1. Lesson Title:Transitions
  1. Grade/Age Level: 9-12
  1. Subject Area: English/Writing Workshop
  1. Time allotted for the lesson:One class meeting (47 minutes).
  1. Short description of lesson:
  2. In this lesson, the learners willdevelop a list of strategies for creating transitions, and they will revise a piece of writing to include three different kinds of transitions.
  1. Connecticut Curriculum Standards met in this lesson:

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts

Writing Standards, 9-10

2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

c. Use appropriate and varied transitions to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among complex ideas and concepts.

  1. Instructional Objectives:Given a writing model, online tutorials/explanation, and a piece of student writing, students will:
  2. Sort transition words according to their purpose.
  3. Revise a piece of writing to include a transition that links each paragraph with the one before it.
  1. Instructional Procedures
  2. Lesson Set (How will you open the lesson to motivate the learners?)

Given an opening sentence, students will chain write a short narrative, with each student contributing at least one sentence. After the resulting narrative is read aloud, the teacher leads a discussion of the extent to which the writing had “flow.” Teacher asks students to speculate what could be done to increase flow and help the reader move from one section to the next.

Students study an image and explain how it suggests the function of transitions in writing.

  1. Techniques and activities
  2. Initiation (teacher-led lesson set as described above)
  3. After discussing the need for transitions, students review a model text (e.g., President Roosevelt’s 1933 Inaugural Address), highlighting each transition and drawing lines to connect related ideas.
  4. Working in pairs, students discuss the author’s use of transitions and assign transition words found in the text to four or five groups, giving each group a label and formulating a rule for assigning a transition word to that group.
  5. Teacher leads students in the sharing and discussing of group labels and rules, working to build understanding and consensus.
  6. Students work independently to edit a piece of their own writing, writing a transition to help the reader move smoothly from one idea or paragraph to the next.
  1. Lesson Closure
  2. Students will use the SMART board or an individual white board to exhibit one of the passages they edited to include a transition.
  1. Adaptations for special learners (How will you adapt the learning/equipment for learners with special needs?)
  2. Screen reader
  3. Alternative keyboard
  1. Supplemental Activities: Extension and remediation:
  2. Extension
  3. Students coach others through the lesson
  4. Students compare the use of transitions in two model texts.
  5. Students practice creating transitions by using an adverbial conjunction with a semicolon to join closely related independent clauses.
  6. Remediation
  7. Teacher or student coaches students through the process of editing their writing to include a colon and semicolon.
  8. Students view/read online resources that explain and demonstrate the use of transition devices.
  9. Students complete online exercises that reinforce the use of the transitions.
  1. Assessment/Evaluation:
  2. 100 percent of students will revise a piece of writing to correctly includetransitions that link each paragraph with the one before it.
  3. Students will be assessed informally through the teacher’s monitoring of student progress, through questioning and discussion, and through students’ sharing/exhibiting their revised sentences.
  4. Performance levels:
  5. Mastery: a diversity of transitions are used to link each paragraph with the one before it.
  6. Proficient: a few transitions create flow between at least two paragraphs.
  7. Basic: a single transition is used or overuses one transitional device.
  8. Feedback: Teacher observes students while they complete learning activities, redirecting attention, coaching, and providing encouragement. Teacher includes brief comment on students’ revised writing.
  1. Learner Products
  2. By the end of class, students will revise/edit a piece of writing to include transitions that create a sense of flow.
  3. Over the long term, students will revise a piece of writing for development, stye, and structure.

* Note for learners: This lesson plan template is adapted from the model that is recommended in the book Preparing to Use Technology: A Practical Guide for Technology Integration.