Procedural Texts

ELAL Learning Outcomes (Knowledge and Skills and Procedures) - Procedural texts include recipes or instruction manuals. Investigate ways that non-fiction texts can be organized to support sharing of information.

For this lesson, students will analyze a variety of procedural texts and media samples. Which types of procedural texts or media samples are they familiar with and have used before? They will identify the common elements that they see in each and identify a structure for a procedural text or media sample. Finally, they will create their own procedural text or media sample.

Lesson: 

Objective: Students will analyze a variety of procedural texts, common elements and structure, and apply their understanding to creating their own procedural compositions.

Media samples:

Based on student interests, the teacher can choose a variety of media samples - these could be based on a theme. I have picked camping as a theme.

Campfire Hot Dog Skewers - https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a28198532/hot-dog-veggie-skewers-recipe/

Beginner Camping Setup - https://settocamp.com/camping-for-beginners/

Youtube video - How to Camp - https://youtu.be/GrCrmBz6fBA?feature=shared

How to Pitch a Tent - https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/outdoor-resources/how-to-pitch-a-tent/

These are just a few ideas. Ask students what else they would want to know before going camping and search these procedural texts.

Key Questions:

What similarities do you notice in each of these samples? What do they all include? 

What makes a good procedural text or sample? What helps you to understand what you need to do when you are following a procedural text? 

What should be the structure of the text? What should we start with?

Help students to create a template for a procedural text that they will follow when creating their own.

Composition:

Give students a choice of the type of procedural text or media sample they will create. It could be a family camping recipe, or how they put up their own tents, or how to build a campfire. Choose media platforms that students find easy to use - video on Flipgrid or Canva for a recipe or video or iMovie on an iPad. Students will compose their text first and then prepare the presentation.

Followup:

Students will show their procedural texts or media samples to the class and will give each other feedback on what they like and what could be improved.