Pen Pal Letters Carrie Sohnle & Whitney Williams ECED 4300 A Fall 2007 Dr. Tonja Root 5 th grade

Whitney Williams ECED 4300 A Dr. Tonja Root Fall th grade Pen Pal Letters Prewriting Stage

n GPS: ELA5W2. The student demonstrates competence in variety of genres: The student produces a narrative that: b. Establishes a plot, point of view, setting, and conflict, and/or the significance of events. c. Creates an organizing structure. n PLO: Students will complete a graphic organizer. Prewriting

Correspondence Writing: Pen Pal Letters n Pen pal letters are letters written regularly between two students from different countries and are less formal than business letters. n Includes 5 parts: –Heading, Greeting, Body, Closure, and Signature

Prewriting n This is the “getting ready to write” stage. n Brainstorming occurs to help with choosing a topic. n A purpose is decided and the audience is considered. n Graphic organizers are used to organize ideas.

Prewriting Graphic Organizer friends family schoolmyself my hobbies

Example Putting it in writing. Retrieved November 15, 2007, from Friendly Letters Web site:

Ways to Use the Example n This example shows the format of a pen pal letter with all appropriate parts. n This is a good model for students to see what their letters should look like.

Practice Activity n We will be writing to our pen pal in Germany named Sally Sue. n We will complete the graphic organizer as a class to form ideas for the pen pal letter to Sally Sue.

Assessment Activity n Students will complete their own graphic organizer to organize their thoughts and ideas to write in their letter to their own pen pal.

Carrie Sohnle ECED 4300 A Dr. Tonja Root Fall th grade Pen Pal Letters Drafting Stage

Drafting n GPS: ELA5W1. The student produces writing that establishes an appropriate organizational structure, sets a context and engages the reader, maintains a coherent focus throughout, and signals a satisfying closure; the student b. Writes texts of a length appropriate to address the topic or tell the story. C. Uses traditional structures for conveying information (e.g., chronological order, cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question). n PLO: Students will use their graphic organizer to write their first draft.

Correspondence Writing: Pen Pal Letters n Pen pal letters are letters written regularly between two students from different countries and are less formal than business letters. n Includes 5 parts: –Heading, Greeting, Body, Closure, and Signature

Drafting n Drafting is forming ideas into complete sentences or thoughts. n The draft is labeled rough draft. n Skip lines to leave space for editing and revising. n Don’t worry about punctuation, neatness or spelling.

Example (2003). Pen Pal Letters Retrieved November 15, 2000, from

Ways to Use the Example n This example shows the format of a pen pal letter. n This is a good model for students to see what their letters should look like.

Practice Activity n Together as a class we will use our prewriting graphic organizer to create our own draft of a pen pal letter to Sally Sue. n Guide the students on how to create a greeting, introduction and closure.

n Greeting__ n Body__________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ __________________ n _Closure_

Assessment Activity n The students will write their own pen pal letters. n They will use the graphic organizers to get ideas about what to write about. n They will write their own letters according to the model’s format.