4th Grade · Writing · W.4.5, L.4.1.F
Writing Process Lesson Plan for 4th Grade
A ready-to-teach writing process lesson for 4th Grade, built around planning essays, narratives and letters, revising introductions, conclusions and sentences, choosing vivid and precise words, and editing for dialogue, capitals, verb tense and homophones. Print the plan, print the practice pages, and you are set.
Approximately 45 minutes
Learning objective
- Plan essays, narratives, letters and reviews with organizers
- Narrow a topic into a research question
- Take notes from two sources and outline an essay
Materials
Lesson steps
1. Notice it first (5 min)
Put two sentences on the board, one that uses writing process correctly and one that does not. Ask students which sounds right before you name any rule. Noticing comes before naming.
2. Name the rule (I do) (8 min)
Now name writing process and state the rule in one sentence. Write it where it can stay all week. Model correcting the broken sentence from the warm-up.
3. Fix them together (we do) (12 min)
Work through four or five sentences as a class. Mix in one that is already correct, because students who are pattern-matching rather than thinking will "fix" it anyway and reveal themselves.
4. Independent practice (you do) (15 min)
Hand out "Plan an Essay with a Graphic Organizer". Students work independently. Circulate and watch for the students who can do the exercise but cannot explain the rule, since that gap shows up later in their writing.
5. Apply it to real writing (5 min)
Students find one place in their own writing folder where writing process applies, and fix it. This is the step that moves the rule from worksheet to writing.
Check for understanding
Read the last two sentences of each student's independent work. Applying writing process correctly in their own sentence matters more than getting the exercise items right.
Differentiation
Extra support. Students who stall: pull them into a small group and rebuild writing process with concrete materials or a simpler text before asking for the written work again. Do not send the page home as homework, it will just rehearse the misunderstanding.
Extension. Students who finish early: ask them to write their own writing process problem for a partner to solve, then check the partner's work. Creating a problem is harder than solving one and it surfaces whether they really understand writing process.
Skills covered in this lesson
Prewriting · Revising · Descriptive language · Editing
