Grade 2 · Lesson 50 — Writing a line

What this lesson is

Lesson 8 of 11 on alliteration. The single idea is: I can write a line that alliterates. The tool the children are handed is the question “Do the sounds match, and where?” — by the end of the topic that question, not the teacher, settles every case. Held constant today: Production, not recognition — the first time this year. The worked example is built on He was an author, and you can't stop authors., ringing was an author.

Recall — sixty seconds, before anything new

Retrieve: Rhyme · Two-level analysis in context. Ask for it before you introduce anything, take the answers from boards rather than from hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on. This is the middle of the launch: context, then this, then why it matters. Only what today leans on — a minute spent retrieving something unrelated costs the same and buys nothing, and the child who cannot recall the prerequisite is the one you will lose in the I-do.

How it goes

1. Sixty seconds of retrieval opens it: “Yesterday: why poets use it. Quick — one together.” Same language as when it was taught, a new example. If the class cannot do this, that is today's real work — stop and reteach.
2. Ten seconds on why it matters — “Careful words make careful thinking.” Your words, not those; it is a different reason every lesson so what lands is the idea rather than a sentence they can recite.
3. You name the one idea: I can write a line that alliterates. Then the plan — what it is, the question we ask, and that we will find them together.
4. Then you do one yourself, on screen, one click per move: He was an author, and you can't stop authors. · the question · ring was an author · name it alliteration. Do it exactly the way you want it done — this is the task they are about to do on their boards, not an easier one.
5. You build the same thing on the board and leave it up for alliteration. The four steps are identical in every lesson of this unit — sentence, question, test, answer — so the children read the method rather than the layout, and today's board shows He was an author, and you can't stop authors. still marked when they start work.
6. The We-do runs 4 items on whiteboards — The wind said wh as the wind machine slowed. (p.86), I showed you rhyme and assonance and consonance. (p.70), Sam sang softly so the baby would sleep., Five funny farmers found a fallen fence.. You are scanning for who applies the question and who is guessing from meaning; those look identical on a right answer and completely different on a wrong one.
7. Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves — Sheet and pencil · Ask the question on every item · Find the alliteration in each one. Then they work alone, with the same worked example printed at the head of their sheet.
8. Close on In this chapter we discovered alliteration and stopped consonants, too. — an item they have not met, so it measures rather than reminds — then the line they leave with: “Alliteration is about sound.”
9. Watch for: Judges by first LETTER instead of first sound — The letter is visible and the sound is not — and for four lessons they agreed. If you see it: “Say them. Do they START the same? 'City' and 'cat' do not.” (Remedial sheet 24.)