LESSON FOUR: Writing a Friendly letter

 

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS

o              W2F  The student will write a friendly letter using the four standard sentences, for an intended audience.

 

LESSON MATERIALS

Sources of Literature

o        None

 

Supplies 

o        Teacher observation checklist

o        Sample friendly letter

 

Handouts provided

o        Friendly letter prompt

o        Four sentence types

o        Sample friendly letter

o        Sample paragraph

 

Words to know

o        audience

o        friendly letter

o        declarative sentence

o        imperative sentence

o        interrogative sentence

o        exclamatory sentence

 

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Utilize checklist to observe student performance of letter writing. Assess sentence knowledge, give students sample paragraph.  Students place the correct punctuation mark at the end of each sentence.

 

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

1.              Write a friendly letter to the class in advance of the activity or use the provided sample friendly letter handout.

 

Questions

for

Students

Have you or someone in your family ever received a letter in the mail?

Who sent you the letter?

Have you ever written someone a letter?

Did you receive a letter in return?

How did you feel when you received a letter?

Why do people send letters?

 

2.              Model writing a friendly letter calling attention to the five important parts: address/heading/date, greeting, indented body, closing, signature, and sentence types: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory.  To further reinforce sentence recognition, write samples of the four sentence types on the board.  Provide copies of the Four Sentence Types handout.  Ask individual students to read a sentence aloud.  Assist students in recognizing that they read the sentence a certain way based on the punctuation.  Explain to students that each sentence has a special name.  Help students to recall the names by assigning actions to each type: Declarative: fist pounded on hand; Imperative:  hands on hips;  Interrogative:  hands up in air with palms facing upward; Exclamatory:  jumping up and down

 

Questions

for

Students

Can you find an example of one of the sentences we discussed in the letter?

Does my letter look like it’s supposed to? (Ask this after writing letter for modeling activity.)

How could I make my letter better?

 

Suggestions

Be sure all students can see example.

Post example of a friendly letter on the classroom wall.

Identify and review letter parts and sentence types.

Brainstorm people students would like to write.

Brainstorm friendly letter topics.

Have dictionaries available

Teacher could use actions to reinforce recall of sentence types. 

Physical actions for sentence types can be modified as needed.

 

3.               With a partner, students write a short friendly letter to a friend trying to include the four sentence types.  Provide the friendly letter prompt.