English Language Arts Grade 4 (2023)
Lesson Plans

Writing (4.W)

Students will learn to write for a variety of tasks, purposes, and audiences using appropriate grammar/conventions, syntax, and style.

Standard 4.W.3:

Write narrative pieces to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, clear event sequences, and provide a resolution.

• 4th Grade Lesson Ideas: Dash Robots
  This is a list of potential ideas based off a specific technology. None of these ideas are fully developed lessons. Please make changes and adaptations as necessary for the students in your class.
• Acting Out Student Stories with Robots
  A brief guide to engaging students in narrative writing by having them program robots to act out their stories.
• Authoring an Epilogue That Helps Our Characters Live On
  This lesson uses "One Green Apple" by Eve Bunting to teach how characters change across a text. It will also guide students through writing an epilogue to accompany their independent book.
• Balance Action in Your Writing with Thoughts and Emotions
  A story with all action and not enough reflection sounds childish and lacks depth. But a story that is all reflective thoughts and emotions can bore a reader and run the risk of not teling a story at all. Today?s mini move will help us think about the see-sawing effect of balancing actions with thoughts and emotions so that our story has the perfect amount of both!
• Brainstorm a Myth
  This is a Nearpod lesson for the Key Components of Myths that leads to writing a myth using these components
• Building Classroom Community Through the Exploration of Acrostic Poetry
  What do your students think about each other? Find out as you teach them the concepts of acrostic poems and challenge them to write an uplifting acrostic about a classmate.
• Color Poems - Using the Five Senses to Guide Prewriting
  Students use their five senses as a prewriting tool to guide their poetry writing as they compose free-form poems using imagery to describe a color.
• Comics in the Classroom as an Introduction to Narrative Structure
  This lesson uses comic strip frames to define plot and reinforce the structure that underlies a narrative. Students finish by writing their own original narratives.
• Compiling Poetry Collections and a Working Definition of Poetry
  This unit introduces students to a variety of poetic forms and elements, as they compile their own collections of poetry.
• Composing Cinquain Poems with Basic Parts of Speech
  Reinforce student understanding of parts of speech through the analysis of sample cinquain poems followed by the creation of original cinquains.
• Cottontail Shoots the Sun
  This lesson enhances vocabulary acquisition and learning about how the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun by reading the story, "Cottontail Shoots the Sun," a traditional tale shared by the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. It also helps students become familiar with cultural storytelling and its importance in Native cultures. Students will have a brief introduction to the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, its location, and partnership with the University of Utah. Then students will particpate in the group reading of the book and a STEM lesson learning about observable patterns in the sky. 
• Coyote and Frog Race Lesson Plan
  This is the detailed lesson plan to create a story map based on the "Coyote and Frog Race" Goshute story booklet adapted by LeeAnn Parker and Cultural Consultants Genevieve Fields and Chrissandra Murphy. This story should only read told or read during the winter months. The Native American Indian Literacy Project was made possible by funds from the Utah State Office of Education (USOE). It is a joint effort of the USOE and San Juan School District Media Center.Lesson Plan Author: Patricia Helquist
• Coyote and Mouse Make Snow Lesson Plan
  The students will write a story to activate their prior knowledge. They will then read a story and identify the characters, problems, and solutions within that story. After reading the story, the students will retell it in comic strip form. Possible extensions tie in with the Science Core. This concept map is based on the "Coyote and Mouse Make Snow" story booklet. According to Goshute tradition, Coyote tales should only be told during the wintertime. The Native American Indian Literacy Project was made possible by funds from the Utah State Office of Education (USOE). It is a joint effort of the USOE and San Juan School District Media Center.Lesson Plan Author: Patricia Helquist
• Create a Book (Grade 3-6)
  Students will pick out the main theme for the book and discuss the elements used to make up the story. They will use the iPad App Story Creator to illustrate and write their own story. They will be learning how to take a paper illustration and put it into a digital story and add their own text. This can be adapted to 4-6 grades.
• Creating Classroom Community by Crafting Themed Poetry Collections
  Students create poetry collections with the theme of ?getting to know each other.î They study and then write a variety of forms of poetry to include in their collections.
• Creating Poetry Using a Traditional Shoshone Tale
  "How Wood Tick Became Flat" is a tale from the Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation. This tale helps students become familiar with cultural storytelling and its importance in Native cultures. Students will have a brief introduction to the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation and thier location in Utah. This lesson include an experience eliciting discussion and literacy activities. Students will create a diamante poem using a Native American tale. 
• Dancing Minds and Shouting Smiles: Teaching Personification Through Poetry
  Students learn about personification by reading and discussing poems and then brainstorm nouns and verbs to create personification in their own poems.
• Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms
  Students thoroughly explore identifying synonyms and adjectives before using them to add variety and interest to their own writing.
• Name Tag Glyphs
  In this lesson, students practice a way to communicate without words by using a glyph. They create a name card using information about themselves. Students also interpret glyphs made by others.
• Show Not Tell: Describing Setting Using the Five Senses
  Learn how to add details to make the setting of your stories come alive in this Story Pirates video from Camp TV. By using words to describe how a place looks, sounds, feels, smells, and even tastes you can make your writing more compelling.
• Show Not Tell: Similes
  Practice how to show, not tell, with similes in this Story Pirates video from Camp TV. Get ready to get creative and use your imagination!
• Story Pirates: Suspense
  Sherry and Justin from Story Pirates show you how to keep a reader on the edge of their seat in this clip about suspense in this video from Camp TV. They explain all the steps to make a story where the reader has to know what happens next and share their own mysterious and exciting examples.

---

http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Sara  Wiebke and see the Language Arts - Elementary website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - Jennifer  Throndsen.

These materials have been produced by and for the teachers of the State of Utah. Copies of these materials may be freely reproduced for teacher and classroom use. When distributing these materials, credit should be given to Utah State Board of Education. These materials may not be published, in whole or part, or in any other format, without the written permission of the Utah State Board of Education, 250 East 500 South, PO Box 144200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-4200.