PACT TEACHING EVENT LESSONS

Biographies Day I
Classroom Background

Our class is made of up of 12 girls and 8 boys

Two students are pulled for ELL work though the week

Students are also pulled out before school for reading help through the week

Two students has SST's*

Daily students have learning groups to work on language arts skills. These students are
arranged primarily based on level of proficiency and according to how the teacher can
help them on a more individual level.

Classroom Set up:

Students will be in small groups at the back of the classroom.

These lessons will last 25-30 minutes and rotate after.

**This lesson is a flexible lesson. It may take one-two days for students to finish this
process.

Goals/Anticipated Outcomes

Students will understand characteristics of non-fiction and informative text within the
genre of biography.

Students will understand the job of a biographer

Students will understand what it means to interview someone, and will be able to
generate questions to ask in an interview that are constructed in a way that they can be
expanded on. For example pushing questioning further by using words such as explain,
and why.

Plan: Hook (Into)

Ask students if they have ever heard of or read a biography. Introduce the term and
definition of biography and ask if they know who writes biographies. Introduce the term
and definition of a biographer.

Biography: The story of a real persons life written by someone other than that person.

Biographer: Someone who writes biographies.

Plan: Procedures (Through)

Read One Giant Leap The Story of Neil Armstrong by Dan Brown
(This biography was chosen as the introduction to the lesson because students had
previously studied Neil Armstrong during a space writing unit)

Students will work in learning groups (5-8 students) and have a mini lesson on what a
biography is

We will review vocabulary terms, and go over the chart paper for the day including
definitions of biography and non-fiction text.

After this, students will collaborate with each other to create the first set of questions that
will be sent home.Read One Giant Leap The Story of Neil Armstrong by Dan Brown

Essential questions asked: What is a biography, and who writes biographies? What kind
of text is this?

Plan: Extensions (Beyond)

After the lesson is taught a letter will be sent home to the parents explaining what we are
working towards. It is asked of them to take the time to sit down with their child and have them
interview a parent or family member.
Students are asked to bring these questions home and ask a parent of adult at home to answer at
least 5 questions. Students step into the shoes of a biographer and conducted their research in
order to continue with this lesson.

Assessment
Assessment for this lesson will be done while in learning groups. Assess the students as they
participate in the small group conversation. Do they understand the definition of a biography?
Do they understand what a biographer is? Do they understand and participate when create the
interview questions to take home?

Standards
CA-CC-ELA2012.1.L.1

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar

and usage when writing or speaking.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.2

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply

some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

Biography Day II
Previous Lesson:

Earlier in the week students were introduced to what a biography is.

As a whole lass we read One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong by Don Brown

I choose this story because our class has done previous research on Neil Armstrong and
the students were familiar with him as a subject.

Monday's learning group lesson focused on building the foundation of understanding on

the genre of biography. Students became familiar with the academic language that we
will be using as the week continues, with emphasis on: biography, biographer, interview,
and research. As a class we complied a series of questions we would ask our subject if we
were a biographer writing a biography. Students were then asked to bring these questions
home and ask a parent of adult at home to answer 5 questions. With this, students stepped
into the shoes of a biographer and conducted their research in order to continue with this
lesson.

**This lesson is a flexible lesson. It may take one-two days for students to finish this
process.

Goals/Anticipated Outcomes

Students will be able to explain what a biography is, what a biographer does, and what is
their role as a beginning biographer.

Students will be able to transcribe the interview questions they asked at home into a
rough draft biography

Students will be able to take the answers they received from the interview and create
complete sentences

Materials

chart paper from pervious lessons

interview from parents (done at home)

Rough draft paper

Plan: Procedures (Through)

1. Review Mondays lesson: What is a biography in your own words, and who writes
biographies? (cover up this section of the chart paper)
2. Review what they were asked to do at home and have a discussion about what they was
like. Turn and tell a partner one new thing you learned from interviewing.
3. Ask questions about how we start writing a biography. How can we introduce our
subject? Who are we talking about?
4. Ask students why we would want to tell someone about our subject. What makes them
interesting?
5. How can we as biographers tell their story?
6. Give directions on what is expected from this rough draft. Explain that you need to
introduce, give details, and give a conclusion.
7. For the remainder of this learning group students will begin writing their rough drafts of
their biographies. This lesson is flexible in that groups may get to different stopping
points, and that some students will need more assistance in taking what they have (the
interview in chart paper resources) and transferring this into a piece of writing.

Plan: Extensions (Beyond)

Students will be taking what they write in this lesson and building upon thier writing as the week
progresses in order to make a final "published" biography. This will be a peice of writing they
work on as our writing workshops continues and they are able to add more detail into thier
stroies. Exteneding beyond the writing of this lesson, students will be doing an art peices to

accompany thier work. This will be a portrait of thier subject that will be posted around the room
with thier final writings.

Plan Differentiation
Depending on the learning groups the level of expected writing may differ.

From the lower reading and writing group this may include helping with vocabulary and
use of sight word cards. Some students in this group may need modifications such as
highlight writing.

ELL Adaptations

Much of the language that is being used in this lessson is clearly written and visible to
students who may be having difficulty with the language.

Students also will have thier interview to use as a resource for thier langauge and writing
compnents.

In somes cases, these students may need the help of highlight writing, and may grab our
high frequency word cards from the sleeves in the classroom

Art Potentials
At the end of this series of lessons students will be creating a portrait to display in the class

Assessment
Student work will be assessed as the writing process progresses. Rough drafts will be used as a
resource for assessment as well as how students progress from their rough draft to final draft.
While in the learning centers there will be informal editing wherein students use inventive
spelling to create a final product.

Standards
CA-CC-ELA2012.1.L.1

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and

usage when writing or speaking.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.2

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply

some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.8

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences
or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Biographies Day III

Goals/Anticipated Outcomes

Students will be able to take what they have written by their family member and translate
that into a 2nd person sentence.

Students will understand how to use highlighters as a tool when changing the wording of
writing to make sense in a biographical context.

Materials

Chart Paper

Highlighters

Student interviews (from home)

Rough draft paper

Pencils

Plan: Procedures (Through)

Introduce highlight writing: explain that when we write a biography we must change who
is saying the answer to the question. Demonstrate how to take a sentence and change
from 1st person to 2nd person. Give strategies to help students make this transition.

Explain that I went through everyones interview questions and highlighted the questions
that they answered so they could clearly find the subject or questions they answered
were.

Also introduce the tool of sticky notes that will be used through this teaching event.
Explain that I will go through everyones writing everyday and put a sticky note on your
paper if I want to talk to a student before the writing begins that day. On this first day
there may be a sticky if I had a comment on the questions they used for their interview.

Students will begin their rough drafts.

Plan: Extensions (Beyond)

Go through rough drafts and continue to use sticky notes to respond to student work. Suggestions
may be on changing writing from 1st person to second person, asking for clarification,
encouraging description, asking for more information, etc.

Plan Differentiation
Sticky notes are a way to differentiate what is expected from different students in a way that is
specialized and individual to the students needs.

Assessment
Assessment will be through the student work rough drafts. By reviewing and reading student
work and responding it will be evident if the student understands how to write a biography piece
of writing. By going over their work daily it will be clear where students need help. From here
mini lessons can be added into the learning groups in the future days.

Biographies Day IV
Goals/Anticipated Outcomes

Students will edit their own writing by checking for:

o Spelling
o Punctuation
o Context (first person to second person writing)
o General flow and structure of writing

Students will have an editing rough draft ready for final draft and class publication.

Materials

Student workrough drafts

Colored pens for editing (students have used this tool to edit work previously so little
time is taken to teach them how to properly use them)

Pencils

Plan: Hook (Into)

Introduced editing tools (colored pens)

Remind students that if they have a sticky note to read it and come to me if there are
questions or they are confused by what I said.

Plan: Procedures (Through)

Editing mini lesson: To begin this learning center there will be a mini lesson on editing.
Give expectations of what an edited piece of writing looks like. What are we going to
change? How can we make this writing even better? Where can I add detail, or sparkle
words, to make this more interesting for me as a writer and my reader?
Use editing mini poster to show how this can be done with a different color pen and
highlighter.

After this segment is complete students will work for the remaining lesson time on
editing their rough drafts. This time should be independent work time. Circulate the
learning center and help students with word choice, language, and content. Especially
work with students that have sticky notes on their paper and make those corrections of
modifications before they begin to edit.

Plan: Extensions (Beyond)

After students have completed their rough draft they will take this an create a final draft of their
biography.

Plan Differentiation
Differentiated will be done on an individual student basis and communicated through sticky
notes. Daily I will review student work and respond via post it notes on student paper. This is
where I will see what I need to do for each student so that I can challenge or modify aspects of
the assignment. By doing this each students individual needs are being met as well as creating a
safe low anxiety environment that each student can thrive in.

Assessment
Assessment will be done in the same manner. Each day I will asses where each student is in their
writing and comprehension of the concepts and materials. This is especially important during
rough draft editing as students need to understand that a biography is written in second person.

Standards
CA-CC-ELA2012.1.L.1

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and

usage when writing or speaking.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.2

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply

some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.8

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences
or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Biographies Day V
Goals/Anticipated Outcomes

Students will have a completed final draft of their biography writing to publish in the
classroom/

Students may begin to work on their portrait of their biography subject (depending on
timing and student work)

Materials

Student work: editing rough draft completed

Pencils

Final draft paper

Plan: Hook (Into)

Sticky Notes: There will be a sticky note on students paper if I still need to see
something or work with students on an area of their writing.

Plan: Procedures (Through)

Discuss what a final draft looks like: best inventive spelling. Personal best handwriting,
full of detail, sparkle words, and explanation.

Steps before you can start: 1. Go over with Ms. Sutphen, 2. Make sure to put your title, 3.
Write the best you can!

(*This Is all displayed on the chart paper on a poster as well.)

Students will work though copying rough final draft for remaining time in learning
center

Plan: Extensions (Beyond)

After students have completed the work for this teaching event (final draft of biography) they
will be making a portrait to display along with their writing in the classroom.

Plan Differentiation

Continuing with sticky notes, especially as the final draft may be different for each
student.

Some students are writing 2 pages while others are writing 5-6. This is also true with the
amount of questions or topics these students are discussing. Some are answering 4-5
questions and writing about them, while others answered and responded to each question
we created.

Art Potentials

Portraits: students will be creating portraits. We will discuss proportions of the face
(using a basic T-strategy drawing) and how to create a realistic representation of who we
wrote about.

The focus will be on: proportion, shading of skin (and realistic skin tones: make sure to
provide many skin and hair like color paper and crayons for students to choose from), and
realistic drawing.

From there students will tear hair from construction paper to add texture to their portrait.

Assessment
The final assessment will be done through the final draft of writing. By using the prewriting
materials such as interview questions and responses, the rough draft, and the editing process,
assess how far students have moved now that the final draft is done. Is there improvement in:

Writing?

Comprehension?

Word choice?

Spelling?

Do they understand explanatory text and writing?

Are they giving details?

Are they writing in 2nd person?

Is there an understanding of why we are writing a biography?

Because this teaching event spanned over almost two weeks, assessments will be done daily.
This makes the end assessment easier to gage in that each day students are being communicated
with on what they should work on, and I am seeing where each individual students is.

Standards
CA-CC-ELA2012.1.L.1

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and

usage when writing or speaking.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.2

Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply

some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

CA-CC-ELA2012.1.W.8

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences
or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.