INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING TEMPLATE
Overview and Context
Your name(s):
Anna Benson
Grade level and school:
Pattengill 4th grade
Title of lesson/activity:
Poetry Day 1: The Purpose of Poetry
Teaching date(s) and time(s):
Monday 2/9 @ 1:15
Estimated time for
lesson/activity:
15 min. for mini-lesson
Overview of lesson:
I will begin the lesson by introducing the poetry unit, and
giving a structure for the lesson. I will perform a poem and
students will share what they think and feel about it. Then
students will have the chance to write why we write poetry
through putting post-it notes on the board. After that students
will write what they know, and what they want to know about
poetry. Finally students will share a poem aloud from their
poetry anthologies.
Context of lesson:
Students have just finished a writing unit on persuasive
writing, with the culminating product being a letter written to
parents, the principal, or teacher. Students have been
working all year on compiling poetry anthologies.
Sources:
Poetry Study (Grade 4) Daily Plans made by Chuck Hatt
Awakening the Heart: Georgia Heard
Learning Goals and Assessments
Connection to
Standards
Learning Goals
Type of
Assessment
Connection to
activities
CCSS.ELALITERACY.RL.4.2:
Determine a theme
of a...poem from
details in the text;
summarize the
text.
Students will be able to
identify purposes of
reading and writing
poetry
Exit slip:
What I know about
poetry:
What I want to learn
about poetry:
(see bottom of
plan)
Students will be
engaged in a
discussion about
why we write
poetry; Preassessment allows
me to track on what
to focus on with
students
Attending to the Learners
Anticipating student ideas:
Students may have certain preconceived notions about poetry.
They may not know that all powerful poems are written with a
purpose, or what kinds of purposes there are.
Making the content accessible
to all students:
Giving explicit instructions stated on board
Giving students pre-assessments/assignments with
sentence starters
Instructional Sequence
Materials:
Time
Poetry anthologies, 26 post it notes, 26 half sheets of knowing/wonderings and
assignments
Steps Describing What the Teacher and Students Will
Do
Notes and Reminders
(including management
considerations)
5 min.
Launch/Performance: Today we are going to
begin our new unit on poetry. I know that you all
have been collecting and carefully crafting and
illustrating beautiful poems in your poetry
anthologies all year. Ive even had the chance to
look through a few of your poetry anthologies. I am
excited to say that you will get the chance to dive
deep into the sea of poetry over the next three
weeks. We will continue to explore, read, and in
our final week, we will be writing poetry.
* Behavior management
What were going to do today is this: (READ
BOARD)
writing poetry.
1.
Ms. Benson will perform a
reminder: Eyes on speaker,
mouths closed, materials
down
* Make sure students have
their poetry anthologies and
all materials
On board
My goal for today is to learn
about different purposes for
poem!
Before we do anything else, Im going to read
2.
Post-It Activity: why do we
aloud a poem to you. After I have performed it,
write poetry??
think about how it made you feel, and what it made
3.
Poem sharing and ~fun~
you think. Then well share your thoughts.
(Perform Hey World, Here I Am! By Jean Little)
What did you think? How did it make you feel?
task
5 min.
Post-It Activity: Now were going to think in a
bigger picture about poetry. Poetry can be kind of
a weird form of writing - its usually very short, and
has a different kind of language and structure from
writing like stories and letters.
- Some potential reasons to
write poetry
- - to tell a story
- - to entertain others
- - to make sense of our
What I want you to think about is: why do we write
poetry?
Why do we write poetry?
You all have post it notes on your table. Write
down some reasons why you think you might write
poetry. Then put these post-it notes on the board.
Share aloud these reasons.
Now take a moment to complete the small half-sheet
of paper. Write down one thing you know about poetry
and one thing you want to learn about poetry.
world
- - to express our inner
feelings
- - to ask a question
3 min.
You all have some very thoughtful and interesting
ideas about why we write poetry - I know that your
ideas will continue to change as we go forth on our
journey to explore poetry!
Now I have a few small task for you that I think you
will find enjoyable (See assignment below)
Name: __________________________
You have many poems hiding in your life. Think
of this as a poem treasure hunt, and it is your job
as a poet to find one!
Share a feeling, question, or memory that
interests you. Write down what it is!
Circle one: A feeling/question/memory I have
that interests me is:
____________________________________________
__________________________________
____________________________________________
__________________________________
We will share some of these tomorrow in class, and you
will give them to me to look at, so please be ready with
this!
2 min.
Sharing Poetry: Now, after every poetry session,
Id like to end it by hearing a poem from your
poetry anthology from one or two of you. Who is
our first volunteer to share a poem from your
poetry anthology?
Have one or two students (depending on time) share a
poem from the poetry anthology.
When we end the lesson they
have several options:
Work on Persuasive Letter
Drafts
Work on Pen Pal Letters
??
Reflection on Planning
Learning goal for self:
During lesson: using direct language to improve
management, using clear instructions. Most of all, engage
students in poetry!
After lesson: Begin collecting and analyzing assessments
Preparing to teach this
lesson:
Used unit plan as reference, searched for mentor poems to
perform, created pre-assessment & assignment
Name: ___________________
Poetry Experiences
What do I already know about poetry?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
What do I want to learn about poetry?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
