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Ashley I. Okonkwo's Portfolio Page

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Go to the mini-course Writers Workshop for Grade 1 ELA Instruction

Introduction

Teachers, educators and administrators are provided countless resources when it comes to ELA instruction, in order to effectively teach curriculum that yields student achievement where reading and writing are concerned. However, the common core, a system designed that is relevant and practical in real life, is useful in that it gives the knowledge and skills that young learners need for success in college and career. Therefore, this project will be designed with the incorporation of much of its standards to guide the following lessons and activities.

This project will mainly focus on one ELA component; writing, through writing workshop. Writing workshop is a method of teaching writing where students are given a set of procedures for planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their writing with the help of procedural guidelines. Also, it allows for students to write in different writing styles like persuasive, expository and how-to essays, which ultimately help to foster a love of writing. Workshops give teachers the chance to meet the needs of their students by diversifying and tailoring their instruction based on information gathered throughout the workshop.

While Writing Workshop is typically a classroom approach, the instructional content of this course will be designed and tailored for the online classroom, although it can also be applied in the classroom. Therefore, it will simultaneously introduce the idea of the Multimedia workshop as students will use links, and online materials to assist them in their writings.

Purpose of Course The purpose of this course is to introduce Writers Workshop from a student teacher approach in which students learn some common core ELA standards; in a fun and exciting way.

Needs Assessment

There has been recent changes and shifts in ELA curriculum that have been a clear response to student performance, therefore newer standards. For example, there has been a shift from fictional and creative texts to more informational and non-fictional texts in order for students to author more authentic and real-life writings. Through such texts, students are able to build knowledge and write engaging material because what they read is also engaging. It is necessary for learners to produce content that is engaging, relevant and real because these are of practical importance in college and career.

Instructional Problem Instructional strategies are implemented to reverse the instructional problem which in ELA tend to be a lack of student interest for writing. Writing assignments are often made monotonous, dull and repetitive. If made fun and relatable however, students can grow to form a love and passionate interest for writing. Therefore, effective instructional strategies that should be implemented are independent writing, and shared and interactive writing which prompts student to student interaction.

Learners The targeted audience of this project are first grade students. The units and lessons in this design will therefore be grade appropriate and tailored to meet the developmental and curricular needs of students. The purpose of this project is to teach students to write authentic and creative stories because they are writing to authentic audiences.

Performance Objectives
  • On a given topic, write a short story using grade appropriate and related vocabulary in the correct context.
  • After viewing wordless picture books, identify the main theme and write a supporting narrative, demonstrating sentence-level skills.
  • Begin every writing assignment following the steps of the writing process.
  • With teacher support, students will compose a writing piece in the genre of their choice.
Learner Outcomes

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.
  • Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  • Provide some sense of closure and write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.
  • Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
  • Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Unit 1: Writing Traits

Unit 2: Writing Process

Resources and References

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