EdTPA Lesson Plan Format, Grades 1 – 6

Fordham University Graduate School of Education

EXPLANATION
CONTEXT & The Punctuation Review writing lesson is intended to review the proper use of punctuation in writing. The
DEMOGRAPHICS class is currently writing small-moment personal-narratives. Their personal-narratives include a beginning,
middle and end, and an ever-increasing amount of detail, such as lists and dialogue.

The class is an integrated co-teaching class with 25 students. Four students are reading below grade level
between emergent reader and low 1st grade reading levels. Additionally, there are 4 students reading at a high
first grade level (E/F). Six students are enrolled in a school-based program called Read Ahead and receive
extra reading support one day each week. Five students have IEPs, and receive services including speech
therapy and guidance counseling; one of these students has been diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum. There
are three students in temporary housing. There are no English Language Learners in the class.

CENTRAL FOCUS or
ESSENTIAL QUESTION How can good writers fix their writing? By editing their work to include the correct punctuation marks.

LEARNING TARGETS & Students will be able to accurately employ the correct punctuation within their personal narrative, guided
ASSESSMENTS reading response, and other writing assignments. They will be re-introduced to the idea of reviewing and
editing their writing, to correct mistakes. The goal of this lesson is for them to edit their work for punctuation
(AIM / OBJECTIVE) errors, both the omission of punctuation and the incorrect use of punctuation.

Pre-assessment has been completed, through observation of students small moment personal-narratives,
where many students continue to struggle in the employment and use of proper punctuation in their writing

A key gateway for this lesson is student participation in the whole class activity, which will be
adding/correcting punctuation mistakes in on sentences, as well as the observation of student work during
their independent work time. During their independent work, students will correct a brief small moment
personal-narrative that has several punctuation errors (either missing punctuation or incorrect use of
punctuation.) If they struggle to complete this, key points will be retaught.

Summative assessments will be completed in two ways, through a review of students in-class independent
work, as well as the review of their homework activity.

NYS Common Core Knowledge of Language, 3: Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different
STANDARDS contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or
listening.

Language Standard, Grade 2:

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard
English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when
writing.
a. Capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic
names.
b. Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.
c. Use an apostrophe to form contractions and frequently
occurring possessives.

REVIEW: Language Standard, Grade 1:

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when 
writing. 
a. Capitalize dates and names of people. 
b. Use end punctuation for sentences. 
c. Use commas in dates and to separate single words in a series. 

REVIEW: Language Standard, Kindergarten:

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard

Rev. 11/2015 Moliterno/Caballero/Huber

 English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when
writing.
a. Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the
pronoun I.
b. Recognize and name end punctuation.

Academic Language The academic language for this lesson is punctuation, reviewing, and editing.

- Punctuation is the marks used to separate sentences or make the meaning of a sentence clear.

- Reviewing is re-reading our work to ensure it makes sense and has our complete thoughts (all you wanted to
say).

- Editing is when people make corrections or changes to their work.

GROUPING The lesson will begin as whole group instruction as the teacher and students refer back to the morning
reading of the book Punctuation Takes a Vacation. As we recall information provided during the book, the
whole class will also review the types of punctuation and how they are used in writing. – 8 minutes

Following this, the teacher and students will work together to complete some practice sentences, correcting
punctuation errors while reviewing the types of punctuation and their use. – 8 minutes

Demonstration of worksheet to whole class on projector. – 2 minutes

Finally, students will work independently to complete a worksheet reviewing the use of the different types of
punctuation. Several students who have displayed particular difficulty with the use of punctuation will be
provided extra support through small group instruction. Students who finish early will be given their small-
moment personal narrative to read and review for punctuation errors, and to make necessary corrections. – 15
minutes

The lesson will close as a whole group lesson, where the teacher demonstrates how to complete the baggie
activity for extra practice. – 5 minutes

(2 minutes +/- for transitions)

PRIOR ACADEMIC Students should have some familiarity with/knowledge of standard punctuation including periods,
LEARNING AND exclamation points, and question marks. All forms of punctuation will be reviewed through the morning read
PREREQUISTE SKILLS aloud of Punctuation Takes a Vacation.

MATERIALS The materials needed for this lesson are:

/RESOURCES
- Punctuation anchor chart outlining the uses of different punctuation
- Sentence strips and punctuation marks
- Worksheet – Level 1: For everyone (./?/!)
- Worksheet – Level 2: Challenge for some (. / ? / ! “ ” / : )
- Baggie of Sentence Strips (homework activity)

INSTRUCTIONAL Motivation or Hook

SEQUENCE
1. How would our small moments sound if we left out the punctuation?

- Do we remember the part of our story earlier, when the punctuation left Mr. Wright’s class?
- How did it change the students story?
- Did the story, or the written sentences make sense without the punctuation?
- Do we think punctuation is important to ensure our writing is clear?

Rev. 11/2015 Moliterno/Caballero/Huber

 Procedures

2. The teacher will begin by referring back to the class reading of Punctuation Takes a Vacation, answering
several brief discussion questions.

3. From there, the teacher will begin to review the punctuation rules, and students will assist in completing
sentence strips missing their key punctuation.

The teacher will remind students to read the sentence strips the way a character would or the book’s
narrator would, to figure out what punctuation mark should be used.

4. Following this, the teacher will display on the projector how to complete the worksheets, noting when they
are finished with the first one, they can see the teacher for a second, which is a challenge page. A small group
of students, who have been previously identified as needing extra support in this area, will work directly with
the teacher.

5. For students who end complete their worksheets during independent work time, they will be given their
small-moment personal narratives to read to correct punctuation mistakes or add punctuation where it is
missing.

Closing

The lesson will be closed by reviewing the homework activity, using one of the sentences strips as an
example.

MODIFICATIONS FOR There are no ESL students in the class, but some of the students in the class read well below the second grade
DIVERSE LEARNERS level and typically work in a small group with a designated co-teacher. There are also several other students
who read at a Kindergarten or late First Grade reading level, for whom some of words in the small moment
could be challenging. To ensure all students will be able to participate in practicing their use of punctuation,
two different worksheet will be designed, with the language reflecting that reading levels of the students in
the classroom, and the levels of punctuation they should be comfortable with.

FOLLOW-UP & Students will be given a baggie of sentence strips to complete for homework as a follow up activity. Their
STUDENT WORK classroom worksheets will be collected to review understanding of how punctuation is employed in their
SAMPLES writing. Additionally, as students complete their in-class assignment, they will be collected. Students who
finish their worksheet will be given the opportunity to begin to edit their small moment personal-narrative, to
correct punctuation errors, which will also reinforce the lesson. Sentence strip baggies will also be collected
the following day, and reviewed to determine what portions of punctuation use may need to be reviewed
again.

FORMAL ASSESSMENT The content of this lesson will be formally assessed by reviewing students worksheets and homework
& STUDENT VOICE assignment. Determining if students have met learning targets will take place through observation and review
of their writing, as they continue to craft the small moment personal-narratives. Students will have an
opportunity to self-asses as they edit their writing. Students can support their learning and reinforce the
punctuation rules through a classroom anchor chart.

The students worksheets will be reviewed and analyzed for how many corrections they made, compared to
how many mistakes were listed. Student information will be recorded, and used for comparison later.

TEACHER To be completed during lesson reflection response.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

Rev. 11/2015 Moliterno/Caballero/Huber