English+Lesson+Plans

 English Lesson Plans

=** Newsletter ** =

**Contributor:**  Andrea Zellner Students need opportunities to write for real-world contexts, audiences, and purposes. In this lesson, students will write a newsletter about their classroom for the purpose of sharing the knowledge they have gleaned from their studies. Their audience will be their classmates, their school community, and their local community.
 * Lesson Plan: Writing for Context, Audience, and Purpose ||
 * Language Arts Grades 10-12 ||  ||   ||
 * **Overview**
 * Students will synthesize information learned in the ELA classroom
 * Students will publish this information via Google Docs
 * Students will choose the genre and make editorial decisions based on their shared understanding of context, audience, and purpose

**Materials**
 * Google Forms/Spreadsheets
 * Google Docs
 * Newsletter Template: [|http://docs.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AQ1tTk-hkwjdZGQ4bm45N21fNmZubTVqeGN6&mode=public]
 * Computer with internet access

**Instructions** //In our learning communities, it is important to keep track of our shared knowledge, understandings, and information. In order to communicate these aspects of our learning community for a wider audience, we will be publishing a weekly newsletter to share with the larger community.//

Each week, a group of three students will be assigned the task of editors of the weekly class newsletter. These editors will be responsible for gathering, organizing, and synthesizing the following information:
 * //Activity//****:**

**Related Links**
 * 1) The editors will design a poll for the class based on shared readings, pop culture, news items, or events in the class or school or local community. They will get responses using Google Forms.
 * 2) The editors will keep track of daily assignments, learning objectives, and new information for the week.
 * 3) The editors will choose the genre of the newsletter: traditional newsletter, poetry, crossword puzzle: the more creative the better. The newsletter must be publishable via Google Docs, but otherwise, the genre is in the hands of the editorial team.
 * 4) On Friday, the editors will share their newsletter with the class and it will be published as a web page in order to inform the wider community what is happening with the class.

Newsletter Template: [|http://docs.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AQ1tTk-hkwjdZGQ4bm45N21fNmZubTVqeGN6&mode=public]

**Video Tutorials**

Google Docs Overview How to create a new Google Doc from a template How to share a Google Doc How to create a Form in Google Docs How to send a Form to participantsHow to view Form responses How to publish a Doc 


 * Evaluation**

Students will be evaluated both by their peers (the readers) and their instructor. Each student will fill out the rubric to evaluate their peers. The class rubric grade will be averaged to be 50% of the grade. The teacher's evaluation should equal the other 50%. In this way, the audience is considered in the evaluation process. ||  ||=   ||=   ||=   ||=   ||

**Standards** From NCTE/IRA > > > > >
 * Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
 * Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
 * Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.
 * Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
 * Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
 * Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Writing for Context by [|Andrea Zellner] is licensed under a [|Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License]. ||