St. Patrick's Day Lesson Plans for Writing and Editing

These approaches are good for a variety of writing styles including expository, narrative, persuasive, and descriptive paragraphs and even essays.

Four Square Four Leaf Clovers

The four square technique essentially uses a graphic organizer to help students plan and stick to a plan when they are writing and helps them understand main ideas and subtopics.

To produce a simple 4 square tool the student takes a sheet of paper and divides it into 4 parts by folding the page horizontal and vertical with the main idea in the middle of the paper. Students fill in one supporting idea or point in each of the top squares and bottom left square. The last section of the page is used to write the summary or conclusion.

To produce a magic St. Patrick's Day shamrock 4-square give each student a large four leaf clover. Be sure to choose a pattern with a good stem.

Have students write the subject on the stem. Encourage them to turn the paper sideways and write vertically from the bottom of the stem into the center of the four leaf clover so the main idea is easy to see.

Next, have students write supporting ideas with one in each of three leaves. The final magic leaf is the summary or conclusion!

Suggestions for Modifications:

A variation to this for students to write their introductory sentence on the other side of the magic four leaf.

Variation Focusing on Editing Ideas

For students who have trouble with too many ideas and need practice editing it may be a good exercise to give them two four leaf clovers and make this into a two step project. On the stem of each shamrock have the student write the main idea or topic.

On the first shamrock have the student write four supporting ideas for that main topic. On the back have the student write their conclusion. (Students with attention challenges might write the conclusion on a sticky note instead of the back.)

Now the student needs to edit by choosing three of the four leaves that are the best and eliminating the weakest subtopic.

Have the student complete the second shamrock with the three best points so that the fourth leaf has the conclusion just like the original four-leaf 4-square described earlier. (If a student used sticky note for their conclusion they can move it and glue it down instead of rewriting as a visual and tactile reinforcement that the first and edited shamrocks are essentially the same.

3-5 Essay Shamrock Field

The Three Five Essay is a fundamental writing formula. For students who are visual or resistant to writing down a simple outline of their 3-5 Essay structure, and students who become overwhelmed by multiple elements in brainstorming and planning a Shamrock Field can be helpful.

Each Student will need 4 cut out Shamrocks.

On the each leaf of a shamrock they will note or outline one element of their essay.

The first shamrock is the complete, simple outline and represents the bulleted outline of the entire essay. On the back on the stem have the student write their topic.
The topic or thesis sentence will go on the other side of this shamrock. On each of the three leaves the student writes one of their three supporting ideas or points.

The remaining three shamrocks represent the three paragraphs of the body of the essay. Students write the subject on the stem and one supporting fact or sentence on each leaf.
On the other side of the shamrock have students write the introduction sentence to that paragraph. When they are finished each shamrock will represent one paragraph of the essay's body.

A Shamrock field can be constructed for an entire research paper by adding shamrocks for more intricate details. This can also be used as an editing tool during research and when a student finds there is not enough information or an idea really wasn't the best supportive point that leaf can be crossed off.

Another variation on this is to use a four leaf clover.

When using a four leaf clover to make a magic outline, students will be able to write three points or facts on three leaves and the instruction or thesis sentence on the fourth leaf instead of the back.

Students who are overachievers or have too many ideas may find it helpful to use a four leaf clover so that they can have four points to support each subject.
This is a good way to get them to brainstorm big and edit things down. After they have finished brainstorming or have begun prewriting have them pick one point (one leaf) from each shamrock to remove. A four leaf clover is really a shamrock and that extra leaf is not needed.

Tim Murphy, 4 Square Writing , EMINTS.