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Aquos Board

Teacher-made PowerPoint presentation

Opinion Writing for Kids YouTube video

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

Document Camera

Pencil

Teacher-made worksheet

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With appropriate modeling and scaffolding from teacher, students will be able to formulate their opinion about their favorite Springtime activity and state a reason to support that opinion.

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Content Objective

The student will be able to formulate their opinion about their favorite Springtime activity. Students will support their opinion with a reason.

Language Objective:

The student will be able to orally articulate and write their opinion and one reason for that opinion.

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Students are in a Transitional Bilingual Program in East Elementary School in the Brentwood Union Free School District. Brentwood UFSD resides in Brentwood, NY, a suburban school district on Long Island, NY. Enrollment statistics show that 86% of the student population are Hispanic/ Latino, 8% Black, 2% white, 4% other.

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Students were tested on the NYSITELL in Spring 2024, and recieved Entering and Emerging scores. Four students are in Tier 2 of RTI. One student has an IEP and is in the process of having a change in classroom placement. She is expected to be moved to a 12-1-2 classroom in one week.

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1. Preparation

In this lesson, students will be able to develop an opinion about their favorite Springtime activity and reason for that opinion. After orally articulating their opinion and reason, students will write their responses on a teacher-made worksheet. Prior to this, the teacher will conduct a mini-lesson using a teacher-made PowerPoint presentation. The presentation will display graphic organizers to remind students how to use writing tools appropriately, meaning of opinion and reason, writing process, and how to write a sentence. Additionally, a slide in the PowerPoint will model an appropriate opinion writing.

2. Build Background

To determine students’ prior knowledge, the teacher will ask students about their knowledge and familiarity with the terms “opinion” and “reason”. Students should be familiar with the topic as they have developed Opinion writings in the past. The teacher-made PowerPoint presentation will also display graphic organizers that they have seen in prior lessons.

3. Comprehensible Input

Throughout my lesson, the teacher will be mindful of my speech to ensure that it is appropriate for my students at varying English proficiency levels, ie. slower rate, clear enunciation, avoid idioms, avoid contractions, use shorter sentences and avoid colloquial phrases). Many visuals will be provided in the PowerPoint presentation to facilitate their understanding of the lesson. Further, students will be provided with visuals on the teacher-made writing paper to assist them in writing their opinion.

4. Strategies

Students will be able to refer to graphic organizers when writing their opinion piece independently, as the graphic organizers on the PowerPoint presentation are also in their Writing Resource folders on their desks. The video Opinion Writing for Kids will also be watched by the children to assist in their understanding of the topic. Students that need additional support will be given writing paper that has labels of different Springtime activities included. To support higher-level thinking, students will have opportunities to discuss their opinion and reason with a partner during “think-pair-share" and “turn-and-talks". These collaborative discussions have been organized by the teacher so that students are partnered with a peer that has a different English proficiency level than themselves.

5. Interactions

Throughout this lesson, students will be encouraged to work with their peers ranging in language levels and abilities. This heterogeneous pairing will assist students in clarifying their understanding of the objective and respective activities. The teacher and teacher assistant will also circulate around the classroom to ensure all students are successfully completing the activity.

6. Practice/Application

The teacher will provide students with several graphic organizers, that have been previously reviewed, to support their understanding of the content. Additionally, visuals and a sample writing will be provided to support their content and language knowledge. Students will be asked to collaborate with peers in varying language levels and abilities throughout the lesson through “turn-and-talk" and “think-pair-share" opportunities. This is a pivotal element of the lesson as students are able to listen and speak to their peers, to assist in supporting their understanding of the lesson. Students' language skills will also be developed through the writing component of the lesson, in which they will use their scaffolded knowledge to independently write their opinion writing piece.

7. Lesson Delivery

1.  Students will be called to the carpet based on their assigned number. Students will review the “Give Me Five” procedures: eyes are looking, ears are listening, mouths are closed, bodies are still, and hearts are open.

2. The teacher will review “How do writers use pencils and crayons” slide, to remind students of appropriate etiquette during Writer’s Workshop.

3. The teacher will review several graphic organizers, previously reviewed in class. These graphic organizers were retrieved from the HMH curriculum utilized in the school district. These graphic organizers include “Opinion Writing”, “Writing Process”, “Sentences”, “Writing Checklist”. They are displayed in poster size around the classroom.

4. Direct students to learning objective for today's reading lesson, “I can say and write my opinion with one reason for my opinion.”

5. Students will watch Opinion Writing for Kids YouTube video as a refresher on forming an opinion and reason.

6. Students will conduct a Think-Pair-Share at the completion of the reading to discuss their favorite Springtime activity.

7. Teacher will ask students to share their peers' opinions with the class.

8. The teacher will display exemplary writing in the following slide to model writing an opinion with one reason.

9. As a final activity before independent writing, students will discuss their favorite activity and one reason for that opinion during a turn-and-talk with their partners.

10. Students will work independently on the task as the teacher and the teacher assistant circulate to assess and assist those that need further clarification. Students that are Entering language levels and/ or need more assistance and support during English Language Arts, will be given writing paper with labels for each Springtime activity.

11. At the completion of the activity, students will be asked to share their responses with the class.

8. Review/Assessment

Verbal reminders/encouragement will be used to correct and/or praise observed behaviors. Walk around and use a highlighter when necessary to assist the students with letter formation. After having students reflect and discuss the read aloud book In Our Country by Susan Canizares, the students will be expected to articulate an opinion and reasons supporting that opinion about their favorite place in the country.

9. Extension/Homework

As an extension/homework activity, students will be assigned for homework a writing activity in which they will write about whether they like indoor or outdoor recess. Students will be asked to support their answer with a reason.

Source: Short, D., Hudec, J., & Echevarria, J. (2002). Using the SIOP Model: Professional Development Manual for Sheltered Instruction.  Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

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As an educator it is imperative to consistently reflect on my teaching practices to enhance my methods and instruction. My lesson was taught in a Transitional Bilingual Kindergarten setting. In this lesson, I had my students develop an opinion writing piece. Opinion writing is a topic that is practiced often in my classroom setting, to prepare students for the NYSESLAT exam. In Kindergarten, the writing component of the NYSESLAT exams consists of an opinion writing piece. After having executed my lesson, I was able to analyze the effectiveness of my lesson. In the future, I hope to integrate several different strategies and techniques in my teaching practice.

Throughout my lesson, I found several strategies that I implemented to be effective and assisted my students at varying language levels to effectively engage with my content instruction. One of the elements I found effective was my use of visuals in my lesson. The visuals of different Springtime activities assisted my students that are unfamiliar with the vocabulary to comprehend the topic. Further, my use of graphic organizers also provided my ELLs additional support in understanding topics such as appropriate sentence structure and opinion/ reasoning. Finally, my use of collaborative opportunities amongst students also provided students with the necessary support to understand the content. As evidenced in my lesson, I use heterogeneous pairings in my classroom. In specific, students are partnered with a student at a different language and/or academic level than themselves. I find this a critical element of my learning environment as students can learn from their peers in a casual setting.

There are also elements that I will improve on for future lessons. I believe that relevant to the SIOP instruction model, I can improve on practice and application. There were limited activities for students to practice identifying opinions and reason in my lesson, prior to their independent writing piece. I should have scaffolded my instruction so that students could get more practice in identifying opinions and reasons. A simple activity in which I could read simple sentences and have students work together to identify if it was an opinion or fact would have improved my practice and application element of my lesson. My lesson could have also been improved if I integrated more leveled questions. As described in Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners, students need to integrate higher level thinking questions to “allocate turn-taking" and give all “students a chance to be involved” (Vogt, M., Echevarria, J. J., & Short, D. J., 2016, p. 191)