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Lesson plan Grade 4 English Language Arts

Brackenwell's New Well: A Grade 4 Informative Writing Lesson

A 50-minute grade 4 lesson in which students read a fact sheet about a fictional town's new well and write a two-section explanation with headings.

Objectives

  1. Students will group facts about a town well under two given headings.
  2. Students will write an informative section that uses details from a fact sheet.
  3. Students will explain in writing where groundwater sits underground.

Vocabulary

Groundwater
Groundwater is water that has soaked into the ground and fills the spaces between soil particles and cracks in rock underground. It is a large underground source of fresh water that wells and springs draw from.
Aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand, or gravel that holds water in the tiny spaces between its grains. Wells reach down into aquifers to bring water up to the surface.
Recharge
Recharge is water soaking down through the ground to refill an aquifer, the way rain refills an underground sponge. Aquifers stay healthy only if recharge keeps up with pumping.
Pump
A pump is a machine that adds energy to water to move it or push it uphill, doing the job gravity cannot do on its own. Water systems use many different kinds of pumps to move water from wells, through treatment, and out to customers.

Also: casing

Teacher overview

Brackenwell is a fictional town that drilled a second well this spring, and the handout's fact sheet is written the way a small utility writes one for its customers. Students read the fact sheet, sort its details into two groups, and then write a short explanation under headings they are given. Fourth graders regularly picture groundwater as an underground lake or as a river running through a cave, which is a misconception worth naming out loud; the fact sheet states plainly that the water sits in the spaces between grains of sand and gravel, and the modeling step returns to that sentence.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Hold up a clear jar of dry gravel. Pour a cup of water into it and ask where the water went. Record two or three student answers on the board without correcting any of them. Tell students they will check their answers against a fact sheet from a town that drills wells for its drinking water.

Shared reading (10 min): Distribute the handout and read the fact sheet aloud while students follow along. Students highlight in one color every sentence that tells where the water sits underground, and in a second color every sentence that tells how the water gets from the ground to a kitchen tap. Pause after the fourth paragraph and ask which color the sentence about the slots belongs in.

Modeling with the two headings (10 min): On chart paper, write the two headings students will use: "Where the water sits" and "How the water gets up." Think aloud as you file three highlighted details under the correct heading, saying why each one belongs there. Return to the gravel jar and name the misconception directly: the water in the jar is not in a hidden pool at the bottom but in the spaces between the stones, and the same is true under Brackenwell.

Independent work (15 min): Students answer handout items 1 through 8. Items 1 through 5 are answered from stated details, items 6 and 7 ask for reasoning, and item 8 is the writing task, in which students place at least two details under each of the two headings.

Peer check (5 min): Partners trade papers and check item 8 against two questions: does each section have a heading, and does each section have at least two details that belong under that heading? Partners mark any detail that seems filed under the wrong heading and explain why.

Formative check and close (5 min): Ask the class one question and take a thumbs signal: does the groundwater under Brackenwell sit in an open lake, or in the spaces between grains of sand? If more than five students still choose the lake, pour the gravel jar out onto a tray with the class watching and reread the second paragraph together before the next lesson.

Brackenwell's New Well: A Grade 4 Informative Writing Lesson — Grade 4 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

Fact sheet: the new well on Hollisdale Road

The town of Brackenwell gets all of its water from wells. Brackenwell drilled a new well this spring on Hollisdale Road.

Under the town there is a thick layer of sand and gravel called the Grisdale Sand. Water fills the tiny spaces between the grains. A layer like this is called an aquifer, and the water in it is called groundwater. There is no lake down there and no cave. The water sits in the spaces, the way water sits in a jar of gravel.

Rain and melting snow soak into the ground on Coldbeck Ridge, west of town. That water moves down into the sand very slowly. Workers call this slow refilling recharge.

The new well is a hole 180 feet deep with a steel pipe inside it. The pipe is called the casing. The bottom of the casing has narrow slots. The slots let water in and keep sand out. A pump sits near the bottom of the well. The pump pushes the water up the casing.

At the top, the water flows into a small brick building. A worker named Ms. Reyes tests it there every morning. Then the water goes into the pipes under Brackenwell's streets.

Answer items 1 through 8. Use the fact sheet.

  1. Where does Brackenwell get all of its water?
  2. What is the layer of sand and gravel under the town called?
  3. According to the fact sheet, where does the groundwater sit?
  4. What do the narrow slots at the bottom of the casing do?
  5. What does the word recharge mean in this fact sheet?
  6. A student says there is a lake under Brackenwell. Use one detail from the fact sheet to explain why that is wrong.
  7. Very little rain and snow fall on Coldbeck Ridge one year. Use a detail from the fact sheet to explain what could happen to the water in the Grisdale Sand.
  8. Write two short sections about the new well. Give the first section the heading "Where the water sits" and the second the heading "How the water gets up." Put at least two details from the fact sheet under each heading.

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: From wells. The first line of the fact sheet states that the town gets all of its water from wells.
  2. Answer: The Grisdale Sand. The second paragraph names the layer and calls it an aquifer.
  3. Answer: In the tiny spaces between the grains of sand and gravel. The second paragraph states this and adds that there is no lake and no cave.
  4. Answer: They let water into the casing and keep sand out. The fourth paragraph states both jobs in one sentence.
  5. Answer: The slow refilling of the sand by rain and melting snow that soak in from Coldbeck Ridge. The third paragraph gives the meaning right before naming the word.
  6. Answer: Accept any answer that quotes or paraphrases the statement that there is no lake and no cave, or that the water sits in the spaces between the grains.
  7. Answer: Accept any answer explaining that less water would soak in on Coldbeck Ridge, so recharge would slow and the water in the sand could drop.
  8. Answer: Accept any two labeled sections that use the given headings and place at least two correct details under each. Details that belong under "Where the water sits" include the Grisdale Sand, the spaces between grains, the depth of 180 feet, and recharge from Coldbeck Ridge. Details that belong under "How the water gets up" include the casing, the slots at the bottom, the pump near the bottom of the well, the testing at the brick building, and the street pipes.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the fact sheet already highlighted in the two colors, so the sorting work in item 8 starts from a completed reading. Provide a two-column T-chart with the headings printed at the top and one detail already filed in each column. Allow items 1 through 5 to be answered by copying the supporting sentence and underlining the words that answer the question.

Extension

Ask students to write a third section with a heading of their own, using only details the fact sheet already supplies, such as a section on what the driller had to know before choosing a spot. The new heading has to name what the section is about, and each detail under it has to appear somewhere in the fact sheet.

ELL supports

Pre-teach aquifer, casing, recharge, and pump with the gravel jar and a labeled sketch of a well drawn on the board. Provide sentence frames for item 8: "The water under Brackenwell sits in ___," and "The pump moves the water ___." Allow items 1 through 5 to be answered with phrases rather than full sentences.

Extensions

Have students turn their two sections into a one-page notice that Brackenwell could mail to families, adding a title, the two headings, and a short closing line telling residents whom to call with questions. Compare the finished notices with the original fact sheet and ask which details every writer kept and which ones some writers dropped.