Integration of Software Application

The site LessonPlansPage contains a very basic lesson called "Reporters at Large" (http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAReportersAtLargeBrief-NewsStoryWritingInterviewIdea79.htm). This lesson plan asks students to write a newspaper editorial about a fire based on the stories of three witnesses: the fire chief, a fire victim, and an eyewitness. In this lesson, the teacher takes on all three roles and the students interview her by asking questions based on the role she takes. This can be done as a whole class or in small groups. In my opinion, this would be a good beginning lesson for a newspaper unit plan. I also think that allowing three students to take on the three different roles might also be a good way to get more participation from the entire class.

Once the students have completed their three interviews, they must write a story about the incident based only on what was told to them by the witnesses at the scene. For a group of junior high school students (for which this lesson plan is designed) at the beginning of a thematic unit, this may be a daunting task. I do not know where this lesson falls in the creating teacher's unit, so I do not know what background information the students may have in the task of writing a newspaper editorial. Assuming that students have no or limited background information or teachings, integrating a software application to help students organize their ideas and information would be an extremely useful tool for the lesson.

The first application that I thought of involved the Inspiration software. The concept maps that are created with the Inspiration software are wonderful for helping students organize their ideas, thoughts, and information. A lot of information is given in the junior high school classroom. These students can easily be overwhelmed so designing a classroom with a program that helps students organize this information is very valuable to the learning environment. Specifically for this lesson plan, the students could create a news story headline for the center bubble, with three main bubbles for each of the witnesses coming off the headline. From each of these bubbles, other sections could be connected, such as location (where the witness was at the time of the fire), what was seen, and the aftermath.

For my own lesson plan, the concept map is the perfect tool for organizing the five W's and an H (who, what, where, when, why, and how). The main bubble could again be the headline for the story, while six bubbles could be attached to the main one containing each of the six pieces of information the story should cover. In grading this assignment, using the rubric and the concept map that students would turn in with their story, I would be able to make connections between student's thoughts and their writing. In this way, I can help students revise and edit their papers if they receive an I (In progress) as opposed to an E (Exceptional) or an S (Solid).