Background
A module "Relationships" was co-planned for the P6 students to develop their writing skills, values and attitudes. Students read a story in the textbook about a blind man and a crippled man and how they helped each other in a fire, and another about a Canadian boy called Craig, who set up an organization called ‘Free the Children' to help children in poor countries. They also read a reader "One special gift" and discussed who is special to them and why. The texts stimulated students to think of ways to help others and show their love to others. Students also discussed what they could do to help people in need. They then wrote a story on helping a classmate. Revising and editing were carried out to help students to improve their writing.
Features
- Process writing was carried out to help students draft, revise and edit their work step by step. Students were given opportunities to reflect on their own writing.
- Students were guided to express their love to their family and friends. They were also given time to think and discuss how they could help people in need in the world.
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Objectives
- To develop students' writing skills to write a short story with narrator's voice and dialogues
- To enable students to revise and edit a story
- To enable students to use the simple past tense to describe activities in a story, ‘ought to' to give advice or talk about duties and obligations, and adjectives to describe people, things and places
- To develop students' values and attitudes about helping and loving others
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Implementation
Task: |
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Write a short story about helping others |
Unit One - Friendship
1 & 2 |
- Students prepare the story before the lesson.
- Listen to and read the story to familiarize students with what happened to the crippled man and the blind man.
- Check students' understanding of the new words, e.g. crippled, blind, disliked, fetch, crawl, etc.
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i-book
Textbook p.4-p.5 |
3 |
- Read the text aloud with students and check their pronunciation, stress and intonation.
- Draw students' attention to the dialogues. Give Worksheet 1 to students and ask them to fill in the blanks with the correct punctuation marks. Make sure students know how to use punctuation marks in dialogues.
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WS 1: Punctuation marks |
4 |
- Students write what happened in the comic strips on textbook p.6. Introduce the narrator's voice and the dialogues.
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Textbook p.6 |
5 & 6 |
- Introduce a play script and ask students to complete the dialogues.
- Conduct role play in groups.
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WS 2: Play script |
7 |
- Students complete a story web with story components: the title, the setting, the characters, the problem, the actions and the ending.
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WS 3: Story web |
8 |
- Introduce how to use the word ‘could' ‘ought to' when giving advice or suggestions. Ask students to make suggestions on how the crippled man and the blind man could help each other to escape from the fire in the story and what they ought to do for friends.
- Get students to identify what friends should do by playing an interactive game in the i-book. Students have to choose the correct response to several situations happening to Alex in the game.
- Students give advice or suggestions to friends with ‘ought to' or ‘could'. Clarify any problems.
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i-book
Textbook p.7 |
9 & 10 |
- The beginning of a story is given to students. Ask students to proofread the story. Make sure students use the correct tenses in writing story.
- Brainstorm ideas for the story and conduct shared writing.
- Divide the class into groups and ask students to develop and finish the story.
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WS 4: Proofreading
WS 5: Shared writing |
11 |
- Share some students' work in class.
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Students' work |
Reader - One special gift
Lesson |
Activities / Tasks |
Resources/Materials |
1 |
- Ask students questions about the book cover.
- Students predict what the book is about.
- Walk through the pictures in the story and discuss the main idea of the story.
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Reader |
2 |
- Read the book with students and ask them comprehension questions.
- Students discuss: If you were Jacky, what would you buy for your mum? And share ideas in class.
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Reader |
3 |
- Discuss the story components in class and complete a story web.
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WS 6: Story web |
4 |
- Students discuss in groups who is special to them and why.
- Students share their ideas in class
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WS 7: Who is special? |
Unit Two - Helping others
Lesson |
Activities / Tasks |
Resources/Materials |
1 & 2 |
- Students prepare the story before the lesson.
- Read the passage with students and ask students comprehension questions.
- Check students' understanding of the main idea of each paragraph.
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Textbook p.10, p.11 & p.12 |
3 |
- Introduce adjectives in the passage and show vocabulary cards in the classroom.
- Students rewrite the sentences by adding adjectives on textbook p.13.
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Vocabulary cards
Textbook p.13 |
4 |
- Students listen to the stories about three amazing children and write short notes about what they have done.
- Students share their notes in pairs.
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Textbook p.14 |
5 |
- Show some websites about organizations that help children in need. Share with students what they can do to help others.
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Websites |
6 & 7 |
- Students work in pairs/groups and write about people who need help and ways of helping them.
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WS 8: Ways of helping people |
8 |
- Share students' work in class.
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Students' work |
Task - Writing a short story
Lesson |
Activities / Tasks |
Resources/Materials |
1 - 3 |
- Distribute WS 9 and read the situation with students.
- Discuss with students problems of Joe.
- Students suggest how Jimmy could help Joe.
- Conduct class writing for the first problem.
- Conduct group writing for the second problem.
- Students write about the third problem.
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WS 9: Task sheet |
4 |
- Introduce the review checklist.
- Students exchange their work and give feedback.
- Teacher shows some examples of how to revise the work, for example, add more details, clarify some ideas, enrich the content, etc.
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WS 10: Review checklist |
5 |
- Teacher revisits punctuation marks and tenses with students.
- Students check one another's work.
- Students revise and edit their own work and submit the final draft.
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6 |
- Students share their work in class.
- Teacher gives feedback to help improve students' writing.
- Discuss with students what they have learnt in the module.
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Acknowledgements
Ms Ann Law
Ms Bonnie Yu
Ms Joanna Yu
Ms Queenie Tam
Hung Hom Government Primary School
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