Sims, Rachel; Henderson, Dani; Jordan, Stephanie; Warren, Ellen LITR 3130B 1
Format of Strategy Lessons for the Integration Plan
Introductory Section
Grade level: 3
Topic of your content: Inspirational People
Area of your strategy: Writing
Specific strategy: Autobiography and memoirs
Purpose of your strategy: To teach how to write autobiographies and memoirs.
Stage 1: Desired Results
Georgia Performance Standard: Social Studies or Science – content specific
SS3H2 The student will discuss the lives of Americans who expanded people’s rights and
freedoms in a democracy.
a. Paul Revere (independence), Frederick Douglass (civil rights), Susan B. Anthony
(women’s rights), Mary McLeod Bethune (education), Franklin D. Roosevelt (New Deal
and World War II), Eleanor Roosevelt (United Nations and human rights), Thurgood
Marshall (civil rights), Lyndon B. Johnson (Great Society and voting rights), and César
Chávez (workers’ rights).
b. Explain social barriers, restrictions, and obstacles that these historical figures had to
overcome and describes how they overcame them.
Learning Outcome (LO): Social Studies or Science – GPS content specific:
LO A: Students will be able to identify key figures in American history that expanded people’s
rights and freedoms in a democracy.
LO B: Students will be able to identify different social barriers, restrictions, and obstacles they
faced in their particular areas.
Essential Question (EQ): Social Studies or Science – GPS content specific:
EQ A: Why is it important to know about different people that impacted American history?
EQ B: Why did these barriers needed to be address?
Georgia Performance Standard: ELA - Strategy Specific
ELA3W2 The student writes in a variety of genres, including narrative, informational,
persuasive, and response to literature.
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The student produces informational writing (e.g., procedures, report, and correspondence)
that:
h. May include prewriting.
Learning Outcome (LO): ELA GPS - Strategy Specific
 Students will be able to prewrite an autobiography a/or memoir.
Essential Question (EQ): ELA GPS - Strategy Specific
What do you know about prewriting during the process of an autobiography and/ or memoir?
Note: Only the ELA strategy LO/EQ must be taught, practiced, and assessed during the lesson.
Use the content specific GPS, LO/EQ as the content that you model and the students practice (both
guided and independent.
Phase of Learning: acquisition
Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction
Didactic/Direct Instruction
What the teacher does/uses (Lesson Structure and Teaching/Learning Strategy)
Hook and Hold
Remember: The focus of this lesson is to teach the ELA strategy (writing, reading
comprehension or vocabulary) – and to integrate content. Thus, each part of the hook and
hold must be related to the STRATEGY andthe CONTENT. Do not, however, include the
teaching of the content (science or social studies).Use the content (your science or social
studies GPS, LO/EQ) as the content that you will use to model and apply the strategy and
that the students will use to practice applying the strategy. (Both guided and independent
practices must be included in the appropriate place in the lesson plan.)
Good morning class, I hope that your day has been going well. We have an exciting lesson
planned today. Raise your hand if you like talking about yourself or maybe you like for people
to learn more about you?
Call on a couple of people to share what they like the most about themselves, or what
they would want people to remember them for.
I want people to remember that I have to smile, and have fun with life. Now how would be
able to gain more information about us?
Cal on student for them to give suggestions to how others would be able to learn more about
them.
Your right other people can find out about us in several different ways including:
 Asking us question
 Talking to others or
 Reading about us
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Will today we are going to explore the idea of making a lasting impression on the world about
us through our writing in the form of an autobiography.
Teaching (and modeling)
Teaching:
Now, yesterday we read books on some important individuals in American history. Can
anyone tell me some of the people that we talked about?
Students should response with the following people: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor
Roosevelt, Cesar Chavez, and Mary Bethune.
That is correct; these are just a few people that helped shape different areas in American
history. Now that we have some information on each of these people we are going to write a
biography about their lives. The style or genre of writing that we will be doing today is
expository. The form is biography and autobiography. The purpose of the writing is in the
case of autobiography is to inform the audience about the writer’s life. For the case of
biography is to inform the audience about the life of someone else. Of course, the class and I
will be the audience of the written work.
But before we can write a biography we must first find out what a biography is?
Does anyone have an idea of what a biography is?
Students: There are varieties of different answers that they could provide.
A biography is describe has a piece of writing that depicts the life of an individual, but is
written by someone else. This is not to be confused with an autobiography that is written piece
depicting the life of an individual, but is also written by the individual that is described. Here
is a film that I want use all to write that can help example what a biography is. Well today we
are going to take biographies a step forth and turn to autobiographies.
Teacher will go up to the smart board and access the website brainpopjr.com. Then, she
will search for the video that describes what a biographical and autobiographical writing.
There are different ways to which you the writer can write your autobiography. You can do a
My graph, which is (add a description). Then, there is me bag, which is (add description).
Next, there is life graph, which is described as (add description). Finally, the one that we are
going to work with today is life mapping or life line. Like many of the books we read
yesterday dealing with those famous American, many of the books opened up at the being of
their lives. Then, they continued throughout their lives all the way up until the end, giving bits
and pieces of memories with their lives. This method is one or the popular ways to accomplish
writing an autobiography.
So again what is the genre and form that we are writing about today?
Students: We are writing an expository piece in the autobiography/biography form.
Sims, Rachel; Henderson, Dani; Jordan, Stephanie; Warren, Ellen LITR 3130B 4
What is the purpose of writing an autobiography?
Students: to inform the audience about the life of the writer.
Now we have a clear indication or what genre we are writing and the purpose of our writing
we can begin with the actual process of writing.
The first stage of the writing that we are going to work on today is pre-writing in the form of a
graphic organizer. Now a graphic organizer is used to organizers one’s though together before
we write. It is important to have organization before writing to make the writing process
smooth. There are a variety of different graphic organizers that we can use to do an
autobiography, but we will be using this one.
Teacher is to pull up the graphic organizer.
For the purpose of example, we will be doing a biography, but remember that in your
individual work you will be doing an autobiography.
So again can some raise their hand and tell me what a biography and autobiography are?
Students: The form is biography and autobiography. The purpose of the writing is in the
case of autobiography is to inform the audience about the writer’s life. For the case of
biography is to inform the audience about the life of someone else. Of course, the class
and I will be the audience of the written work.
Modeling:
During this section the teacher will pullout on the smart board the graphic organizer
completed. Because autobiographies and biographies are similar, we will be working on a
biography for practice.
Practice (guided and independent)
Remember: You are to have both guided practice and independent practice.Both will be
applying the ELA strategy. Integrate the social studies or science content. Do not, however,
include the teaching of the content. Use the content through which to apply the content. For
example, students will use the content as the topic for their writing for the writing strategy, and
students will use texts in your bibliography to read and to apply the reading comprehension
and vocabulary strategies.
Guided Practice: We know what an autobiography and biography are and we know what a
graphic organizer is; now it is time to put all of that knowledge to action. Previously, I should
you an example of what your graphic organizer could look like when you finish, and now we
are going to work together to make a class graphic organizer. For the purpose of practice we
are going to choose one of the people that we read about to show some ideas that you can use
for a graphic organizer.
Which person would you like to do?
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Allow the students to pick a person that they would like to do at a class. This allows for more
activeness from the class.
Some of the questions that the teacher could ask the students to get the creative juices going.
- Where was your individual born at and which date?
- What are some of the important things about the person?
- Likes and dislikes
- Why did the person want to do what they did?
- How do they want to be viewed by people?
- How did they view the world?
These are just some helpful questions that we can ask to make a successful graphic organizer
for a biography.
During this time the teacher and the student work together to create a class organizer
based on a person that they read in the social studies lesson. If any scaffolding is need
then the teacher provides it to help them find enough content that they can use to write
about.
Independent Practice:
It is your turn to write your autobiography. Remember that during the only difference between
what we did as a class and what you will be doing individually is the fact that we were writing
about someone else’s life and now you will be writing about yourself. Some of the same
questions that you used to ask about your famous person’s life you can ask yourself to better
understand and organize your thoughts for yourself.
- Where was your individual born at and which date?
- What are some of the important things about the person?
- Likes and dislikes
- Why did the person want to do what they did?
- How do they want to be viewed by people?
- How did they view the world?
Understand that these are not the only questions that can be used to reference to assist in the
writing of your graphic organizer. These are just some helpful suggestions.
This will be the section that will be assessed by the teacher to determine whether or not
the student has grasp the understanding of what an organizer is and how it can be used
to assist individuals in the writing process. Students should be working quietly at their
desk, and raising their hands if they have any questions or concerns.
Met the standard: Students are deemed to have met the standard if they have completed the
graphic organizer, and filled it with relevant information to their lives.
Partially met the standard: students have partially meet the standard if they have complete the
graphic organizer, but did not complete it with information that is relevant to them, but rather
information that is relevant to some that we read in class.
Did not meet the standard: Students that have not meet the standard either (1) did not
complete the graphic organizer and (2) did not have relevant information in the graphic
organizer about them.
Teacher Resources and Instructional Resources
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Citations and summaries:
Pearson Custom Education: Developing literacy: LITR 3130. New York: Pearson Learning
Solutions, p. 100-104.
In the book Pearson Custom Education, the authors try to provide the reader with the
framework for different ways to approach the topic of autobiographies, biographies, and
memories. Some of the examples that the authors use are life mapping and my bag just to
name a few. They also provided different methods for assessing the students work for
understanding. The readers should be able to take away some connectors between the three
genres spoken about, as well as some ways to engage one another with the information.
Include the citations for all resources used during and to plan your strategy.
Collins, S. (2008). Discovering genres: Biographies and autobiographies. Westminster, CA:
Teacher Created Resources, Inc.
The author put together a collection of material that pertains the concept of
autobiographies and biographies. She gives the reader the following resources:
vocabulary, graphic organizers, assessment tools, and writing and reading skills that are
necessary to be successful for understanding the concept of autobiographies and
biographies. The material is mainly geared to 3rd and 4th graders.
Source:
(2010). 6 photos. (2010). [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from
http://www.edhelperclipart.com/clipart/teachers/org-6photos.pdf
Biographies. (2011, January). Retrieved from
http://www.brainpopjr.com/readingandwriting/writing/biography/preview.weml
Sims, Rachel; Henderson, Dani; Jordan, Stephanie; Warren, Ellen LITR 3130B 7