WRITING REVIEWS USING TECHNOLOGY

Writing Reviews Using Technology

Author(s):

Brooke Ulmer and Laura Glenn, Section # 23621

Adapted from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/teachers/lessonplans/english/writing_review.shtml

Grade Level:
5th grade

Timeframe:
9 Days about an hour each day

Lesson Description or Explanation

This lesson is designed to help students gain a better understanding of what a review is and its purpose. They will be participating in reading, research, collaboration with others, and using different types of technology to enhance their learning experience with reviews.

Indiana Curricular Standards

Writing Standards:

5.4.1 Discuss ideas for writing, keep a list or notebook of ideas, and use graphic organizers to plan writing.
5.4.3 Write informational pieces with multiple paragraphs that:
· present important ideas or events in sequence or in chronological order.
· provide details and transitions to link paragraphs.
· offer a concluding paragraph that summarizes important ideas and details.
5.4.5 Use note-taking skills when completing research for writing
5.4.8 Review, evaluate, and revise writing for meaning and clarity.
5.4.10 Edit and revise writing to improve meaning and focus through adding, deleting, combining, clarifying, and rearranging words and sentences.
5.5.5 Use varied word choices to make writing interesting.
5.5.6 Write for different purposes (information, persuasion, description) and to a specific audience or person, adjusting tone and style as appropriate.
5.6.3 Identify and correctly use appropriate tense (present, past, present participle, past participle) for verbs that are often misused (lie/lay, sit/set, rise/raise).
5.6.6 Use correct capitalization.

ISTE Standards

2. Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, include at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.

3. Research and Information Fluency
Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students:
Plan strategies to guide inquiry.
Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.
Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.
Process data and report results.

5. Digital Citizenship
Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:
Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.
Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.
Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.
Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship

6. Technology Operations and Concepts
Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Students:
Understand and use technology systems.
Select and use applications effectively and productively.
Troubleshoot systems and applications.
Transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

Assessments
Formative/Summative

Formative:
We will do a KWL chart with our students to get an understanding of what they know about reviews. (K= What they know about reviews. W= What they want to know about reviews. L= What they learned about reviews.)

Summative:
We will have the students publish a review of their choice which will be graded for the content in terms of what we discussed and learned throughout the study.

*Note: Please refer to our rubric at the end of the post.

Prior Knowledge

Curricular Knowledge or Skills: They would have to know and be familiar with what a review is.

Technology Knowledge: They should be familiar with the programs in Microsoft Office such as PowerPoint and Word. They should be familiar with how to use the Internet for researching purposes.

Technology

Internet Resources: (please list URLs)
www.rottentomatoes.com
www.metacritic.com
Hardware: Computers

Software: Microsoft Office

Procedure

Day 1: Introduce reviews by having the students complete a KWL chart individually using PowerPoint. By completing this, it will give us an idea of what the students know and want to know about reviews. It also gives the students a chance to incorporate the use of technology into their everyday learning.

Day 2: Students will share their PowerPoint slides with the class. We will compile a class list of what the students want to learn about reviews. Then we will have a discussion about the questions from the list. For example, why are reviews important? What purpose do they serve? Who can write them? What does a writer need to do to be able to write a review?

Day 3: Students will research all about reviews. They will be able to use the internet, magazines, newspapers, etc. We will provide them with appropriate websites to research. While researching, they need to keep in mind the class questions from the previous day. Students will write down things they notice about reviews such as why they liked a particular review. What makes it interesting? At the end of the class session, students will share their ideas

Day 4: We will address any questions or challenges that the students have concerning reviews by doing mini-lessons. For example, we will address any grammar problems. Students will take their ideas and begin writing their reviews. They will also be continuing to refer to the class list of questions to guide their writing of a review.

Day 5: At this point, all students should be writing their reviews. The students should be collaborating and helping each other in their writing. In general, it is going to be a work day: reading, writing, and researching.

Day 6: Author’s Circle/Editing
They will participate in authors circle or editing groups. They will receive feedback from their peers. They will also reflect on the feedback they have received. They will think about ways they want to revise their review. We will have a class discussion about how the author circles helped or did not help.

Day 7: Work Day and Critique
The students will continue revising and editing their drafts. They will also participate in an author circle if needed. They will begin typing their revised piece if ready.

Day 8: Finishing Up
They will finish revising if needed and then type their review to be published. We will encourage them to be creative when typing their published piece such as using publisher or clipart to enhance the font or other aspects of their document.

Day 9: CELEBRATION!
Today, they will share published pieces with classmates. They can use an overhead projector to place their piece on for the entire class to see.


Differentiated Instruction

ESL
Students that have English as a second language can pair up with another student to read with. Because ESL learners have a struggling time with reading, pairing up with a confident reader gives them the chance to listen to the reviews being read aloud to them. Hearing the text out loud will help them understand what the review is trying to convey, rather them trying to figure out the text themselves and not getting any meaning out of it. Also, the ESL reader can be following along with the confident reader while being read aloud too. This will help the ESL learner with word to symbol connections. He will be able to hear what the word sounds like as well as see what the word looks like, at the same time.

During research, the ESL learners have a great resource they can use. Google has a translator that will translate into about any language. So, if they find a good review they can translate it into whatever language would be convenient for them to be able to read. Or if the students find a review in their language and want to translate it into English they have that option too.
While ESL students are writing their review they could type their review in whichever language they are most familiar with. Then, to encourage them towards English we could have them translate the review (if they originally wrote it in their first language) in Google. We do not want to discourage them from their first language; however, it is important for them to learn English too. After they have their original and English one typed up, they could then look at the two and compare them to get a visual understanding of the difference.

With these accommodations ESL students can continue to work with their classmates and have the same learning experiences as them, as well as increasing their understanding of the fundamentals of the English language.

Challenge/Extend

For those students who need a challenge we have planned out the following:
1. Students could publish another review. The review would have to be on a different topic than the first one they did. 2. Students could research something from another country that they know little about. Once they have an understanding and a familiarity with that something they would write a review about it, what is it? What is its purpose? Do you like it? Why or why not? They could gather the information that was found from researching into a PowerPoint. The student would need to design the PowerPoint in a creative way to make it interesting to their audience (classmates). They will present the PowerPoint to the class at the Celebration day (along with the rest of the reviews)! 3. If they get done with their original review and this challenge, then I would have to say they need to help their fellow classmates out by proofreading, editing, revising, etc.

Special Needs

Following are the special needs that we have currently in our 5th grade student teaching class: autism, adhd, and emotional disabilities.

For the students that have ADD or ADHD, we could provide them with the nine day schedule to give them a better understanding of what is expected of them. We could help them to set deadlines/goals for their individual progress and achievement. Since these students struggle with focusing and get easily distracted, we could allow them to use headphones to block the noise out. During the researching process at the computer lab, we would pay close attention to the seating arrangement. If some students are loud and distracting, we would make sure the students with ADD/ADHD would not be near them.

Students with Autism could also benefit from some of the accommodations that students with ADD and ADHD do. One example is the issue of schedule. We could provide those students with a detailed schedule of our review project. We also have instructional assistants and resource individuals who come into the class to help in anyway that they can. These individuals would be able to help students with their research on the computer. We would encourage these students to do their personal best and provide them with breaks during work time. We would also give these particular students rewards when they successfully complete something.

Students with emotional disabilities will need to be given short-term goals that can easily be achieved throughout the review study. We will need to reward them for behaving or trying a new activity that worked good for them that way it will encourage them to keep working toward completing their review. Our schedule with this particular child will have to be consistent, because she does not like change. Her stomach continually gets upset when change happens, so we have to be sure we let her know what the day will look like. If she begins to get frustrated we could give her a break, letting her do jumping jacks or something along those lines to let her “calm down” and get back on track.

Overall, we will also allow the students with special needs extra time to complete the required work, if needed.


Rubric:


Writing Reviews Using Technology
Name: ________________________
Teacher:
Date Submitted: ____________
Title of Work: ___________________

Criteria
Points

1
2
3
4

Organization
Sequence of information is difficult to follow.
Reader has difficulty following work because student jumps around.
Student presents information in logical sequence which reader can follow.
Information in logical, interesting sequence which reader can follow.
____
Content Knowledge
Student doesn’t grasp the full understanding of a review.
Student has little knowledge of reviews.
Student understands the basic concepts of reviews, but fails to elaborate.
Student demonstrates full knowledge (more than required).
____
Grammar and Spelling
Work has four or more spelling errors and/or grammatical errors.
Presentation has three misspellings and/or grammatical errors.
Presentation has no more than two misspellings and/or grammatical errors.
Presentation has no misspellings or grammatical errors.
____
Presentation/Overall Project
Little Effort: has no details and is not appealing to its readers.
Some Effort: has few details and is somewhat appealing to its readers.
More Effort: is appealing to its readers.
Exemplary Work: has rich details and is appealing to its readers.
____




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