Title: Organize Your Thoughts

Essential Question: How does the organization and outlining of a topic increase the understanding and awareness of the concepts and information involved?

Learning Context:

Purpose-To help students understand that organizing their topic research will improve their ability to write in a meaningful way.

Objective-To increase their opportunities to write in a form associated with and meeting the NYS Standards.

Learning Standards

ELA-Standard #1: Language for Information and Understanding-Students will read, write, listen, and speak for information and understanding. As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.

Benchmark #1: Listening and Reading-Listening and reading to acquire information and understanding involves collating data, facts, and ideas; discovering relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and using knowledge from oral, written, and electronic sources

MST-Standard #2: Information Systems-Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies.

Benchmark #1: Information Systems-Information technology is used to retrieve, process, and communicate information and as a tool to enhance learning.

Curriculum-Outlining to create a simple view of research information leads to well constructed essays.

What Students Need to Know-The student will need to know the mechanics of outlining and be able to outline simple paragraphs and visual experiences. Students will learn the steps used to create an outline.

Procedure:

1. Students will be taken outside to observe the organization of nature (i.e.; tree, trunk, branches, leaves, veins).
2. Students will view local area maps to observe the organization of the highway system (i.e.; main highway, avenues, small streets, driveways).
3. Students will take a tour of the school to observe the organization (i.e.; main building, hall, classrooms, desks).
4. Students will brainstorm as a class on how they would outline what they have observed using a sample outline format, deciding on a title and choosing topics and subtopics.
5. Students will then be shown how to outline using the enclosed worksheets.
6. Students will be given brief paragraphs on two of the nine planets to outline. They will use Microsoft Word to word process their completed outlines, using "Tab" and "Spellcheck" to finalize their work.
7. Work will be saved on a disk and printed out.
8. Children will compare their outlines to others to see how they vary but still retain the basic facts.
9. Children will use Internet sites such as "ajkids.com", "yahooligans.com" to ask questions and outlining to reinforce what they have learned, for example "How do I outline?" or "Can you show me samples of outlines?".

Instructional/Environmental Modifications:

There should be no major modifications to this lesson unless some children are unable to go outside. Time modifications can be made as required.

Time Required:

The time required for this learning experience will be three days-@ one hour each day.

Resources:

Resources needed for the student would be minimal;

1. Computer with Microsoft Word or other word processing program.
2. Access to the Internet.
3. Paper and pencil.

Assessment Plan:

Outlining Format

Outlining Features

Student Work:

This Learning Experience was not implemented this term as the need for it was not realized until the students were too far into the research unit. It will be implemented early in the term next year. Therefore, there are no student work samples to submit.

Reflection:

This Learning Experience was developed for the following reasons;

1. To allow students to access and retrieve information from the Internet to enhance their learning.
2. To encourage students to read and write for information and understanding.
3. To use written language to interpret information and to use word processing skills to refine their written work.

The lesson was reviewed by members of the Cohort Team and other members of the staff at Our Lady of Lourdes School. The review helped to refine some of the issues of the procedure and rubrics.