Writing
a Friendly Letter to
Chris
Van Allsburg: Lesson 2
Suggested Time: 45 minutes
Maryland State Curriculum:
4.A.2.a Compose to express personal ideas to develop fluency using a variety of forms suited to topic, audience, and purpose
4.A.1.a) Use communication tools identified by the teacher to help gather information, share ideas, and respond to questions when communicating with various audiences, including school, community, parents, and experts
4.B.1.b) Present ideas and information in formats such as electronic presentations, web pages or graphic organizers that are appropriate to a specific audience
4.B.1.c) Change, edit, and revise graphs, graphics, presentations and word processing documents (R/ELA 4.4.A.3b)
5.B.1.a) Use technology tools independently to support note taking (SLM 3.5.A7)
Behavioral Objective:
Students will be able to use their notes from the previous lesson to type a friendly letter to Chris Van Allsburg on Word and edit the letter.
Resources Needed:
Computer Lab/ Classroom Computers, Internet access, paper, pencils
Notes from previous lesson
Copies of the model friendly letter (1/students)
File~ Model Friendly Letter
Links to Prior Knowledge:
Students should have read The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg. Students should have some knowledge of writing a friendly letter and taking basic notes while reading. Students should have completed the tasks from Lesson 1.
Procedures:
1. Tell students that today we will use their notes from the last lesson to type a friendly letter to Chris Van Allsburg on Microsoft Word.
2. Have students take out their notes from the previous lesson or distribute them if you collected them.
3. Distribute the model friendly letter to the class and point out the heading, greeting, body, closing and signature. (You may also copy this onto an overhead slide to present to the whole class)
4. Tell students that they must include all of their parts of a friendly letter in their letters.
5. Guide students through typing their letter following these steps.
a. Have students log onto the computer.
b. Students should open Microsoft Word.
c. Students should save the document as “Letter to Chris Van Allsburg.”
d. Students should start at the top of the document and left click on the “right align” icon on the tool bar.
e. Students should then type their street address (You may want to use the school’s address.) on the first line and then press the enter key to type their city, state and zip on the second line.
f. Students should hit enter again and then type the date.
g. Remind students to save every few minutes using the save icon on the tool bar.
h. Students should use the enter key to move down the page about 4 lines.
i. Students should click on the “left align” icon on the tool bar to move their cursor back to the left side of the page.
j. Students should type their greeting. (Dear Chris Van Allsburg,).
k. Remind them to put a comma at the end of their greeting.
l. Students should hit the enter key twice to move down two lines.
m. Have students hit the tab key to indent so they can type the body of their letter.
n. After students have finished typing the body, have them hit the enter key 3 times and then use the “center align” icon on the tool bar to center their cursor.
o. Have students type their closing (Your friend, Sincerely, From, etc.)
p. Remind them to put a comma after their closing.
q. Students should hit the enter key once and then type their name.
6. After students have finished typing their letters, guide them through the spell check process by using the spell check icon on the tool bar.
7. Have students read through their letters to check for capitalization, punctuation mistakes, etc.
8. When students are finished they should print their letters.
9. If there is time, you may want to allow some students to read their letters to the class.
NOTE: IF YOU PLAN TO SEND YOUR CLASS’S LETTERS TO CHRIS VAN ALLSBURG, HAVE STUDENTS GO BACK TO THE FILE~ WritingaFriendlyLetter.pps AND GO TO THE LAST SLIDE TO OPEN THE WEBSITE. STUDENTS CAN FIND THE ADDRESS BY CLICKING ON CONTACT AUTHOR. YOU MAY WANT TO SHOW YOUR CLASS HOW TO ADDRESS AN ENEVELOPE.
Assessment:
Completion of friendly letter
Follow-Up:
Students may research another author on the Scholastic Authors and Books website and type a friendly letter to that person.
Accommodations:
Students may work in pairs or in groups. Have directions for typing a friendly letter available for students to follow. A template for the friendly letter may be helpful.
Extension:
Students may respond to themselves as Chris Van Allsburg