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POWERLINES 2008 Language Arts Grade 4
The objective of the Powerlines Language Arts program is to teach students how to use language effectively. The lessons teach Creative Writing, Literature and Poetry Appreciation, Gathering and Organizing, Communication Skills, Vocabulary Development and Spelling, Grammar, and Publishing. As teachers integrate the various subjects, they have the latitude of choice and flexibility. The program can easily be tailored to the teacher's individual needs and circumstances. Exploring, responding, understanding, focusing, and organizing are strategies that are encouraged throughout. Each student has his/her own Classic Stories and Poetry book. All literature has been Flesch-Kincaid graded to grade 4. The prose and poetry is integrated with specific lessons in the Powerlines teacher's guide. Teachers are encouraged to add their own selections of short stories, novels, and plays to their Powerlines Day Plan Calendar. To aid the teacher, Powerlines has included a series of suggested questions to be used with any story, book, or anthology. The questions, found in the Understanding & Appreciating Literature section, are categorized under the following headings: recollection questions, comprehending and understanding what you read questions, character motivations and attitudes questions, interpreting information questions, and exploring their directions questions. |
OUTLINE OF POWERLINES Grade 4
The TEACHER'S GUIDE
The teacher's guide is organized into the following sections:
GRAMMAR
The conventions of Language are required to communicate ideas and information. They are necessary, if the student is to engage in well-organized, clear, and precise communication.
Concepts Taught:
- kinds of sentences
- sentence structure
- subject and predicate, compound subject, and compound predicate
- simple and compound sentences
- run-on sentences
- parts of speech including nouns, pronouns, verbs, verb tenses, adjectives, adverbs, capitalization, and punctuation
CREATIVE WRITING
The creative writing section introduces the conventions of writing applicable to literary text by using a wide range of strategies and techniques. Included in this section: a writing centre filled wiht ideas for sentence starters, story starter, journal, and other writing projects.
Concepts Taught:
- writing descriptive sentences
- paragraphs
- figures of speech - simile, metaphor, alliteration
- plot of a story
- elements of a story - characters, setting, conflict, climax, and denouement
UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATING LITERATURE AND POETRY
Understanding and Appreciating Literature and Poetry exposes the student to the pure enjoyment of reading classic literature and poetry. Discussions of author's purpose, portrayed mood, meanings, and feelings are central to this segment. Exploring, sharing thoughts and ideas, and experiencing emotions will lead to understanding.
Concepts Taught:
- play reading, short stories, novels, and poetry
- questions to be used with any story, book, or anthology
- applying the elements of a story with particular emphasis on the literature itself
- twelve lessons utilizing the stories found in Classic Stories and Poetry
- eight lessons to help students appreciate and understand the poems of great poets utilizing several poems found in Classic Stories and Poetry
- ten lessons to motivate student written poetry including cinquain, free verse, acrostic, clerihew, couplets, and quatrains
- choral reading
GATHERING AND ORGANIZING
This segment develops skills in locating, extracting, gathering, and organizing relevant facts, managing ideas and exchanging information.
Concepts Taught:
- the structure of a book and how to use a book to gather information
- how to use the library
- report writing
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
How to write letter, paragraphs, and reports are taught. In all situations in life, we require communication to function. We assimilate the information that is presented to us, form opinions and take action on what we read, hear and feel.
Concepts Taught:
- letter writing
- giving and following instructions
- concentration skills
- listening skills
- public speaking
PUBLISHING
A fun and interesting way to apply the writing skills the students have learned. Lesson in this section include: planning, reporting, writing, editing, organizing, analyzing, interviewing, advertising, creating newsletters, and newspapers.
Concepts Taught:
- interviewing
- writing and editing
- advertising
- how to publish a class newspaper
VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT AND SPELLING
In focus of this section is on spelling conventions that help the student develop a broader vocabulary.
Concepts Taught:
- how to use a dictionary
- ways to increase a student's vocabulary
- synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, homophones
- spelling rules
- how to use contractions
THE ARTS, GAMES, AND PLAY READING
Through the arts, students learn collaboration skills, character development, and gain self-confidence while using the medium of the play, choral reading, blackouts, and reader's theater. Reading, vocabulary development, writing, sharing, thinking, and creativity are targeted in this section.
Concepts Taught:
- how to project feelings
- performing theatrical sketches called blackouts
- how to use games to re-enforce a concept