Summary

This unit reinforces all of the content information that students learned at Hidden Villa, very clearly supporting Hidden Villa's goal to introduce students to basic ecological concepts, including the interconnection between human social systems and natural cycles.

Teacher Background

Part I: Preparing Essay Subjects

In the first part of this unit, I require my students to use their Hidden Villa notes extensively. This helps students remember information they might have otherwise forgotten and reinforces the value of taking notes. For ideas about how to teach note-taking before your class goes to Hidden Villa go to the "Before Trip" curriculum pages.

Lesson 1: Brainstorming Hidden Villa topics for informational reports

Lesson 2: Modeling an information web with Hidden Villa notes

Part II: Organizing the Essay

Before continuing, students will need to have an assigned topic and project partner. To capitalize on their motivation, allow students to participate in the selection process.

Lesson 1: Choosing the main topics and re-organizing the information web

Lesson 2: Teaching essay organization with photographs representing the introduction, and body paragraphs

Lesson 3: Modeling Hidden Villa essay organization

Lesson 4: Creating the Hidden Villa essay web in pairs

Part III: Writing the Essay

At this beginning stage, focus on how to use a web or essay outline, emphasizing that each sentences in an essay needs to introduce new information. For example, instead of "I'm going to write about coyotes," write "Coyotes are predators that live in the Hidden Villa forest." This concept is worth several mini-lessons. Jot down some weak topic or main idea sentences and use them for a whole class demonstration. Keep examples of these lessons posted in the room to remind students that they need to write string, information-rich sentences.

Part IV: Revision to Publishing 

Despite intense modeling, most students still need a lot of support in revising their essays. Review the peer revision conference procedures thoroughly with your class, emphasizing all the components on which you focus in your lessons. (Using a peer-revision checklist will hold students accountable in their revision advisor role.) Also, set aside time to meet individually with students to review their essays.

Teacher Background

Introduction

The state-approved writing curriculum "Step-Up-To-Writing" color codes each level of informational organization in an essay. With my students, I have found that a strict implementation of the entire "Step-Up-To-Writing" curriculum results in somewhat formulaic writing, but the basic ideas of this system are extremely helpful in supporting students' sense of organization.

To write a plan using this method, students color-code their ideas with the colors of the traffic light. The topic ideas in each paragraph are coded green. This stands for "Go for it - Introduce your topic with a strong topic sentence." (i.e. NOT " I'm going to write about...") Main ideas are identified with the color yellow. This stands for "Slow down - Give a main idea or detail about the topic." Examples, explanations and facts are associated with the color red. This stands for "Stop - Give the evidence that proves your point."

Upper elementary students should be very familiar with green-yellow-red and have internalized the meaning of these three colors. There are additional ways to use this color system. Webs can be easily colored with green circles branching out to yellow main ideas and then to red examples. Students can also learn to make outline plans using the familiar colors to emphasize the organization level of each indented line. (See example at the end of this unit's lesson ideas.) "Step-Up-To-Writing" has younger, beginning writers record their plans on colored strips of paper. Students can easily manipulate the strips (placing in order, re-ordering) on their desks. When students understand how to organize a clear essay, they can work without depending on color-coding.

Skim through the "Step-Up-To-Writing" teacher manual to find other helpful teaching tips. For solid examples of how students learn to write, turn to the masters such as Lucy Calkins, Katie Woodray, or Ralph Fletcher.

Classroom Relevance

Learning to write organized information reports is a great teaching challenge that, in the upper grades, generally spans the entire school year. Teaching the skills of report writing involves acquisition of new knowledge within the classroom context, and becomes considerably harder for those students who struggle in other academic areas. Because a wide range of other (i.e. non-writing) skills are required to produce an informational report, try to highlight the writing process and isolate it from other academic skills.

Your Hidden Villa field trip offers such an opportunity because students learn information there in such an engaging way, providing the added bonus of heightened student interest and enthusiasm. Several of my students who struggle immensely with writing excel during our Hidden Villa informational report project. Their excitement from the field trips gives them an internal motivation that helps them focus on my teaching points and their work.

Lesson Plan

Part I: Preparing Essay Subjects

Lesson 1: Brainstorming Hidden Villa topics for informational reports

Model: Explain that the subject of an essay needs to be broad enough to include several main ideas and supporting details. Think aloud as you give an example. E.g. I was really interested in the bay laurel tree. What did you learn yesterday about the bay laurel? Do you think we have enough information to write several main ideas about it? What could be a broader subject (riparian trees, medicinal plants used by Native American used) which could include the bay laurel as one of its main ideas?

Support: In pairs or small groups, students think of things they learned at Hidden Villa and make a list of ideas for good essay subjects.

Share: Have each pair share one essay topic idea until all ideas are written up on the board. Guide a class discussion as you go through the list to decide whether each subject would work well for an essay.

Subject Suggestions: Good essay subjects will depend on your students' interests and individual experiences at Hidden Villa. Here are subjects my students worked on successfully: Farm Animals (cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, goats), Wild Herbivores, Wild Carnivores, Nocturnal Animals, Six Plant Parts, Plant Reproduction, Organic Gardening, The Compost Pile, Duveneck Family History, How Native Americans Hunted, Medicinal Plants Native Americans Used, The Creek Habitat, The Chaparral Habitat, Trees of the Forest, Plants of the Forest, Mini-Habitats (see separate unit) and Food Chains (see separate unit). My students work in pairs for this writing project. If your class can't come up with enough subjects for each pair, have some pairs to double up on subjects, even though the pairs will work separately.

Lesson 2: Modeling an information web with Hidden Villa notes

Before: As a teacher you will need to choose an essay subject that you will use for all of the modeled lessons in this unit (In our example we will use the subject: Trees in the Hidden Villa Forest).

Model: Ask students to take out their Hidden Villa notes. Demonstrate how to use these field notes to fill in a web of information about the class essay subject. Explaining that all good scientists and writers continue to have many questions about their subject, model thinking of a question about the class essay subject. Write this question on the web. Ask if anyone knows the answer to the question. If they do, link their answer to the question on the web.

As you begin, your class web might look like the following example:

Option 1:  Assign a subject from the class idea list to each student or pair of students. Students will follow the modeled lesson to create their own webs for their assigned subjects.

Option 2: This activity reinforces the value of taking notes and sharing knowledge. Working in groups of 2 or 3, the entire class shares information about each subject. To do this, groups rotate through stations set up in the classroom. Depending on your class size, you may want to choose at least ten subjects so that each station focuses on a different subject. Each station needs a large piece of paper with the subject written in the middle. Give students about 10 minutes or more at each station to write on the web. Before starting, show where each "web-station" is located in the classroom and review the following student instructions:

1. Read everything that has already been written on the web by your classmates.
2. Find information about this subject in your notes.
3. Share this information and what you remember with your partner(s).
4. Add at least one new piece of information and answer any questions you can.
5. Brainstorm questions about the subject and add at least one to the chart.

This process reviews and validates students' experiences at Hidden Villa and allows for students to learn from one another. I have found this activity to be a valuable community building experience that heightens students' enthusiasm for writing essays.

Part II: Organizing the Essay 

As they begin organizing the information for their essays, some students may want to know more about a certain topic. I prefer students rely on just the information gained through their experiences, rather than include outside research on their particular topic. Researching skills are entirely separate from the skills required to organize an interesting essay. I have found that my students are more successful when the different skills sets are practices and mastered in isolation, and then brought together. If, however, your students already have a good base in writing and researching, you could use this writing project to inspire them to expand their skills in both of these areas.

Lesson 1: Choosing the main topics and re-organizing the information web

Model: As a class, read all the information on the web you created for your class essay subject (Part I, Step 2). Guide a discussion about how to organize all the information around just a few (2-4) topics. (E.g. Subject - Trees of HV Forest, Topics - Oak, Bay, Buckeye; Subject - Cows, Topics - Products Produced, Behavior, Care of) After the class has decided on the main topics, on a separate piece of chart paper, model how to quickly reorganize the information in a more structured web. (Draw the main topics in circles linked to the center subject, then add the examples and supporting information for each main topic around its circle.)

Support: With their project partners students follow the same steps:

1. Read through the information about your assigned subject on the web created by your class.
2. Discuss what pieces of information can go together to form a main topic.
3. Decide out what this topic would be called.
4. Reorganize the information into a more structured web on a second piece of paper.

Please Note: Students can begin writing their essays from their organized webs. If you feel your students would benefit from a structured introduction to writing the five-paragraph essay, as expected in the California State Standards, you could adapt the following lesson which was extremely successful in my class. Otherwise, proceed directly to Part III.

Lesson 2: Teaching essay organization with photographs representing the introduction and body paragraphs

This lesson uses the digital camera to teach students about organizing essays by ordering ideas in successive layers of complexity. Easily connected to a classroom television, the digital camera - and its zoom capabilities - can visually show students how to zoom into topics, main ideas, and supporting evidence. As the most readily available subject, I recommend "Out School is a Special Place for Learning." To prepare for this lesson, take digital photos of your school, in the order you expect them to be presented in an essay, Take the following four pictures:

1. A wide-angle shot of the shot (the overall subject and introductory paragraph)
2. Your classroom (topic of the first body paragraph)
3. The library (topic of second body paragraph)
4. The computer lab, or other special learning classroom (topic of third body paragraph)

A. Gather your students together and make sure they can all see the television comfortably. (This lesson required students to sit, focus, and interact for at least one-half hour.) Explain that you will use the digital camera to show how an essay is organized, and that you will write the essay outline on a chart, using green-yellow-red for different levels of information. Introduce the subject of the essay, and write it at the top of the chart.

Show the first picture (school) and ask students to describe what they see and share what they know about the school. Explain the importance of the introduction, as the means to orient the reader to the subject, just as the photo orients the view to the school. On the chart, begin the outline. Intro - Castro School in Mountain View, dual immersion program, 450 students

If they are visible in the photo, point out the three additional places that expand the essay subject. (E.g. your classroom, the library, the computer lab) Explain that in an essay people also like to be able to "see," right from the start, what they will be reading about. On the chart, write down the next line. Thesis - Our classroom, the school library, and the computer lab are three special places for learning at our school.

B. Explain that "our classroom" will be the first topic addressed because it is the most important support of the essay subject. On the photo of the school, zoom in on your classroom, illustrating that each topic needs to be "connected" to the essay subject. Switch to the photo of your classroom. On the outline chart, skip a line to indicate the start of a new paragraph and, in green, write the first topic. Topic - Our classroom is a special place to learn at our school.

Explain that this claim needs to be supported. In the classroom photo, find some places that make the classroom a special place to learn. Think aloud and select some areas; zoom in on them in the photo. (To demonstrate zooming in, I have my students mimic my big arm motions, engaging kinesthetic learners.) On the chart, indent and write one of the topic's main ideas on the next line, in yellow. Main Idea - Class comes together on the rug.

Looking at the zoomed-in photo, ask students to name things or activities that support the main idea. What else do we do on the rug that supports our learning? On the outline chart, indent and list the supporting explanations in red. Explain - We sit close together so that we can share ideas. Explain - There are big whiteboards where we can write down the things we want to explain to each other...

C. After 2-3 "explanations," move on to another main idea. (I think our classroom library helps us learn in our classroom.) Instead of zooming out of the whole class photo, stay zoomed in and attempt to find the next main idea (library) by moving around the classroom at the zoomed-in focus. (This should present some difficulty.)

Zoom out to the whole class photo, find the next main idea (library) and quickly zoom in on it (again using large arm movements). Point out how much easier and smoother this process is, emphasizing the parallel that, in writing, EACH main idea needs to be clearly connected to the topic of the paragraph.

On the outline, write the new main idea on the next line, in yellow. Main Idea - We can learn a lot from the books in our classroom library. Ask students for input on details that support this idea. Write these on the chart, in red.

D. Ask students to remember what the subject of the whole essay is - return to the first picture (school). Remind students that the next paragraph topic needs to be connected to this subject - zoom in on the school library. Forward to the photo of the school library. Before continuing the outline, explain that complete sentences will not be necessary because the lesson concentrates on organizing ideas.

Repeat the same procedures as for the 1st body paragraph, this time demonstrating how to use only quick notes in the essay outline. Increase students' involvement in the process, asking them to recall each step and direct you. A student volunteer could lead the class in hand gestures for zooming or could serve as class scribe.

E. By the last paragraph, students should have a firm grasp on the steps. Continue to release more responsibility to your students. Divide them into groups of 2-3 to write down the outline of the last paragraph by themselves. Students who are not ready to work independently can have the "special privilege" of working with the digital camera for extra support.

Lesson 3: Modeling Hidden Villa essay organization

The following day, return to the Hidden Villa essay subject that your are using to model each step. Using the newly-structured web from Lesson 1, point out to the class that, although they are not viewing photos, in their minds they need to do the same zooming in and out to examine topics and connect explanations to the overall essay topic.

Demonstrate how to turn the essay subject and main ideas into the outline for the introductory paragraph. Show how to convert the supporting information for the first main idea circle into the first body paragraph. As you proceed, release more responsibility to the class until you are simply guiding their decisions.

In pairs, students develop their organized web planners into essay outlines. If you prefer, provide them with essay outline worksheets rather than asking them to write in their writer's notebooks. (See Download Materials.) Students who have mastered the skill of outlining can finish their work without the support of partners.

Part III: Writing the Essay 

At this beginning stage, focus on how to use a web or essay outline, emphasizing that each sentences in an essay needs to introduce new information. For example, instead of "I'm going to write about coyotes," write "Coyotes are predators that live in the Hidden Villa forest." This concept is worth several mini-lessons. Jot down some weak topic or main idea sentences and use them for a whole class demonstration. Keep examples of these lessons posted in the room to remind students that they need to write string, information-rich sentences.

Writing the actual essay can take students anywhere from a few days to over a week. Allow students to work with their partners on writing the first paragraph or two together. This provides students the support they may need to remember the teaching points and apply them to their own writing. Students who acquire essay-writing skills should be encouraged to finish their essays on their own.

Part IV: Revision to Publishing 

Making iMovies is a wonderful, motivating way to publish your students' Hidden Villa essays. This provides your students with incentive to learn new skills that support technology standards. The final product is an excellent vehicle for sharing and celebrating all your students have learned during this project, especially when when they are able to incorporate photos taken during the Hidden Villa field trip.

Download Materials 

Student Worksheets

Part III

Lesson 4

Essay Outline Worksheets