tengrrl’s thoughts & news on teaching writing, literacy, and literature
November 3, 2006
This writing activity integrates mathematical graphing with writing and can be used to generate a number of different kinds of writing activities, but lends itself well to biographical and narrative writing. Students interview other students, choose significant life events, rate them, graph them, and write about one or more. The lesson plan was written by Susan Spangler of Fredonia, New York.
October 12, 2006
This ReadWriteThink lesson eases students’ fear of interpreting complex poetry by teaching them an inductive strategy with which they determine patterns of imagery, diction, and figurative language in order to unlock meaning. Although the lesson uses Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry-Picking,” this strategy can be applied to a variety of poems. The lesson was written by Lane Dye of the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP) at Kennesaw State University.
March 6, 2006
In a moment of inspiration, I wrote a new lesson for the site today. I was searching for resources for Copyright Awareness Week for Inbox, and coming up empty. I hate that copyright is so frequently defined as in terms of plagiarism, and I refused to come up with resources that fall into that way of thinking. To fill the hole in the section, I wrote Campaigning for Fair Use: Public Service Announcements on Copyright Awareness. In the lesson, students explore a range of resources on fair use and copyright then design their own audio public service announcements (PSAs), to be broadcast over the school’s public address system. Work can also be published as podcasts on the Internet. Students tap research and persuasive writing strategies as they design announcements for an audience of their peers.
March 1, 2006
A content report was due today, so I made a last-minute push to get things online. Finished up the lesson I have been writing for several days now, and edited and posted two others:
February 24, 2006
Forgive me as I freewrite a splat. You see I’m a little stuck on a lesson plan, and I can’t figure out where I want it to go (other than to end up as a perfect piece that I can be happy with).
Okay, the lesson idea: using Dr. Seuss to introduce satirical techniques used by Jonathan Swift. It’s a Dr. Seuss book that I used when I was teaching, The Butter Battle Book, and I found an article that does something similar to what I did. The events in the Dr. Seuss book are compared to the political satire of the Swift’s Big-Endians and Little-Endians. Simple and clear parallels that students can usually see.
My problem is that I can’t tell where the lesson is going. You read both texts and discuss—then what? Do they just discuss? That can’t be enough. And I need to work in an interactive. I could do the simple Venn Diagram or Chart, but I’d really like to come up with something more sophisticated or at least less like a hoop to jump through. I want something that is actually important to the lesson. Not that comparing things in a chart of Venn diagram isn’t important. I just think that I can do better than that.
I think that I need some kind of divine inspiration. I feel like there’s some really cool idea out there that I am just not thinking of for some reason. I could ask students to write their own satirical piece on a current issue, but the lesson is supposed to be an introduction to Gulliver’s Travels. I have nothing against writing satire, but it seems off-topic. Perhaps what would make the most sense would be to work through the historical allusions in the Swift passage that I’m using and then send students off to use similar techniques on another chunk from the text. Hmm. Maybe students are to become experts on certain terms, searching for their historical significance and then explaining those terms to the class as they come up in the reading. Hmm. The class could put together a kind of glossary on the references that Swift is making in his text. So the focus is mostly on research and how Swift uses exaggeration, understatement, and parody to make commentary on society.
If I go with that, I’ll need to make a list of possible terms for students to research and collect Web sites and references that they can consult as they do that research. I could probably use the Travelogue to move them through the sites that include details on the book’s background. Some of the terms would be easier to figure out than others, but it’s likely that a lot are basically defined in their textbooks. They could then go to the library and research the historical references in more detail.
Presentations would be spread through the reading of the book (not all done at the end). Whenever a term is encountered, the student who did the research on that item would provide the background and details. At the end, all students would be expected to piece together all of the ways that Swift satirizes society to draw conclusions about the overall message that the book makes to its readers.
There. That seems like a workable plan. See? Writing and thinking do work together :)
February 23, 2006
The Calvin and Hobbes from 02/23/95 would be a great discussion starter for talk of media and gender. I may revise Comic Makeovers: Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Media, or perhaps I could write up a 6&8211;8 lesson plan that uses it for a similar exploration.
February 22, 2006
Finished revising and published a fancy new version of It Doesn’t Have to End That Way: Using Prediction Strategies with Literature, a K-2 lesson plan that now uses one of my computers in children’s literature and technology books, Arthur’s Computer Disaster.
February 20, 2006
Can’t Remember Who Whacked Whom? Just Check the Map on the Web Site – New York Times—Potential lesson plan idea here. Obviously not about The Sopranos. Would be useful though to create a map of a community or whatever in a reading that students had done and have them plot out the places on the map where significant things happen in the story. Many books are around with maps for the events, from Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Woods to the fly leaf maps in The Lord of the Rings. After looking at those examples, students could create their own maps as a book report alternative or perhaps a literature circle project students could complete and then share with the class.
February 14, 2006
I managed to hide in the office from the influx of flowers and candy and such today. It’s depressing really. Even without going out there, I ended up sitting at the desk crying a little. I am so stupid and lame.
Created an interactive for the 1984 Macintosh Commercial lesson plan. It steps students through some key phrases and the related images in the commercial. I wish it could be more polished, but we’re limited by the way the tool works. I’m close to finishing the lesson plan, but I’m not going to make it live till tomorrow. I’ve rearranged things 3 times this evening, so I want to read it again just to make sure I didn’t mix things up.
February 12, 2006
Book Report Alternative: A Character’s Letter to the Editor is now live! The fun part about this lesson for me was working up the examples. Carl Hiaasen’s novel Hoot is coming out as a movie; so I used the situations in the novel for my examples. It’s a natural for the lesson, since Roy (the protagonist) is on a crusade to save the burrowing owls on a plot of land destined to become Mother Paula’s All-American House of Pancakes.
I also (finally) gave in and brought the new microwave into the kitchen. I bought this thing two summers ago, but I was going to keep using the existing microwave till it died. It’s still going, but it’s very slow. Takes longer to get things done than it should. When I moved it, I also found that it’s much bigger than the new one and it’s heavy as lead. I’m not at all sure how I’m going to get it out of the kitchen without hurting my back. I need a boyfriend long enough to tote things. Sigh. The positive side: wow is a well-working microwave useful. For instance, I’m used to microwave popcorn popping maybe, on a lucky day, 1/2 of the kernels. Enter the new microwave! There wasn’t one unpopped kernel! Now I just need to finish cleaning and rearranging stuff. I want to get the toaster oven out there.