Concept Map - Writing and Publishing a Halloween Narrative - 10

Writing and Publishing Halloween Narrative

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.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.6: With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

I.       Read a Halloween Book

If possible, I will open each day with a Halloween story to set the mood for the lesson that day. If I cannot read a book everyday, then I will continue to teach with the same book that I can refer back to each day. This will give my students an example of how a story/narrative is set up.

A.    Students will listen for descriptive, Halloween words, sequence-of-events words, and other keywords to prepare them to write their own story.

B.    Enhance their reading, vocabulary, and listening skills.

II.     Writing Activities and Games

Students will do creative writing exercises and play interactive games each day that will build their understanding of writing stories and narratives.

A.    Each day, students will be given a different writing prompt after reading the Halloween story of the day to prepare to write their own story at the end of the week.

B.    The students will immerse themselves in interactive writing games. The games will incorporate fun into their learning process, ultimately motivating them to improve writing skills.

III.    Computer Day

At the end of each day, we will spend time on the computers to get students comfortable with using the Internet appropriately and improve their typing and writing skills.

A.    For a day or two, students will learn about computer etiquette and Internet safety upon starting their story and searching the Web for pictures to put in their story.

B.    Students will use various websites to play "typing" games to gain better skills when writing a paper or story.

IV.    Dress Up Day

Dress Up Day will be a fun, relaxed day where students will be able to dress up as a character from their narrative/story they have been working on throughout the week. DUD is rewarding students for their hard work and improvement in their writing. It is more of an incentive for them to work hard throughout the week and motivate them.

A.    Dressing up as a Halloween character will act as an incentive for the students if they do well with the lessons throughout the week.

B.    Having a "costume day" will give students something to look forward to and motivate them to do well throughout the week/unit.

V.     Create Your Own Halloween Book

Creating and publishing the students' book online is basically an assessment of all the writing and computer skills they have mastered throughout the unit or week.

A.    The final writing product is the student's story/narrative, which is an assessment to see how their writing skills have improved and enhanced.

B.    The online storybook is the digital tool in which the students will publish their story/narrative to see how their computer and Internet skills have improved and enhanced.

1.    Students will use a website called Scribblitt to publish their very own book. Ideally, I would like to be able to purchase the book they created for them to have a very  own copy for inspiration in their future writing endeavors.

2.    Students will make a physical, hard copy of their story before publishing it on Scribblitt using construction paper and pictures cut out from magazines or brought from home.