I've always loved
my English Literature classes but one assignment I disliked very much was doing
a book report. Aside from them being fairly easy (assuming the book was read),
they did not challenge me. Plus, creating an alternative book report has
been on my mind ever since that one READ-411 class discussion about integrating
technologies within our content areas and our third interactivity. So, when I
searched for a lesson plan online, I coincidentally found one that was
similar to what I had in mind. And it was very thorough!
After analyzing
the NJ Common Core Standards, the lesson plan I chose and creating the
spreadsheet, I saw that most of the teaching strategies aligned with the NJCCS
and technologies used. However, one strategy I wanted to emphasize was the use
of annotation. Annotating when reading is very beneficial to readers because
they will be able to prove their arguments thoroughly as well as question a
character’s (or even author’s) motives and beliefs. This aligns with a few
NJCCS in regards to citing textual evidence and using context clues. I also
added another technological tool- electronic dictionary/thesaurus- because
students will need to be able to define words they do not know, as well as use
context clues to infer different meanings.
This lesson plan
ultimately achieves the curriculum goals. Students are being challenged to
think critically about a specific character by analyzing that character. They
are looking for specific quotes said by that character, external (appearance),
as well as internal (personality) description about that character from another
character or the narrator. They do so by annotating (highlighting, underlining,
noting on margins, etc) when reading in order for them to provide evidence of their
analysis. Furthermore, it allows students to demonstrate their creativity by using a technological tool they are familiar with-Social Networking! What more could they want?
Book Report Alternative URL:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuIR4zYHMEJndEl6eHRUZi1OY1V2QUVmRlBxZUhCSFE#gid=0
I liked book reports! They were those easy "A" work that I craved from the usual drab of material we were expected to do as students. And they could be challenging when they wanted to be. I believe that your lesson plan of analyzing characters by using evidence from text is quite good. From a lot of my English classes, there have been rather extensive discussions based around why this character is more like this as opposed to something like that. It gets to the point when even though there is no wrong answer, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, it is obvious which ones are farther off. And that in itself can be a problem. For others, analyzing a character may prove to be difficult in that their analysis of the character may be either simplistic or deeply rooted to textual evidence. They dislike thinking outside of the context of the novel, which is preferable to the alternative, but that is something where a lot of these discussions tend to go towards. Broad generalizations with no evidence at all, only opinions. But I believe with the standards you've chosen, such a lesson plan can be prevented from going way off topic. The best part of the technology you've chosen is that you can pull all kinds of different sources to support your claim. Such as reviews from literary critics and such. These can be used as references for students wanting to write a paper on a specific topic connected to the analysis of a particular character. All in all, good job Abeer.
ReplyDelete