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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.1
Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.1.A
Introduce the topic or text they are writing about, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure that lists reasons.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.1.B
Provide reasons that support the opinion.

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Video to show students

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Opinion Writing for Kids | Episode 1 | What Is It?

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I give the students a minute or two to discuss their ideas with their classmates, and then I call the class back together (using the "If You Can Hear My Voice..." strategy! See my strategy folder for more information on this strategy!). I ask the students to tell me what they think of each argument. I say, "How about my first friend's argument?" The kids say that he didn't say why his band was the best! I confirm for the kids that this is correct! We can't just choose a band-we should have evidence and our own personal reasons to support our opinions, and my first friend doesn't have either of those!

Then I say, "Okay, how about my second friend?" One of the students offers that this was better! I agree and say that yes, her argument does have some evidence (ie: the band has already produced three albums in one year), but I ask, "Does she include her own personal reasons?" The students say no, she doesn't. I tell the kids that they are so smart because in order to have a strong opinion, we should have both evidence and our own personal reasons to back it up!

So now I move to the third friend and ask about their argument! The students say this argument is much better! Again, I confirm for the kids that they are absolutely right and point out that this argument had both evidence (ie: the musician had lots of years of experience in the music industry) and personal reasons, too (ie: she thinks their music is fun to dance to!). This is a great way to support her opinion!

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I give the students a minute or two to discuss their ideas with their classmates, and then I call the class back together (using the "If You Can Hear My Voice..." strategy! See my strategy folder for more information on this strategy!). I ask the students to tell me what they think of each argument.

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In my first year of teaching I was expected to use a writer's workshop model where students almost always chose their own writing topics. This was before the Common Core standards and my district wasn't very concerned about what genres students wrote in, as long as they wrote. I could definitely tell you that in my students' opinion, professional wrestling was the best sport and puppies were the best pet. I knew this because of the sheer volume of random writing I saw on these two topics, not because my students were skilled at writing opinion pieces.

***I made a chart of helpful sentence starters that's perfect for writing folders. Get yours for free HERE!***

Things have changed and whether or not kids like it, opinion writing is now a staple genre in kindergarten through 5th grade. The good news is, teaching opinion writing doesn't have to be like pulling teeth. Here are four opinion writing ideas that you can put in place right away:

Choose Topics That Fire Them Up!

When presenting topic choices for opinion writing, the key is to think about what gets kids fired up. What are they constantly complaining about? What makes them mad? What do they argue about? What do they annoyingly beg for? What are some things that affect them that they've never even thought of? Here's a list of ideas to consider:

-How much homework should kids be given?
-What should the lunchroom offer that it doesn't already?
-How much recess should kids have?
-Should kids wear school uniforms?
-How much allowance should kids get?
-Which cartoon is the funniest?
-Should kids be allowed to use cell phones at school?
-Which football/baseball/soccer team is the best?
-Which book should the school library buy/buy more of?
-What should the school add to the playground?
-What kind of field trip should the class take?
-Which school rule should be changed?
-What pet should the class get?
-What is the best restaurant in town?
-Is it better to be smart or to be nice?
-Who should be given more money, schools or the military?
-Would you rather vacation to a big city or to the wilderness?
-Is life easier for boys or for girls?
-What one book should every kid read?
-Nominate a classmate for an award. Why do they deserve it?
-Should kids get paid to do chores?
-How much screen time should kids be allowed to have?
-How often should kids take a bath/shower?
-What is one thing that should be free for everyone?
-Should kids have to memorize math facts?
-Is it more important to know how to write or to know how to type?
-Should kids get paid for good grades?
-What one place should everyone visit?

Give Them A Jump Start With Sentence Starters

Staring at a blank page is the hardest part of the writing process for both kids and adults. I have found that the secret sauce for getting kids started is to provide them with potential sentence starters. It's so much easier to fill in the blank than to start from scratch.

***Get your free sentence starter chart HERE!***

A chart like this is perfect to put in student writing notebooks for reference. Opinion writing pieces would use mostly sentences starters from the second and third column. Eventually students become more confident and creative and they can move away from scripted sentence starters but this is a great place to start. You will be amazed by how much more mature your students' writing sounds when they start to incorporate some of these sentence starters.

Create a "Payoff"

As adults, when we write there is always a purpose. We write the principal an email to convince her to send us to a conference, we write instructions for a homework assignment, we write a newsletter to parents about upcoming events. Some of us have cultivated a love for writing and will write a poem or a narrative for our own enjoyment. When students write it is frequently because we told them to. For some kids, pleasing the teacher is motivation enough but others do much better when they have more of a pay off for the hard work for putting their ideas to paper, editing, revising, and producing a final copy. There are a variety of ways to create this motivation:

Give them an authentic audience - Students can write to the principal about their opinion on a school issue, to their parents about their opinion on an issue to home, to the PTA on their opinion about how fundraising money should be spent, to a government official about their opinion on a community matter

Give them an engaging project - Just writing their final copy on a plain piece of paper may not be very motivating to students. Try mixing it up with different kinds of publishing projects.

Write a brochure. The one pictured below is about a favorite place to visit. Students enjoy looking at travel brochures as examples. They could also write brochures about a favorite book, their opinion about the best sport, and a wide variety of other topics.

Write reviews. As a class you can write a book review and post it on Amazon. Students get very excited to see their own work on the internet and they feel that they have contributed to something big. Students can also write reviews about movies or restaurants and create a class book. They're probably familiar with the idea of assigning a certain number of starts out of five. Students enjoy reading the work of their peers and will recognize many of the restaurants or movies in the reviews.

Write award nominations. Assign each student the name of another student in the class. Each writer thinks about what their assigned subject is good at and gives them an award for that trait or skill. They write about why the person deserves the award.

Give them a chance to share - At the dinner table when a parent asks their child, "What did you do at school today?" lots of kids will say, "Nothing." So when a parent reports back to you with something their child came home excited about, you know you've struck an important chord. One of those golden nuggets that kids will rave about at home is a special writing sharing time. At the end of each unit, throw a publishing party or a book launch. The details are simple. Each student gets a chance to share their best piece with the class. At the end there's a little something special. For me it was a toast using small cups of apple juice. Kids felt so grown up as we honored their hard work. You can take your own spin on it, invite the principal or other special guests, invite parents, maybe ask some kids to bring cookies. When kids are in the trenches of writing, remind them that their hard work is important because they will want something good to share with their classmates at the publishing party.

Connect Steps with Color-Coding

The Common Core standards require that students use an introduction, reasons, and a conclusion in their opinion writing. These multiple sections can feel long, confusing, and insurmountable to some students. I found a game changer especially for struggling writers - color coding. Color coding isn't just for reading groups and supply buckets. Use color coding to connect the dots from the genre structure, to your students' planning, to their drafts. The color coding takes away a lot of the confusion and helps students to see how a big paragraph of writing is just made up of bite-sized sentences that they can take-on.

At the top of the graphic I have laid out the main sections of the genre and given each section a color. Next you can see a planning graphic organizer where each section is outlined in the correct color. Finally, there is an example draft where the sentence for each section is underlined in the assigned color. To help your students take it one piece at a time, you can demonstrate how you would write your pink sentence, then have them write their pink sentence. Then you demonstrate your green sentence and have them write their green sentence. When students are ready to write more they can add a detail in the green and yellow sections. (More on color-coding in narrative writing here.)

Follow along on Pinterest for more writing ideas:

Follow Hannah @ The Classroom Key's board Literacy on Pinterest.

Author: Hannah Braun

http://www.theclassroomkey.com

Hannah Braun is a former teacher with 8 years of experience in the classroom and a master's degree in early childhood education. She designs engaging, organized classroom resources for 1st-3rd grade teachers.

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Get Students Excited about Opinion Writing with these 4 Ideas

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In my first year of teaching I was expected to use a writer's workshop model where students almost always chose their own writing topics. This was before the Common Core standards and my district wasn't very concerned about what genres students wrote in, as long as they wrote.

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During third grade, children are really flexing their "idea" muscles and learning to express those ideas in more sophisticated ways. Sentences are getting longer and more complex. Kids are learning to use a dictionary to correct their own spelling. Grammar improves; for example, you'll see appropriate punctuation, contractions, and correct subject-verb agreement.

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Do we need a dog park? Why or why not? Write your opinion about the subject. Provide reasons and examples to support the main topic.

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worksheets for teachers and worksheets for homeschoolers

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2nd & 3rd grade Writing Assessments and Examples

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2nd & 3rd grade Writing Assessments and Examples

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Have to pay for

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3rd Grade Common Core Writing Assessment - 104 pages - this pack includes assessment sheets for each writing standard. The assessments were carefully made to help you identify if the student mastered the standards or not. Rubrics, graphic organizers and writing paper

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Accommodations

Providing accommodations, or support strategies, while creating lesson plans can be a challenge for even the most experienced teachers. How do you support ELL students while still teaching the curriculum to all students? Do you need to write two separate sets of lesson plans, one for native English speakers and one for ELLs?

Adding accommodations to lesson plans does not need to be a struggle. Accommodations should not modify the curriculum or the standards that you expect students to learn. Rather, they should provide support to ELLs to help them achieve their learning goals.

Let's take a look at some specific strategies that you can implement to your lesson plans in order to accommodate for ELL students.

Extra Time

Extra time is one of the easiest accommodations to implement because it doesn't take any extra preparation on the teacher's part. ELL students often need extra time to read assignment directions and reading passages - especially with written responses. Just providing them with extended time to complete assignments can help support them in their efforts to achieve their academic goals.

Read Text Aloud

When writing lesson plans that involve reading, keep in mind that many ELL students benefit from a read-aloud accommodation. This means that when students are expected to read text independently, someone is available to read the text aloud to the ELL students who need this accommodation. This could be the teacher, a co-teacher, or another student.

This accommodation is extremely helpful for ELL students who have low English reading proficiency. Following along with the text while the words are read aloud can improve comprehension and help model reading fluency.

However, teachers don't often have the time to read all text aloud to students. Partner reading is another option. You can also look for audio versions of the text.

Interactive Support

Simply allowing ELL students to work with partners and small groups during class can be a helpful accommodation to add to a lesson plan. For assignments where students are expected to work independently, consider the potential impact of allowing ELL students to interact with native English speakers. It's a great way for them to increase comprehension and practice speaking skills.

Writing Support

Students who are literate in their native language and have at least an intermediate level of English proficiency can benefit from the use of bilingual dictionaries. Allow students to use these dictionaries for all writing activities, including formal assessments.

Another kind of writing support is the use of sentence frames. These are pre-written sentences that allow ELL students to fill in the missing information, often using a word bank. Sentence frames help model proper sentence structure so students receive writing practice. The following are some examples of sentence frames:

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ell accommodations for lesson plans | study.com

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ELL Accommodations for Lesson Plans | Study.com

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Providing accommodations, or support strategies, while creating lesson plans can be a challenge for even the most experienced teachers. How do you support ELL students while still teaching the curriculum to all students? Do you need to write two separate sets of lesson plans, one for native English speakers and one for ELLs?

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Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing

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Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing

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"The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine."

- Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii

"Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom. I was a student teacher in a Massachusetts elementary school, and it took me awhile to figure out the correlation between the pencil and hallway behavior. If I replied, "Yes, you should bring a pencil," the walk to my classroom took 15 minutes and involved a lot of disruptions, student squabbles, drifting students and other various misbehaviors. As a student teacher, I was very focused on keeping order and creating a challenging learning environment. If I replied, "No, you don't need a pencil today," the walk to my classroom took about five minutes, even with a stop at the drinking fountain.

So, what was the correlation? Writing. The students knew that if they had to bring a pencil they would have to do writing in the class, and they dreaded it. If they didn't need a pencil, we would be working on projects or doing more verbal work, and they liked that. What they weren't expecting was that half-way through my student teaching, I bought 10 boxes of pencils and kept them in my classroom, so they never had to bring a pencil to class - I had plenty to go around. This improved the hallway behavior, but still left me with the question of how to improve ESL student writing when they were frustrated by the practice and went to great lengths to avoid it.

I have been teaching ESL for many years and there is no perfect solution to this problem; however, I do believe I have added quite a few writing activities to my bag of tricks and improved my ability to differentiate writing tasks based on student ability. As I improved my ability to ensure that each student would be successful in the writing activity, their confidence increased, and they were less likely to engage in disruptive behavior. You know what I'm talking about - the long, dramatic search for a pencilâ€¦ and then paperâ€¦ or the meandering walk about the room to get yesterday's writing draft, or the ever popular, "15 minute pencil sharpening" session. I hope some of the writing activities I share with you will help you to reduce anxiety in your ESL students and increase their language and writing skills.

There is a very important correlation between writing and language development. As students develop language skills, they often develop listening skills first (lots of input they can understand), then speaking (they begin to formulate their ideas in the second language), then reading (they can understand the sound/symbol correspondence of the new language and make sense of the words) and finally writing (they have enough language to express their own ideas in writing). This is not true for 100% of language learners, but it is true for the majority of them. Why is writing often the last skill to emerge? It almost seems that reading would be more difficult because the student needs to sound out words and understand the author's message. It would seem writing might be easier because students are sharing their own ideas already in their heads and simply putting them on paper. However, writing requires a lot more processing of language in order to produce a message.

First the student must have an idea, then think of the appropriate way to say it, then start to write it and spell it correctly, and then create another sentence to continue to communicate the idea. If we add the students' worry that they are making huge, embarrassing errors or that their ideas aren't very good in the first place, then we begin to understand the complexity involved in writing in a second language. In fact, the way we communicate, or the way students put their ideas on paper, is largely influenced by their culture. In some of my classes, my Asian students were very confused when I told them to revise their writing because this was a "first draft." In their experience they had always written an item once and submitted it as "the final," and then the teacher would correct it. The idea that they had to write it over again didn't make sense to them. Students from other cultures may have developed a storytelling style that involves laying out a lot of background information and detail and takes quite a while to get to the point. In most western writing, we expect a topic sentence or a lead paragraph that will tell us what the point is, and then everything written after that leads to a direct conclusion. Many of my students had great difficulty connecting their ideas this way.

With that said, teachers have a big task in improving ESL student writing skills, but the payoff for instructional dedication can be great. A researcher on adolescent literacy at the University of Minnesota, David O'Brien, did a study on improving the reading skills of adolescent students. All of the students were involved in a six week study and during that time they were responsible for creating brochures and other types of communication on computers. They had criteria to input a certain amount of text and graphics to create a final project. This required lots of thought and revisions to achieve the final result. At the end of the six weeks the students took a reading test and the majority of them had improved their reading skills significantly. This was a very interesting result, considering that the teachers had not focused on teaching reading skills. The conclusion was that students used meta-cognition to process language and work with it in a more meaningful way, so that consequently their reading skills improved even though they were mostly working on writing.

Additional positive academic results have been seen in the "90 90 90 Schools." These are schools that researchers have identified as 90% poverty, 90% students of color and 90% achieving standards. This is a most remarkable combination in the educational world. The researchers examined these schools and found one common denominator among them - they all focused on developing writing skills. Each school had an agreed upon writing curriculum and methodology that was used at all grade levels, and student writing was prominently displayed throughout the building and in classrooms. Students used writing in all content areas to demonstrate academic concepts learned. In the end, 90% of the students in these schools were able to pass state grade-level tests based on the academic standards.

Now that I have hopefully convinced you that all your hard work will pay off, I would like to introduce some effective writing activities. I would like to acknowledge that there are many types of effective writing instruction used in classrooms today, including process writing, graphic organizers as writing planning tools, vocabulary stretchers, etcâ€¦ and all of those are beneficial to ELL students. For the purpose of this article, I will focus on a few writing activities that I think are particularly useful when working with students with a wide-range of English language skills.

How to differentiate writing activities:

With some pre-planning, a teacher can create a writing assignment that will allow every student to be successful. For example, the teacher may give a writing assignment that has A, B and C levels (or they can be number or color-coded).

ELL students at Level A copy a sentence or short passage exactly as it is written. This helps beginning-level students who are not very familiar with the language, but may be able to interpret some of the information as they copy it.

Level B students receive a paragraph or two that has blank spaces in the text. The students write the word or phrase that completes the sentence. This allows the student to write an amount that is not overwhelming and helps them comprehend the information.

Level C students write on their own, but perhaps they receive paragraph prompts or are allowed to look in a book, but must put the idea in their own words. After some practice with this system and getting to know your students' English language skills, you will be able to create a system that works best for your class.

Language Experience Approach

The Language Experience Approach draws on instructional techniques used with younger children who have not yet developed literacy skills. In this approach, the teacher presents information to the students, or they have an "experience" of some sort - for example, a field trip, or acting out a scene in a book. Then the students tell the teacher what to write on the board to explain the experience. This may be useful as an activity for a volunteer or teacher's aide to use with a small group of ESL students during literacy time. Here are the steps.

1. Experience something - for example, the students have listened to the story, "The Little Red Hen" and then acted it out.

2. The teacher stands by the board or a large sheet of paper and says to the students, "Tell me the story of the Little Red Hen."

3. As each student tells a part of the story, the teacher writes it down on the board, just as it was stated. For example, a student might say, "The Little Red Hen work so hard and nobody want help her." This continues until each student has spoken or the story is finished.

4. Then the teacher tells the students, "Let's read the story together and listen to see if the story makes sense and if there is anything we want to change."

5. After reading the story, the teacher asks students if they want to change anything. For example, one student may raise her hand and say, "I think it should say, "worked" not "work." The teacher may ask other students if they agree or disagree.

6. If the suggested change is correct, the teacher offers praise and moves on to the next suggestion. If the suggested change is not correct, the teacher should help the student analyze the suggested change. For example, if the student says, "I think it should say, â€˜The Little Red Hen she worked so hardâ€¦." The teacher would ask if others agree and see if there is discussion, then the teacher could point out that the Little Red Hen is the pronoun or "name," so in English we don't need to put it in twice. We can say "She worked so hard." Or "The Little Red Hen worked so hard."

7. When students have analyzed and corrected the whole text, the teacher may either circle a few more spots where students missed corrections and they can be challenged to figure out what the change should be, or the students can be instructed to copy the text with the corrections included.

8. As a final activity, students are instructed to take the story home and read it to three people and bring it back with signatures.

After this activity, usually even beginning-level ELL students are able to read the story to others because it was their experience, it is in their own words, and they have worked with the text in a meaningful way.

Sentence Auction

This activity helps students analyze common writing errors through a personalized activity since they are trying to buy their own sentences. Once a week or once a month, a teacher can hold a "Sentence Auction." The teacher takes sentence examples from student writing - some of which have errors and some that don't, and writes them on a handout or overhead projector. The identity of the student who wrote each sentence is not revealed. To begin the sentence auction, each student is given an "account" of perhaps $300. The students are told to "bid" on the good sentences. The winner is the student with the highest number of "good" sentences.

1. The teacher takes on the persona of an "Auctioneer" and opens the bidding at $10.

2. The teacher reads out the sentence confidently exactly as it is written. "Him want to go to school very bad." Who will give me $10?"

3. The students take turns bidding until the teacher decides who has "won" the bid.

4. Some sentences will not sell because students will know they are "bad." Just leave those sentences and move to the next one.

5. After all the sentences have been sold, the teacher goes through the list and the students say whether the sentence was good or bad. If they agree that it was a bad sentence, then the teacher asks them to explain how they can make it a "good" sentence.

6. Finally the students can count how many "good" sentences they have (since they may have bought some bad ones) and a winner is declared.

7. The teacher may want to give a little prize or certificate to the student. In a variation of this activity students can work in pairs or groups to buy the sentences.

Error correction

I have never "corrected" my students' writing mistakes, at least not in the traditional way. I have always told my students, "If I correct your English, I improve my English; if you correct your English, you improve yours." I handled corrections in one of two ways: either I identified what errors I would be looking for in the writing submission or I told them I would only circle five errors in the whole paper. If I pre-set the errors I would look for, for example correct use of past tense, I would only correct past tense errors, even if I saw other glaring errors in the paper. Sometimes this was hard to do, but I wanted to maintain the students' focus on the writing improvement we were working on. If I set a number of errors I would circle, for example, five, then I carefully chose those five and ignored the rest. When I returned the papers, the students were responsible for correcting their own mistakes. If they weren't sure how to do it, they could check with a classmate, and if no one knew, then I would assist. Invariably the students would ask, "Are these the only errors in the paper?" and I would tell them no. They might be disappointed, but they came to understand the value of correcting their own errors when they submitted a piece of writing.

Quick Write

One of the challenges for ELL students when they approach writing is their anxiety about writing their ideas correctly and writing a lot of information in English. This may feel overwhelming when a student is assigned an essay. In order to get students comfortable with the idea of just putting ideas on paper and not worrying about mistakes, we do regular "quick writes." For "quick writes" I give the students a topic and then tell them to write as much as they can for five minutes. They need to keep their pencils on the paper and even if they can't think of anything to write or they are worried about how to spell things, they are supposed to keep writing. At the end of five minutes, the students count how many words they were able to write and they keep track in a log. The objective is that they will see progress in the amount of writing they are able to do in five minutes' time and hopefully apply this fluency to their essay writing.

Cinquain poems

Cinquain poems offer great flexibility in working with ELL students of a variety of language levels. The basic Cinquain formula is as follows, but teachers can modify it as needed according to the student language level.

One noun
Two adjectives
Three gerunds (words + ing)
A short sentence.
A one-word summary
An example of a Cinquain a student might write:
Home
Warm, happy
Loving, welcoming, helping
People you love.
Family

There really is no wrong way to do a Cinquain, students can put key vocabulary words together any way they like to create the message they desire. Teachers may want to use Cinquains to reinforce new content vocabulary and concepts as well.

With these writing activities to try in your classroom, the only thing left is to buy a few boxes of pencils, hand them out to your ELL students and help them discover the possibility of joy in writing. Teachers who use a variety of activities and strategies to help ELL students become comfortable with expressing their ideas in a new language and finding success with small writing tasks, will give their students' confidence for a lifetime of self-expression. I offer this Cinquain poem to sum it up.

Writing
Fun, creative
Thinking, sharing, revising
Lots of ideas.
Proud
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Improving Writing Skills: ELLs and the Joy of Writing

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"The meaning of even a single word is rather more complex than one might imagine." - Editors of the American Heritage Dictionary, 1980, p. viii "Teacher, do we need our pencils today?" my Puerto Rican elementary students would urgently ask when I came to their classroom to escort them to my English as a Second Language classroom.

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How to Develop a Lesson Plan that Includes ELLs

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How to Develop a Lesson Plan that Includes ELLs

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In content-area courses, English language learners (ELLs) have a double challenge: they must learn language and content at the same time. ELLs may struggle in content-area courses such as literature, science, math, and social studies because they haven't acquired the literacy, language skills, or background knowledge necessary to master that new content knowledge.

One way to address that challenge is through effective lesson planning. Depending on their different stages of English proficiency and literacy, ELLs will benefit from the skills that a well-designed lesson can address.

Effective lessons include:

building background knowledge

explicit instruction and modeling

guided practice

peer practice

assessment of content learned

For examples of content-related lesson plans for ELLs, take a look at the following:

Teacher-student interactions, as well as peer interactions, are critical for learning. Because of the diversity in experiences and backgrounds that ELLs bring to the classroom, it is essential to prepare lessons that can address a wide range of needs. This broad sweep will also benefit all other students in your class.

Teacher preparation

Effective lesson planning requires a number of steps from initial preparation to the final review of material. This Lesson Plan Checklist for The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) offers a general roadmap for that process.

Once you get started, survey your target content to:

determine your standard or lesson objective

eliminate unnecessary information that does not meet your objective

select the concepts to teach

choose specific vocabulary to pre-teach

develop assessments to test that content

Lesson components

Once you have identifed your target objectives, concepts, and vocabulary, consider the following elements of your lesson plan.

Building background knowledge

As you prepare your lesson, determine what background knowledge students need in order to master the material. Teachers may find that their ELLs' background knowledge varies greatly from one student to another. It's also important not to assume that ELLs' background knowledge matches that of other students who were raised in this country.

For example, a student may not have learned much about geography in previous schooling or if he has had little or no schooling, so the concepts of a "city," "state," or "country" may be new to him. Also consider your students' different cultural backgrounds - in some countries, students learn that there are 5 or 6 continents rather than 7, so if they are expected to learn the 7 continents here that may be a bit confusing at first.

In order to build background knowledge, try the following:

Create interest in the subject by using pictures, real objects, maps, or personal experiences. Say the names of objects as often as you can so ELLs can remember them. Relate material to students' lives when possible.

Build text-specific knowledge by providing students with information from the text beforehand, particularly if the text is conceptually difficult or has an abundance of information that is important. For example, if there are six main topics on the animal kingdom, highlight them beforehand.
Also, develop concept background by explaining difficult concepts and labeling them with key words ELLs can remember. For example, "This is the Statue of Liberty. Liberty means freedom. Liberty means libertad. The people of France gave us the Statue of Liberty..."

Establish the purpose for reading (e.g., "Now we are going to read to find out about a country called France. What are some things we might learn about France as we read?")

Select a specific comprehension strategy for students to use. For example, decide to focus on the main idea, cause and effect, or comparing and contrasting.

Learn more about background knowledge in the following articles:

Pre-teaching vocabulary

Select tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 words from target content. Write an ELL-friendly definition for each and post them where students can see them throughout the lesson.

Choose different strategies to teach each word. If there are five words to be pre-taught, use different ways of engaging the students to hear and produce each word in context.

You might want to use your state or local English language acquisition standards as a guide for choosing words to highlight.

Read about vocabulary development in this article, and take a look at our Academic Language webcast to learn more about teaching academic vocabulary.

Peer review and cooperative learning strategies

Using peer review can be a powerful way to help students master content. Here are some ways to get students working together:

Use graphic organizers.

Have students work in collaborative groups and use a graphic organizer so together they can identify main ideas, relationships between information, etc. It gives a purpose while reading while interacting and using the language.

Assign reading partners.

Pair ELLs with friendly fluent readers. Ask partners to read aloud to each other, alternating sentences or pages. After partner reading, ask them to summarize what they read. For variety, use choral reading once in a while. Assign different sections to each team, ask them to rehearse, and then ask teams to read chorally.

Use Think-Pair-Share (TPS). TPS is a collaborative learning strategy in which students work together to solve a problem or answer a question about an assigned reading. This technique requires students to (1) think individually about a topic or answer to a question; and (2) share ideas with classmates. Discussing an answer with a partner serves to maximize participation, focus attention and engage students in comprehending the reading material. Read more in the following articles:

1. Increase Student Interaction with "Think-Pair-Shares" and "Circle Chats"

2. AdLit.org Classroom Strategy: Think-Pair-Share

You can learn about other ways to effectively using cooperative learning strategies in these articles:

Writing

Writing is another way for ELLs to demonstrate and extend their understanding of content. You can ask teams to compose questions about the content and use those questions for their test. Throw in one of your questions as a 'surprise test question.' Or, ask students to practice writing short simple summaries of what they read.

You can also support ELLs' writing skills by modeling the kinds of writing used frequently in your particular content area, such as lab reports in chemistry class, or a persuasive essay in social studies. Help students understand what the purpose of different kinds of writing are, and review vocabulary that would be typically used in these kinds of assignments. Be sure to provide examples of the different kinds of writing to your students so they can learn and compare models.

Graphic organizers
Another writing option is to give students a graphic organizer to fill in. This will demonstrate that they understood the concepts and content, even if they only use a symbol or write one or two words for each category. Graphic organizers can also be used as a pre-teaching or post-teaching strategy for introducing or reinforcing key concepts and how they are related. The more connections ELLs make to the overall content and organization of the content before reading, the easier it will be to focus on and understand what is important. When teachers and/or students use graphic organizers at the end of a lesson, this helps to reinforce and synthesize lesson content.

For example:

Review and assessment

There are many ways to review and assess content following instruction. For some ideas, take a look at these articles:

Reading comprehension and using textbooks

Reading is an important part of learning new content in the classroom. Remember that ELLs (especially those students with limited educational experience) may also need some help with two areas in particular:

1. Reading comprehension

2. How to effectively use textbooks

There are a few ways to support these skills:

Explicitly teach reading comprehension skills. Learning skills such as summarizing and finding the main idea will help students apply these strategies to all subject matter.

Teach students how to make predictions. One method is the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), which encourages students to be active readers.

Help students recognize the structure of expository text. Introduce the various parts of the text, such as the table of contents and the glossary. Show students how the text is organized, and teach them how to use these tools for informational reading:

Read an introductory portion of the textbook aloud. Model thinking aloud about what you are reading, how you figure out difficult words, and how to summarize what you read.

Develop study guides to guide ELLs through their content area textbook reading. Study guides will focus their attention on the major ideas presented, and can include graphic organizers as described above, key vocabulary, and guiding questions.

Assign reading partners. Pair ELLs with friendly fluent readers. Ask partners to read aloud to each other, alternating sentences or pages. After partner reading, ask them to summarize what they read. For variety, use choral reading once in a while. Assign different sections to each team, ask them to rehearse, and then ask teams to read chorally.

Encourage student engagement. One strategy is the "Say Something" activity. Students take turns reading aloud, and following the reading, each student 'says something,' such as asking question, making a comment, making a connection to something already read, or responding personally to the text. The exercise also engages students as readers and get them thinking about the text.

For more tips on supporing reading instruction in the ELL classroom, take a look at our reading tips for teachers.

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How to Develop a Lesson Plan that Includes ELLs

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In content-area courses, English language learners (ELLs) have a double challenge: they must learn language and content at the same time. ELLs may struggle in content-area courses such as literature, science, math, and social studies because they haven't acquired the literacy, language skills, or background knowledge necessary to master that new content knowledge.

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Copyright © Understood for All, Inc.

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Copyright © 2014-2023 Understood For All Inc.

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Explore topics about ADHD, dyslexia, and learning disabilities. Learn about focus, hyperactivity, executive function skills, and trouble with reading, writing, and math.

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Show That Everything Has a Name

Make sure that children understand that everything in the classroom has a name, and that they understand what these things do. A

good activity is to create labels for everything in the classroom. This will help students to associate the written word with an object, and encourage them to vocalize what it is they are wanting. If you avoid referring to things as "this" or "that," then the students will begin to as well. This can lead to different activities for different age groups and reading levels.

Younger students will appreciate the alphabet in their classroom, as it increases familiarity and can also be used as a teaching tool. Capital letters work best, as they are easier for students to recognize. Pictures that students create can also be labeled, or students can work on a scrapbook activity. This can also lead to small field trips where any written words are pointed out. For example, the word stop across a stop sign.

Older students can incorporate this into other activities. For example, in planning to prepare something in the kitchen, students can work to create a grocery list and then read the products to find what they are looking for at the grocery store.

Encourage Daily Reading

It's very important for children to be interested in reading, but this is often difficult when children's reading levels and interest levels differ. A high-low reading list is a very good resource to help find books that students will be interested in. Reading magazines and newspapers are also great as they have many short articles, but make students feel grown-up. Reading aloud is a great thing to do, though students will usually come across words they don't know. A few tips for dealing with this are:

Encourage them to sound the word out completely, rather than guessing after the first letter or syllable.

Have them read the entire sentence with the unknown word omitted. Then ask them what word would fit in the blank.

Once they have figured out the correct word, have them read the entire sentence again so they finish without struggling.

If students have particular trouble with sounding words out and resort to guessing, a good activity is to write a list of nonsense words, and have them sound them out. This teaches students to sound the entire word out, without guessing.

Focus on Comprehension

Comprehension is a major part of reading, and is an important thing to develop in remedial readers. It is usually easier to start with a TV show or sports program before introducing comprehension exercises to short stories. Comprehension should include how to summarize, predict, context and monitor. Summarizing can be done by asking students to retell a story in just a few sentences, predicting can be started by asking the student what they think might happen next. Context is especially useful for students who often find words they don't know. Teaching students how to use context clues (words and pictures) is a great skill. Monitoring stops the problem of reading a whole story and not knowing what happened. Students can learn to stop reading and check to make sure they understand what they just read. If not, it is a good time to re-read the sentence or passage.

Fun and Games

There are quite a few good websites that have free remedial reading activities. The only caution is that some of these games are designed for younger children, so it is important to encourage students who won't feel offended to use these resources.

Starfall is an excellent website. Their games progress from pre-reading, learning to read, enjoying to read, and becoming confident in reading ability. There is also a teacher's section which includes supplementary printable materials.

Scholastic has an incredibly comprehensive game section, and even has games extending further into language arts, math, science and social studies. They have games for all age levels, include pre-k to grade 12. I found that these games were designed for a wide range of abilities and ages, which is great!

PBS Kids has some great games for younger children. Their games progress from learning about letters, to learning about synonyms. All directions are spoken out loud.

FreeReading.net is a great resource for reading intervention for pre k to grade 6. The website has a number activities, as well as resources for teachers. Read more about FreeReading.net right here on Bright Hub Education.

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Four Remedial Reading Strategies for Elementary Students: Creative Ideas

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Make sure that children understand that everything in the classroom has a name, and that they understand what these things do. A good activity is to create labels for everything in the classroom. This will help students to associate the written word with an object, and encourage them to vocalize what it is they are wanting.

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Examples and Ideas on how to Reteach Concepts

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Examples and Ideas on how to Reteach Concepts

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This is for 9th grade but the ideas used can be modified to 3rd grade

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Reading Worksheets, Spelling, Grammar, Comprehension, Lesson Plans

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About this Worksheet:

This activity helps students learn how to clearly and effectively introduce a topic. When they are writing about their opinion, they should state it plainly so the reader understands. Students write a sentence or two that introduces the topics listed. The activity is ideal for the early-elementary grades.

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Introducing a Topic: Opinion Writing | Writing Introductions

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This activity helps students learn how to clearly and effectively introduce a topic. When they are writing about their opinion, they should state it plainly so the reader understands. Students write a sentence or two that introduces the topics listed. The activity is ideal for the early-elementary grades.

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Opinion Writing Strategies for Second Grade Students

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This opinion writing unit of study is geared towards primary classrooms. This includes mini-lessons, anchor charts, blank books and more.

This opinion writing unit of study has been updated from our original resources that were published a few years ago. It includes many of the same resources, but with some additional items as well. This unit is intended for use in a writer's workshop format where mini-lessons, independent writing time and conferencing occurs each and every day. That said, some students may want to attempt opinion writing before you have moved through all the lessons. It is important to know that it is completely okay for students to do this! As your instruction builds on previous lessons and continues, students may choose to rewrite or revise pieces that they began at the beginning of the unit and you will have the opportunity to use that writing for discussions in your conferences with students. These are great instructional and learning moments for students, so be sure not to discourage your students from trying out some opinion writing before they know all there is to know about it.
You can download the complete, free unit by clicking on the bold green download below the lesson descriptions.
Lesson 1: Immersion - Tell your students that they will be learning how to write their opinions. Ask them to share if they know/understand what the word "opinion" means. After a brief discussion, spend some time immersing your students in texts that deliver opinions and let them develop their own "noticings" about the texts. We have provided a list of mentor texts for opinion writing that might help. You could choose to read aloud one or two of the texts and fill out the "Our Noticings" graphic organizer together as a class or you might want to divide your class into small groups and give each group a text and a graphic organizer to fill out together. Then you could gather your students and record their noticings on the blank anchor chart provided or use the one we have already filled in called "What is an Opinion?" to lead your discussion.

Lesson 2: Fact Vs Opinion - This might be a perfect time to present some instruction on the difference between fact & opinion. We have included some exit tickets within the resources provided here in case you want to quickly assess your students' understanding of fact & opinion - one exit ticket option is more open-ended, but we have also provided two that are guided and specific. If you are interested in a center activity to give your students more practice with fact vs. opinion, you might want to take a look at our Fact & Opinion Sorting Cards.

Lesson 3: Distinguishing Between Opinion and Persuasive Writing (Optional) - For further clarification of opinion writing you might want to present a mini-lesson that clarifies the difference between opinion & persuasive writing. (This may be more geared towards third graders.) We have provided an anchor chart with the following ideas to get a class discussion started and here are some ideas that you can present:

Persuasive Writing - Picks one side of an argument with a goal of trying to convince others to agree with that argument. A writer would use evidence such as facts and statistics to persuade readers to understand and agree with their argument.

Opinion Writing - States an opinion and uses examples to show why that opinion is held. A writer would use background personal experience and logic to help readers understand their opinion, but without necessarily trying to convince others to change their own beliefs.

Lesson 4: An Opinion Needs a Good Reason - We want to helps students understand that their opinions need to be supported with at least one reason why they have them. At this age many children are likely to simply give the response of "Well...because!" when asked why they think the way they do about something. We want them to get into the practice of having to provide actual thoughts about why they hold certain opinions. For this lesson we have a graphic organizer called "An Opinion Needs a Good Reason" that is meant to be modeled and discussed with the entire class. For each opinion, talk with students about good reasons that someone might use to support each one. We have also created a follow up activity for student practice. Cut apart the half sheets called "A Reason for My Opinion" and pass them out to each student. Give a few minutes for students to think of answers and then gather them into a group. Have each student read their sentence frame aloud and add their personal thoughts. Teacher feedback and class discussion is key in helping students to understand what it means to support their opinions with personal experiences and background.

Lesson 5: Providing More Than One Reason for Opinions - Depending upon the level of your students you may want them to supply more than one reason for each opinion that they have. In this case we have provided four practice pages on different topics that might help with getting them started. Each page has an opinion at the top and four boxes below to brainstorm good reasons for that opinion. We suggest you do one together as a mini-lesson, and then for more practice (if needed) assign the other three to small groups (more than one group can have the same page). Gather students when they are finished to share & discuss answers.
**As an extension of this lesson we have also provided an additional resource. For this activity, there is a list of several opinions with matching reasons (two per opinion) that go along with each one. (The first sheet contains opinions. The second two pages contain the reasons for those opinions.) Print and cut apart these strips of paper. Hand out the strips in class, and then students work to match each opinion with an appropriate reason. This can be a way to get students up and moving around while practicing supporting opinions or you could laminate the strips and place them at a center for group or independent practice.
Lesson 6 & 7: Opinion Sentence Starters & Transition Phrases - Giving students appropriate wording to use to begin and continue their opinion writing can be a great way to help those who might struggle with starting a piece or with even with the flow of their writing. To help we have created two anchor charts that you can share, discuss and model with your students. You will want to actually write pieces in front of them so that they will see how to use the anchor charts as a support during their own independent writing. This is something you will probably need to do again and again in small group instruction and also in one-on-one conferencing.

Lesson 8: Choosing a Topic & Planning Your Writing - Some students have most likely already tried their hand at opinion during the independent writing part of workshop throughout this unit, but now we want to provide them with more specific planning tools to write a published piece. They may choose a topic that they have already begun to write about or select something new. We have provided four different planning organizers called "Organizing My Thoughts" that you can model for your students. You may choose to only model one or two depending on your class. Once the organizers have been modeled students can begin to select topics for a piece of opinion writing and begin to plan the piece that they will want to publish and share. You will want to conference with students as they plan and look at their pages to help provide the guidance and support that each student needs.
**Additional Resource: Writing Task Cards - If you want something more guided to assess where and how your students are doing with providing reasons for their opinion writing OR if you want something to use for small group instruction for students who need additional support, you might want to try the writing task card activity. For this we have provided ten cards with pre-programmed topics (ex: fish vs. dog) that you can use alongside the "Organizing My Thoughts" organizers. Once a card is chosen, students will need to form an opinion on the topic they have picked and think through good reasons for that opinion to use in their writing. (These cards might also be helpful to students who are struggling with choosing a topic to write about.)
Lesson 9: Publishing - For younger students, writing on the planners might be what they are capable of at this point and that will be their "published" piece. If you want your students to take the next step after planning, we have provided some different options for publishing that might work well with their writing. There is a half sheet blank book, a full sheet blank book and a simple lined paper that can be used for students to transition their writing from the planner to a more "formal" looking published piece. As always, be sure to model these for your students if they are unfamiliar with the format. Also, for those that are ready, we have provided an "Opinion Writing Checklist" that they can use to make sure their writing has all that it needs.

Lesson 10: Writing Celebration - As always, finish off your unit with a fun writing celebration. Invite parents, another class or other special adults from your building to come in and have your students share their writing. This can be done in small private conversations, but you can also have students who are willing to read their pieces in front of the class. We have included a "Congrats Author!" certificate you can print to pass our to your students if you wish. One fun idea you might want to do is to have three different types of snacks available to your students and guests. On your board (or on posters) put the names of the three different snacks and provide Post-Its to write on. Before the celebration ends, have each student and guest choose their favorite of the three snacks and write their reason for their opinion on a Post-It to place on the board or poster. At the end your class can discuss the reasons that were given for the opinions on the snacks.

You can download the complete, free unit here: Opinion Unit of Study for Writing

If you are looking for resources found within the old version of the post, we have left resources that we did not recreate and incorporate into this unit below:

Supporting Your Opinion - Give students practice with these brainstorming pages. We suggest you do one together as a mini-lesson, and then for more practice (if needed) have groups work together and then share & discuss answers.
Cats are easy pets. Science is interesting. Chocolate is the best dessert. Rainy days are fun. Snow days are boring. McDonalds is better than Wendy's.
Opinion Writing Practice Prompts - These are very simple practice writing pages that require students to form an opinion regarding their favorite of two given items.It makes them choose one of the items by circling it and then write the reasons why the item is favored.
Fishing vs. Playing Basketball Ice Cream Cones vs. Watermelons Cat vs. Lizard Skating vs. Reading Math vs. Science Ferris Wheel vs. Roller Coaster McDondald's vs. Dairy Queen Pizza vs. Cookies Video Games vs. Water Balloons
Opinion Writing Prompts - Prompts designed to give your students practice with opinion writing.

The Best Pet The Best Sport The Best Snack The Best Part of School

Movie, Book or Song Review - One way to get students interested in sharing their opinions is to have them write movie, book or song reviews. Start by modeling this in your classroom as a mini-lesson. Play a popular song - one that the kids may already know. Next, share the "Rave Reviews" anchor chart to discuss the parts of a well-written review. Finally, as a class, guide your students through the graphic organizer as you write a review of the song you played for them.
Rave Review Anchor Chart Writing a Review - Graphic Organizer
We also have a unit on persuasive writing that you will find here: Persuasive Writing Unit

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Opinion Writing Ideas & Resources - The Curriculum Corner 123

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This opinion writing unit of study is geared towards primary classrooms. This includes mini-lessons, anchor charts, blank books and more. This opinion writing unit of study has been updated from our original resources that were published a few years ago. It includes many of the same resources, but with some additional items as well.

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ELA.RL.9-10.2

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RL: Reading Standards for Literature 6-12

9-10: 9th & 10th Grades

2:
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its
development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is
shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.RL.9-10.9

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RL: Reading Standards for Literature 6-12

9-10: 9th & 10th Grades

9:
Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

Thought starters

1. How does Ms. Wessling know that her lesson isn't working?

2. Notice the changes Ms. Wessling makes for the second lesson. How does she modify both the content and structure of her lesson?

3. What can you learn from Ms. Wessling about reflecting on your practice?

School Details

Johnston Senior High School
6501 Nw 62nd Ave
Johnston IA 50131

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts / 10 11 12 / Teacher

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After a lesson on literary analysis goes wrong, 10th grade ILA teacher Sarah Brown Wessling revises the lesson and teaches it again to a new class. While teaching the first lesson, Sarah quickly realizes that she has overwhelmed her students with too much reading and not enough scaffolding.

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Make your lesson plans relevant, engaging, and productive.

Curriculum and lesson planning can seem daunting, especially as a new teacher. How do you plan an entire year of learning before it even begins? How do I make each individual lesson relevant and engaging? I used to find myself asking these questions. But as the years have gone by, I've learned helpful tricks to plan my year smoothly.

Whether you're adjusting an existing lesson plan or starting from scratch, try the following tips for a productive school year:

1. Start with the big picture.

I believe that starting is the hardest part. If you're struggling in the initial steps of lesson planning, try taking a step back. Connect with other grade level teachers at your school to see how your year can fit into the bigger picture-like a curriculum calendar. From there, break it down to objective-based, shorter-term units. Within each unit, what do you want to accomplish? What do you want your students to know and be able to do by the end? With each lesson, outline a desired outcome or goal for you and your students to work towards.

2. Don't rely on fluff.

Even after I've planned my lessons, I like to reassess my own strategies. I ask myself what I can improve or make more efficient. What are the structures or systems within my classroom that are working? How can I use these more? Rather than breaking your day into tiny little pieces, focus on the activities that provide richer opportunities for deep thinking. While Pinterest-inspired little activities may keep kids busy, they don't always teach to the rigor and relevance that they need.

3. Get creative about your resources.

These days, inspiration is all around us. I use (free!) tools and resources that elevate my lesson plans. One of my favorites is Understanding by Design , which is a template for lesson planning created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. Their website has articles, webinars, videos and more for online learning. Their method is a way of thinking that's backwards planning-you start by thinking what you want to accomplish, then creating a performance assessment.

4. Think backwards and relate the lesson plan to real life.

Step one is to identify the learning standards set out by your state or national standards. In step two, identify what some of the enduring understandings are. Create essential questions that will motivate the student to actually learn that unit. For example, show them how measurement is used in the world and show the different ways people measure and the tools they measure with. Put students in scenarios where they have to select tools and use the lesson in a practical way.

Then step three is the learning activities that you scaffold, which refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. Start with what they already know about measurement. For example, maybe they were measured at the doctor's office.

Try to relate it to their real life.A real-life example I use with my students is the grocery store. I take them on an imaginary tour and ask them where and how they measure their fruit. Soon they start recognizing scales and using this vocabulary in their everyday lives.

5. Get nontraditional.

Don't be afraid to incorporate something new and different into your curriculum. For example, get your kids out of the classroom to see the lesson from a different perspective.

In my second grade class, we learn about urban, rural, and suburban communities. I built a field trip for each unit so they could experience each. For the urban unit, we took a bus ride into a city and took a walk through the historic sections. They were able to observe and experience the community and think through why certain houses were built differently than others. For the rural unit, we went to a dairy farm. For the suburban unit, we walked into the town with clipboards and backpacks. We interviewed business people as they were working in their businesses at the bank and at the bagel shop. Then they came back, and presented their findings.

Let's face it: a good lesson plan is hard to come by. My best advice is to build something that works for you, and is flexible enough to change if needed. As you're building your lesson plan for the year, try my five tips for a unique and fun curriculum your students will enjoy all year long!

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5 Tips to Improve Your Lesson Plan - NEA Today

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Curriculum and lesson planning can seem daunting, especially as a new teacher. How do you plan an entire year of learning before it even begins? How do I make each individual lesson relevant and engaging? I used to find myself asking these questions.

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9 Tips to Teach and Improve Slow Learners

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9 Tips to Teach and Improve Slow Learners

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9 Tips to Teach and Improve Slow Learners - LogicRoots

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Slow learners - Isn't this clinical term deplorable for children with below average IQ levels? Seems like a lifelong tag suggesting that such children are non-achievers. On the other hand, slow learners are a part of regular schools, thus only proving that they are not physically or mentally disabled but only pace disabled.