Lesson Plan- Sharing Your Writing with a Key
Pal
Components
The student writes to communicate ideas and information
effectively
The student uses telecommunications to collaborate, publish and interact with
peers
Objectives
- Check out poetry books from media center or library and visit poetry web
sites Toyo Haiku and Cinquain
- Read various
poems about the weather
- Vocabulary: identify and describe types of poems: haiku,
diamante, shape, name and rhyming couplets
- Create a weather word wall
containing examples of synonyms, antonyms, homonyms and words with multiple
meanings
- Choose a style of poem and write a rough draft using desktop
publishing
- Edit with
buddy
- Rewrite poem; use thesaurus to expand vocabulary
- Publish using
desktop publishing
- Using email, send poem to key pal and ask key pal
to write a weather poem and send it back
- Read poems aloud in class
Competency
The student will demonstrate acquisition and use of expanded vocabulary
through the writing of a weather poem and emailing poem to key pal.
Extension Activities
- After writing initial draft of poem, instruct students to use e-mail
and send partial poems to key pals. Key pals can be identified at Epals Classroom
Exchange located at EPals and
Global Schoolhouse .
Ask key pals to read and add lines of their own, then e-mail poems back.
Continue this process until the key pals complete a poem together.
- Brainstorm ideas for weather poems describing the sights, sounds,
smells and physical sensations of thunder, lightning, rain, sun and wind.
Use a thesaurus to add interesting vocabulary. Paint weather pictures to
illustrate poems or write shape poems (umbrella, raindrop, tornado and
sun).
- Post weather poems on the Internet at ZUZU
and Haiku
- Use weather poems as a section in HyperStudio, PowerPoint or Kid Pix multimedia
project
Homework
Look up hurricane, tornado, tidal wave, cyclone, tropical storm, and typhoon
in encyclopedia or online encyclopedia and describe the characteristics of each
Field Trip
Visit a local science museum to learn more about the weather and weather
trends.
Resource
Thomas. S. The Poetry Pad. Royal Fireworks Press. New York. 1993.