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Lesson plan Grade 3 English Language Arts

The Summer the Barrowdale Pond Ran Low: A Grade 3 Narrative Lesson

A grade 3 narrative writing lesson in which students plan and draft a story about a dry summer in Barrowdale, using time words, dialogue, and a clear ending.

Objectives

  1. Students will answer questions about a short account of a dry summer using details from the text.
  2. Students will plan a narrative with a narrator, a problem, three events in order, and an ending.
  3. Students will draft a story that uses time words and at least one line of dialogue.

Vocabulary

Drought
A long stretch of drier-than-normal weather that leaves too little water for people, farms, and nature. Droughts build slowly and can last for years.

Also: narrator, time words, dialogue, saving water

Teacher overview

Barrowdale is a fictional town whose pond dropped low during a rainless summer, and the handout gives students a plain account of what the town did about it. Students then write their own story set during that summer, told by a child who lives there. Two misconceptions show up when children write about dry summers: many assume that a water shortage means the faucets stop working entirely, and many assume that a single rainstorm ends the shortage the same day. The background account is written to correct both, since the taps in Barrowdale keep running and the pond takes a full month to refill.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Tell students that one summer the town in today's text ran short of water and told everyone to stop watering their lawns. Ask what a kid living there might notice first. Collect three answers without comment, then ask what the town might have done next.

Reading the background (10 min): Read the account on the handout aloud while students follow. Read it a second time and have students underline the two rules the town made. Then have students answer handout questions 1 through 4 with a partner. This is the formative check: before moving on, confirm that at least four out of five pairs have the two rules underlined correctly, and reread the second paragraph with the class if they do not.

Modeling the plan (10 min): On chart paper, model filling out a story plan for a narrator who is not the one students will use, such as a mail carrier's daughter. Name the narrator, the place, the problem, three events in order, and how the story ends. Add one line of dialogue and show where the time words go: first, then, later, finally.

Planning (12 min): Students complete handout item 5 with their own plan. Circulate and ask each student to say their ending out loud before they start drafting, since a plan without an ending usually produces a draft that stops rather than closes.

Drafting (15 min): Students draft the story on lined paper, following their plan. Remind them to use at least one line of dialogue with quotation marks and at least three time words.

Sharing (3 min): Two volunteers read only their last sentence aloud, and the class listens for whether the story sounds finished.

The Summer the Barrowdale Pond Ran Low: A Grade 3 Narrative Lesson — Grade 3 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

What happened in Barrowdale last summer

Last summer, it did not rain in Barrowdale for nine weeks. The town gets its water from Barrowdale Pond. By July, the pond had dropped so low that a ring of dry mud showed all around the edge. People could see rocks that are usually under water.

The town made two rules. The first rule was that no one could water a lawn. The second rule was that gardens could be watered only after the sun went down. Watering at night helps, because less water dries into the air when the ground is cool.

People found other ways to save. Junie and her grandpa put a bucket in the shower to catch the cold water while it warmed up, then carried the bucket out to the tomato plants. The bakery on Ash Street washed its trays in a tub instead of under a running tap. The soccer field turned brown, and nobody complained, because everyone knew why.

In September, the rain came back. The pond took the whole month to fill again. The town dropped one rule and kept the other, so gardens in Barrowdale are still watered at night.

Questions

  1. Where does the town of Barrowdale get its water?
  2. What were the two rules the town made?
  3. Why does watering a garden at night help?
  4. What did Junie and her grandpa do to save water?
  5. Plan your story. Write down who is telling it, where it happens, the problem, three things that happen in order, and how the story ends.
  6. Write your story. Use time words such as first, then, later, and finally. Use at least one line of dialogue with quotation marks.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Barrowdale Pond. The first paragraph names the pond as the town's water source.
  2. Answer: No watering lawns, and watering gardens only after the sun went down. Both rules appear in the second paragraph.
  3. Answer: Less water dries into the air when the ground is cool. Accept wording such as the water soaks in instead of drying up.
  4. Answer: They caught the cold shower water in a bucket and carried it to the tomato plants.
    The third paragraph gives this example.
  5. Answer: Answers will vary. A complete plan names a narrator, a place in Barrowdale, the problem of the low pond, three events in order, and an ending that settles the problem rather than stopping mid-scene.
  6. Answer: Answers will vary. A proficient draft is told by one narrator, follows the three planned events in order, uses at least three time words, includes one line of dialogue with quotation marks, and ends with a closing sentence.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a story plan that is already filled in for the narrator, the place, and the problem, so these students plan only the three events and the ending. Offer a short bank of time words and two sample dialogue lines they may borrow, such as "We can carry it together," said Grandpa.

Extension

Ask students to write the same story a second time from a different narrator's point of view, such as the baker on Ash Street, and then mark one place where the two versions notice different things. This is a first, concrete look at how a narrator shapes what a reader is told.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "pond," "lawn," and "bucket" with photographs, and act out the shower-bucket example with a real bucket at the sink. Provide the time words on a strip taped to the desk. Allow the plan in item 5 to be drawn as four boxes with labels before it is written in words.

Extensions

Students can turn a favorite paragraph of their draft into a short scene to act out with a partner, which quickly reveals whether the dialogue sounds like something a person would say. A second session can be used for revising with a partner checklist covering time words, dialogue, and the ending.