LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE

Name: Shaela Elsasser

Date: October 3, 2010

Grade Level/Subject: 2nd/ Language Arts and Writing

Prerequisite Knowledge: Students should have a foundational understanding of writing complete sentences and spelling.
Students should understand what a letter is and the purposes it serves. Students should realize writing styles (paragraphs,
stories, etc) are made up of different parts as they will be learning those that make up a letter.

Approximate Time: 20 to 25 minutes with additional time for students to copy the class written letter

Student Objectives/Student Outcomes: Students will be able to characterize and identify parts of a letter (address,
greeting, body, closing, signature). Students will be able to write a letter using the correct format and understand the
purpose of the writing piece.

Content Standards:
3.A.1 Construct complete sentences which demonstrate subject/verb agreement; appropriate capitalization and
punctuation; correct spelling of appropriate, high-frequency words; and appropriate use of the eight parts of
speech.
3.B.1b Demonstrate focus, organization, elaboration and integration in written compositions (e.g., short
stories, letters, essays, reports).

Materials/Resources/Technology:
Given professional oversized letter showing letter format and characteristics
Oversized journal paper
Easel
Marker
Decorative paper for students to copy the classroom letter on

Implementation:

Time
Opening of lesson: (Objectives, hook, behavior expectations)

Ask students if they like getting letters in the mail. Explain your excitement of
letters and that a letter serves many different purposes.
A letter can: Be encouraging, Tell you something, Invite you to a party, etc.

Ask students what holiday is coming up that they have an assembly for –
Veterans Day!
Ask students if Veterans are still fighting in the war, or if they did previously?

Explain that together they will explore the parts of a letter and at the end put
together a classroom letter that they will each be sending to a man or woman
that is not quite a veteran yet.. but an active member in the military!
Procedures: Include critical thinking questions and accommodations for individual
needs

Using the poster of the letter, explain the different parts of the letter and again
describe where they go –
address/date : top, right corner of the page. Sometimes just the address will be
written, sometimes just the date, and other times both!
greeting : left side. This is where you give the name of the person receiving
the letter. Dear _____. Dear always starts with a capital!
body: highlight the indenting of the paragraph, 5 finger spaces! This is where
the “telling” part of the letter is. This tells the reader what you want him or her to
know.
Closing : This changes depending on your relationship with the reader.
Family – love
Friends – Sincerely, Your Friend
Acquaintance, someone you may not know too well – From, Your friend
The closing always starts with a capital letter!
Signature : A signature is where someone writes their name quickly in cursive.
Because we are not familiar with cursive YET, we will be writing our name in
print like we know how.

After explaining the parts of the letter, place a mis-written letter on the
Overhead. Ask students what they notice that is wrong with the letter.
Together, work to fix the letter.
**Careful to watch all sides of the projector and students sometimes are hard
to see in the dark and will become off task. Without ability to move around
the room, ask students that are quiet to come up to the overhead to correct a
mistake they see. Emphasize you are calling and selecting students that are
quiet and working hard.

Move then to the large journal page to write a letter to a person in the military
together. Explain that someone fighting over seas will receive this in a care
package for Christmas so we must make sure it is perfect because it will be
very special to whoever receives it.

Throughout writing, keep asking students questions to what they think goes where.
Because being placed on the side of the classroom, make sure to keep watch over
those students on the far side of the room - they may become off task!

Letter should read as such:

Date
Dear Hero,
Thank you for keeping our country safe. I hope you will come home soon. Happy
Holidays!
Your friend,
 Shaela

**Watch Emily. Because not completing work recently, this length of the writing assignment
may be difficult to accomplish. Asking questions directed at her to encourage a positive
attitude toward the work may be effective.
** Excite the students by explaining the importance of the people that will be
receiving their letter. Make the students feel that they are serving a very important
role and that they will be able to put a smile on someone’s face that’s living on the
other side of the world!

Summary/Closing:
Explain each student is to copy our classroom letter on the paper you will be handing
out. If the student has extra time ask him/her to write one or two more sentences of
their choice – if writing extra sentences the student must tell you first what they
want to write to ensure it is appropriate for military personnel.

Hand out decorative paper – students may not have time to finish copying before
designative time is over. Allow ten or so minutes during an alternate time throughout
the day to finish.

Student Assessment:
Student assessment should be taken by asking continuous questions
throughout the lesson. Be sure to question those students that are lower
achieving to ensure they as well as the others are understanding the lesson.

As students are working on their individual letters, circulate throughout the

room asking students questions about particular aspects of the letter. Point to
parts of the letter and ask students to tell you what it is called.

Reflecting on the students’ final letter, look if the students have included the correct
aspects and have placed them in the appropriate spaces.
Address – far right
Greeting – far left, capitalized, comma
Body – indented, beginning with capital letter, sentences punctuated
correctly and words spelled right
closing – far left, punctuated correctly, comma
signature/name – capitalized

Post Lesson Reflection:

Student Interest

I believe the student interest began high but towards the end started to trail off. Explaining to the
students that they would be writing to soldiers across the sea, they were excited and sparked their
interest. While using the poster of the letter to explain the different parts, I noticed the interest
beginning to trail off. Although when setting up the overhead projector, their interest seemed to be
sparked once more. Throughout this part of the lesson I believe the interest was high until the very
 end (I think there were too many mistakes, and the correcting took a bit too long). When writing the
classroom letter, I think the students became un-interested and antsy.

If shortening the lesson by a couple minutes and giving the students an opportunity to write an
individual letter to the soldiers, I think their interest would have been heightened.

I would make sure to keep the three different parts of the lesson (poster, overhead, journal paper).
Because the lesson transitioned and kept moving, I believe the students did remain interested and
on-task.

Student Motivation

Because the students were aware that the letters written would be received by a real solider, they
were motivated to try their best. While walking around the room, students kept asking for my
attention to look at their writing because it was “their best ever”.

Teacher Knowledge

I think my knowledge about the topic was proficient. Because it was a simple lesson, after
refreshing my understanding of the letter parts I believe I was knowledgeable.

Teacher Organization

I believe my organization of the lesson worked well. Beginning with the poster to give the students
an understanding of the letter parts, then allowing the students to practice and refine their skills on
the overhead worked well. Following the whole group practice, I think it worked well that the
students were then able to practice their writing individually.

Teacher Articulation

I think my articulation was decent except for one particular aspect of the lesson. When one student
was confused about the type of “your” within my overhead letter, I should have emphasized the
difference more in-depth. I should have taken a longer time to explain the difference between the
two types of yours/you’re even though it was slightly off topic.

I also believe I should have emphasized the position of the parts of a letter in more detail.
Student Understanding

When observing students’ writing after the lesson I believe they did understand the basic concept of
a letter although were missing a few details:
Capitalization of “Dear” and “Your”
Placing commas after the greeting and closing
Placement of closing and signature

Realizing these were the most commonly missed aspects, next time this lesson is taught I will make sure to
put more emphasis on these details.

Other

In future lessons, I would allow students to write their own letter using the knowledge they had
learned. Because I was given a particular format of what the students were to write, I do not believe
the students were able to show what they had learned or be creative in their writing. If teaching this
again, I would first have students practice writing an individual and unique letter on journal paper.
After writing, in future lessons I would work with the students to teach revision. I would re-visit the
parts of a letter, asking each student to make sure they have capital letters where needed as well as
commas. After revising their own letters I would look over to make sure the body of the letter was
appropriate. After giving the students the okay, they would then re-copy their draft onto the
professional paper as their final draft.