Lesson plan
All About Titles
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to create titles and headings and punctuate them correctly.
Introduction
(5 minutes)- Ask students, "What is the purpose of a title?"
- Conduct a Think-Pair-Share.
- Record students’ thoughts on the board or chart paper. If it doesn't come up in the discussion, explain that titles catch the reader’s interest, give the audience an idea of what’s in store, and sometimes reflect the tone or slant of your piece of writing.
Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling
(10 minutes)- Distribute the Crafting an Awesome TitleWorksheet.
- Explain that the class is going to practise generating effective titles.
- Review as a class each of the strategies identified.
- Reference the titles of books on your shelf and/or chapters of books and guess what strategy was used.
Guided practise
(10 minutes)- Have students work independently, in pairs, or in groups to read each text on the sheet and generate three possible titles using the strategies discussed.
- Share student examples of titles and discuss the ways each performs the work of a title (such as generate interest, predict the content, and flavour of the piece).
- Explain that not only is it important to know how to craft an effective title, it is also necessary to know the proper conventions for titles, including capitalization and punctuation rules.
- Project the Capitalizing and Punctuating Titles and HeadingsWorksheet for the class to see and follow along.
- Go over the conventions guidelines as a class, using the sample titles from classroom texts as examples.
Independent working time
(10 minutes)- Distribute the Capitalizing and Punctuating Titles and HeadingsWorksheet.
- Instruct students to complete the practise sections on the sheet independently.
Differentiation
Support: Before independent work time, generate some fictitious titles with students. Then practise capitalizing and punctuating them together.
- Enrichment: Distribute the Strategies for Crafting Your TitleWorksheet. Have students practise titling their own piece of writing.
Assessment
(10 minutes)- Pass out a half sheet of paper.
- Write the following title on the board: harry potter and the deathly hallows
- Ask the students to use their papers to answer the question "Why is this a good title?" Ask them to include the correctly capitalized and punctuated title in their responses.
Review and closing
(5 minutes)- Discuss: Why is it important to take your time to craft a great title? What are some of your favorite titles?
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