Grade Levels: K-3

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the How-To Essay Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP Jr. topic How-To Essay, and supports the standard of writing informative and explanatory texts to convey information clearly and accurately. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Prompt students:

  • Imagine you are welcoming a new student to our school. What directions would you give them to find our classroom? What steps should they follow?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Play the How-To Essay movie.  
  • Click the pause button each time a question appears in Annie’s Notebook and discuss it as a class. Then play to see how Annie answers it. 

TIP: The pause button turns red to remind you to pause. 

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS

Students take the Easy Quiz or Hard Quiz, demonstrating what they learned about the topic while applying essential literacy skills.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about how-to essays while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student or grade-level needs.

More to Explore 

Writing Unit: Continue to build understanding around writing a how-to essay by exploring more BrainPOP Jr. topics.

Teacher Support Resources:

 

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments