Kelli Nemetz

ENG 400 Assignment #2: Mini-Writing Unit

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.3
Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short
sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and
feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of
closure.

A Context
This mini unit was written focused on a 3rd grade classroom located in
Grand Rapids, MI. The students love independent reading time and
even more, read aloud time whole group. The students love listening to
stories and doing activities exploring the details put into our Who,
What, Where, When, Why reading journals. They are familiar with the
general details of what happens in a story and why they happen. The
students in this class are of diverse backgrounds. The class is made up
of roughly one-third white, lower-middle class students, one-third
African American students, and one-third Mexican immigrant students.
The students connect with one another through their love of stories
and reading, but have different interests in what they like to read
about.

B Genre: Narrative
1 The culture it occurs in: Narrative stories are a part of these
students everyday lives. They read and explore narratives in class
and at home with their independent reading books, and they also
participate in this genre when they talk and tell stories about what
happens to them at home, or on the weekend, etc.
2 The specific purpose of this genre: This genres purpose is
storytelling.
3 The overall structure of this genre: This genre has a beginning,
middle, and end that tell of an event, or a series of related events
that happened within a collective time period. The sentences are
usually related with transitional words that show a change in time or
an order of the events. The story also answers the questions who,
what, where, when, and where.
4 The specific language features of this genre: Usually informal,
casual language is used and the tone overall is informal. The
narrative can be written about someone or in first person using I.
Some stories can include dialogue, but that will not be a part of this
unit.
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C Job Sheet

Name: ______________

My Summer Story Check-List

1. My story has a beginning, middle, and
ending.
2. I can label my storys beginning,
middle, and ending.
3. My story tells about three things that I
did this summer.
4. My story uses transition words like
first, then, or later.
5. My story has answers our Five Ws:
Who, What, Where, When, and Why.

D Lesson Plan for Stage 1: Building the Field:

Introduction We have been reading a LOT of great stories at
home and in class so far this year! Who wants to
share one of their favorite stories they have read
alone or with our whole class? *call on hands*
Great! Those are some of my favorites too! Over
the next few days, we will be working on writing
our own stories!
Student Active Engagement But first we need to remember what parts make
Part One (Day One) up a story. *Write WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN,
and WHY on board with room under each of them*
Lets think about what things we look for when we
answer our Big W questions when we read stories
together and alone. *Start with who and have a
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teacher-guided discussion about what should go

under each category such as WHO: main
characters, a name, the subject of the story, etc.
WHERE: location, time, setting, etc* Great work!
We can use these points when we write our own
stories to remind us what we need to include!
Part Two (Day Two) Yesterday we talked about what elements we need
to include in our story. Today, we are going to talk
about different ways to connect our ideas and
make our thoughts fit together. Because we are
writing a story about our summers, we need to
think of good ways to talk about different events
that might have happened at different times. We
are going to talk about transition words today. To
transition means to change from one idea to
another. Lets make a list of words that we can use
to transition to one idea to another. *Create a
classroom Word Wall with these words*
Closure: We have learned a lot in the past few days
learning about what is important to include in our
stories! We will keep our Big W chart and
Transition Word Wall up as we move to the next
stage of working on writing our own stories.
Accommodations: Extend time period of these two lessons to
match pace of the classroom.
Scaffold these activities as much or as little
to help provide the right vocabulary to talk
about these topics.
Allow the transition words to be in Spanish
but encourage students to explain their
thoughts in English so they can be taught
the right transition word in English

E Lesson Plan for Stage 2: Modeling the Genre:

Introduction Today well be looking at two stories that I wrote.
One is about my weekend and one is about what I
did yesterday. We will work together to find all of
the things weve been talking about that are
important elements of a story. Well do one
example together as a class and then I will split
you into pairs and you will work together with the
second example.
Student Active Engagement *Pull up this story on the board (example A
below)* Lets read it aloud together! *Read the
story, word for word, all together, practicing our
reading voices.* Great reading voices! First, lets
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label our five Big Ws in yellow and label them.

*Work through story, highlighting the parts that
give the Big W information and label then what
they tell us (who, what, where, when, why)* Great
work! Now lets highlight our transition words in
green together! When you come up and highlight
the word, please tell us why you think it is a
transition word. *Allow students to raise their
hands and come up and highlight the words*

Great work finding our all of the important parts of

the story! Now, I will split you into partner groups
and you will work on another story to practice
finding these things in a new way. You will get a
story that is cut up into pieces and you will have
to work together to put the story back together in
a way that tells the events in the right order. I will
be coming around to help and answer any
questions! (story in example B)
Closure: Great work today! We looked at two different
stories and you were all able to identify all the
elements of a story that are important to have!
Tomorrow we will start on our next and final step
before writing our very own stories!
Accommodations: Pair students together with purpose. Pair EL
with native speakers of English to allow
stretched language use and encourage talk.
Make the stories shorter or longer based on
the level needed for the classroom.
Change context of the story to match
interests of students so they have fully
understand the language and ideas in the
stories.

Examples:

A. This weekend was really fun! First, on Friday (when), I (who)

went over to my sisters house in Allendale (where) and
then we cooked a family dinner together (what). After we
cooked the dinner, which included spaghetti, garlic bread,
and a big salad, we ate it with all of our family members. My
brother, his wife, and their three kids were there. It was fun
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to get my whole family all together (why)! The next day, on

Saturday, I went to the park with my dog, Hudson, and we
played fetch for a whole hour! Afterwards, we went home
and took a short nap because we were so worn out from the
park. The last day of the weekend, on Sunday, I almost
finished all of the book I was reading. I was excited to finish
the book I started three weeks ago! It was a great, relaxing
weekend.
B. Cut into pieces like it would be when given to the students

Yesterday was a busy day!

My mother and I went to the grocery story to buy ingredients for a pie we
wanted to bake.
First, we made a list about what we needed to buy.
Then we checked our house to make sure we didnt already have any of the
things on our list.
Afterwards, we drove to the store and walked about the store to get our
ingredients.
We gathered everything we needed for our pie in our cart and checked out.
After that, we drove home and started baking our pie.
After waiting way too long for the pie to bake, we ate it after dinner. It was so
delicious!

F Lesson Plan for Stage 3: Joint Construction:

Teacher: Today we will be working together on constructing our own story! We
will be writing about what we did in our class on Friday. What are some things
we need to include in our story that we worked on last week?
Student: Transition words like then and afterwards.
Teacher: Great! Who can tell me what transition words do?
Student: They connect our thoughts to one another.
Teacher: Perfect. What else do they do?
Student: Show time differences.
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Teacher: Yes! Transition words connect our thoughts together and show the
passing of time. They allow us to talk about a whole weekend in one story!
What are some other things we need to include in our story?
*Students give answers of the Big W and discuss what each thing does and
why its important*
Teacher: Great job! You remembered all of the important story elements that
we have been working so hard on! Lets look back at our transition word wall
and our Big W chart as we write a short story about what we did in class on
Friday! Lets start with what we did in the morning.
The first thing we did in our classroom on Friday morning
(when and where) we (who) began our day with silent
reading time. We picked out our choice books and our
reading spot and read for 45 minutes (what and why).
Teacher: What is an idea for a transition word we can use now?
Student: Then!
Teacher: Perfect! Then we. What did we do next in class?
Student: Then we put away our books and got ready for math!
Teacher: That is great, ___, thank you!
Then we put away our books and got ready for math.
Teacher: What did we do after our math lesson?
Student: We packed up our backpacks and went to art class with Mrs.
Thomas!
Teacher: Great! How can we connect that idea?
Student: Afterwards?
Teacher: Great!
Afterwards, we packed up our backpacks and went to art
class with Mrs. Thomas.
Student: In art class, we finished our abstract drawings! And then we showed
them to the whole class!
Teacher: Great detail! Lets add that to our story! Great use of a transition
word!
In art class, we finished our abstract drawings. And then we
showed them to the whole class!
Teacher: Lets finish up our story now. What did we do at the end of the day?
Student: We went to second recess and then the bus!
Teacher: Great thinking. How can we add some details to that sentence?
Student: We could say recess was outside to show where maybe.
Student: And maybe we could say why we went to bus.
Teacher: I like those ideas! Why did we go to the bus at the end of the day?
Student: To ride home!
Teacher: Yes to ride home. Lets add those ideas!
____ We went outside to second recess and ____ we went to
the bus to go home.
Teacher: I left some blanks because I think we need to add some transition
words! What can we add?
Student: Later we went outside?
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Student: Afterwards!
Teacher: Why do you think those words would work here?
Student: We should say later we went to recess because it is later in the day.
Teacher: You are right! Great thinking!
Later we went outside to second recess and afterwards, we
went to the bus to go home.
*Go through the whole story together, reading it out loud as a group, and
then label the transition words and the Big Ws together with the same color
highlights as the lesson before*

G Lesson Plan for Stage 4: Independent Writing:

We have worked so hard to learn what is important to include in a good
story! You have all of the tools you need to write your own story now.
You will be writing about your summer. Your story must tell about three
different things you did this summer. You can tell about your favorite
three things or the biggest three things that happened. Please take a
look at your word wall we created together and the Big Ws. If you get
stuck writing your stories, please let me know!

H Written Scaffold

Name: ______________

My Summer Story
Part One: Use these boxes to help you with the Big Ws for each event.

Event One:
Who What Where When Why
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Event Two:
Who What Where When Why

Event Three:
Who What Where When Why
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Part Two: Connect your three events together with some transition words.
Look at our Word Wall for examples!