially using tags with quotes.

The second mini-lesson was on adjectives and synonyms. Again, I did the thumbs, both in beginning and end, and like with the first group, I got thumbs up all around after the mini-lesson. :) Using adjectives to describe an object, I had this group use a thesaurus and an online thesaurus to find synonyms. This group was a lot more rowdy than the last, but that was more dynamics (three boys one girl in this group, three girls one boy in the first group). but they did the lesson and I feel it was helpful. I even think they had fun finding synonyms because of some of the options given. They found many of the words humorous, and while behavior wise, not the best, I think they will use this skill because they had fun with it!

Once again, my supervisor loved the lesson and thought I did a fabulous job. :)