How to Present a Lesson

Teacher Presentation Instructions (TP)

The Write Foundation provides teaching tools which easily accommodate different teaching situations and make teaching writing straightforward and painless as possible.

All of the Teacher Presentation information is included in the instruction manuals (spirals) along with instructions, answers and examples. While the instruction manuals with a white board and student worksheets are sufficient for teaching, the teacher presentation also comes in easy to use pdfs. The Teacher Presentation pdfs in the Additional Resource folder contain the teaching forms for presenting a lesson, but do not contain the teaching instructions and all of the suggested answers and examples.

Teach the lesson writing sentences, poetry, brainstorm and other open-ended answers using as much of your students’ creative input as possible. Simply put, you are to fill in the blanks with student input while guiding your students through the writing process. Some examples and sample answers are already on the Teacher Presentations. You can always fall back on the instruction manual suggested answers and examples when those are not already on the pdfs.

As the teacher presents the lesson information using the instruction manual with the whiteboard, overhead projector and or computer screen or projector, students are to copy the information on their coordinating paper worksheets to use for reference as they complete their independent work. As their skills develop, students are required to produce more of their independent work on the computer using a word processor. The end result is your students learn how to write papers quickly and skillfully.

The Teacher Presentation pdfs, which come in the Additional Resources, make it easy to present and view the lesson whether at home with 1 student or in a co-op or class setting.

  • Computer monitor – use directly from files
  • Overhead Projector – print on transparencies with or without highlighting
  • Paper Copies – print on paper with or without highlighting

For many of the surfaces you use to teach a lesson, you will probably need a Cover Sheet: You will need to use a cover sheet on the teacher presentation information to keep student attention focused on what you are teaching at that moment, rather than working ahead of you. To create a digital cover sheet for your computer screen, use a partially minimized blank document which you can adjust by grabbing the side or top.

1. Interactive Digital Teacher Presentation TP: Computer Monitor / Screen friendly

The computer friendly digital Teacher Presentation pages (pdfs) were created so a teacher could easily type information directly onto the digital Teacher Presentation pages while students are viewing the information on a screen, monitor or wall and writing on their worksheets.

  • The digital pages can be typed on by the teacher in the colored boxes and spaces.
  • As you type, the fonts are mostly Arial to make the typed words stand apart from the Times New Roman text already on the pages.
  • It is easiest to click your mouse onto the next space where you want to type information. The tab works also, but not as easily.

PDF Reader Necessary:

You will need a reader to open and use the digital Teacher Presentation pages (pdfs). Adobe and Foxit are 2 possible readers that are free. With either of these and others there is more that can be done with the Teacher Presentation pages than just type in the colored spaces, such as highlighting more and writing in other places besides the PDFill colored spaces, but you will need to play with the reader you choose to discover what else can be done.

Longer examples?: Blank boxes and blank pages are provided in the Teacher Presentation pdfs for you to type examples, but I recommend you switch to a blank page on your computer for longer examples. It helps students to see how to type using a word processor.

Word Processor: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works, Pages, Open Office and others

  • Have a document already open in your word processor before you begin teaching, where you can hit Alt/Tab to easily switch back and forth between the TP and your word processor as needed.
  • When you use a document in your word processor for typing poetry examples or other examples with students, you have more options available for arrangement, font and other structure.
  • When working directly in a word processor it is easy to show students how to use toolbar options to set up their independent work in a proper format.

Have access to an overhead projector instead of a computer?

2. Teacher Presentation TP: Overhead Projector

Copy the digital teacher presentation pages (pdfs) to transparencies and present the lesson using an overhead projector. This can work with 1 student or with multiple students.

  • Print the Teacher Presentation pdfs on transparencies with or without highlighting. The highlighting on the Teacher Presentation pdfs and the PDFill colored boxes does not print if you click for your computer to print only black and white.
  • Transparencies can be reused multiple times, since the information written using overhead pens can be erased.

Do you prefer to use other teaching surfaces with or without a computer screen or overhead projector?

3. White Board, Blank Paper, Chart Tablet, Paper Copies of the pdfs, and or the Instruction Manuals:

If a computer monitor or overhead projector is not available, or you want to use other teaching surfaces alongside, use a white board, blank paper, a chart tablet and or view some things directly from the instruction manual or paper copies of the pdfs.

a) When making word lists with student input, and then using the words in sentences, it can be easier to write the new sentences on a white board rather than switching back and forth between the digital word list and the digital page provided for writing sentences.

b) Poetry examples for concrete poetry and word pictures can be challenging to make on the computer. A real white board or paper works much better for those.

When teaching a fill in the blank chart using other surfaces, just write the words that go in the blanks being clear about which words go in which blanks.

  • A white board works great.
  • Blank paper
  • Chart tablet: This works well with multiple students and for information that the teacher will want to save to teach another time.

For an already printed format use the instruction manuals or paper copies of the pdfs that you print for student viewing.

  • For some information, when teaching 1 or 2 students, allow the students to copy directly from the instruction manuals. This works fine for fill in the blank answers where only one answer is possible.
  • Paper Copies: You may copy the pdfs on paper and use the paper copies to present the lesson to your students. This works well with 1 or 2 students. This is not the easiest method because of all the printing, but you have my permission to copy the pdfs to use in this manner if it is easier for you to do so.
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