1 Jamie DiLetto Dr.

Casey ELD 395 October 15, 2013 Lesson Plan 2 Reading Mini-Lesson:

Grade: 8 Standard: o RL.8.3 Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision. Rationale: o It is a skill of a good reader to understand the importance of characters in a novel. This skill is a foundational one that will allow students to unlock further comprehension of a text and begin to understand deeper connections of characters in relation to the novel as a whole. According to the A Different Kind of Reading Instruction: Using Visualizing to Bridge Reading Comprehension and Critical Literacy an article written by Jie Y. Park, students best understand the importance of a character when they are able to visualize the character and connect to them. Using the To, With, By model over the course of a two day lesson students will see techniques I use to visualize a character, they will be put into collaborative groups to explore characters together, and lastly, they will independently use their skill to create a visualization of characters through Voki, an online animation tool. Objective: o SWBAT imagine and create physical characteristics of a character in the novel through discussion in their learning clubs. o SWBAT select specific passages from the novel that help create a visualization of the character; in addition, verify why they felt that specific passage was strongest. Materials: o Book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett o Worksheet: Character faces o Worksheet: Learning Club Character Station Procedures: o Prior to class: Students will be given a Literacy Inventory worksheet at the closing of the prior class session that will search to discover strategies that the student uses to visualize a character. o Beginning of class: Whole Class Discussion Class will begin with desks cleared off, other than The Help.

2 So right now at home, I am reading a book, called The Great Gatsby, and when my husband and I went out to watch the movie version of it the other day, I really hated the characters in the movie. For some reason, I always pictured the main character as an unattractive man, but in the movie he was very handsome. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why they think that is? Why did I think of the character in a different way than the movie producers? - Allow for class discussion and see where this question takes the class. - Within discussion: seemingly as if this has ever happened to another student? - Within discussion: ask how many people are starting to get strong visuals of our current characters in The Help. For class today, we are going to begin visualizing what our characters look like. But I have an important question is there going to be only 1 right answer to this question of what does our character look like? No? Why? Okay, we will begin to see how there can be many different visualizations of a character today once we start using text to support our argument Lets open our books up to page 1 Im going to read this passage aloud, and as I am, I want you to visualize what you think the character might look like based on the description. But I dont want anyone talking about it, right now we are just thinking to ourselves. - Before I read the passage. I write Page 1 on the whiteboard. - I read the passage. - I stop after #1 (annotations on separate worksheet) and draw a round face with tears and a sad face, - Then I continue and stop after #2, erase the crying and make the face somewhat happy, - After #3, I draw a bow on her head, - After #4 I draw big pretty eyes, bouncy curls with one section messed up , - After #5, I roughly draw a chubby baby body, Okay, raise your hand if you had a similar visual of Mae Mobley in your mind? Raise your hand if you had a different visual of this character? Tell me your differences Discuss. Today we will be working in groups on different characters that we have met so far in this novel. - Groups will be displayed on overhead projector, based on similarities that I was able to notice in students literacy inventory. Out of 25 students, there will be 5 groups of 5. Before we start to move around, I want to explain the directions for today. - First, depending on your group number, that is what station you will start at. Would anyone like to tell me what station they will be starting in as we are looking up at the projector at our group numbers? - Next, everyone will read the first passage given to them on their stations worksheet. For example, the first station is page 55. The members working in this station will open to page 55, and then choose 1 person to read aloud for the group. - All members of the group will then discuss the visual image that they can create from reading this passage.

3 This is the first thing you are responsible for. The second thing you are responsible for, is individually finding a passage that describes the SAME character of the station that you are at. - You are to cite this page number on your worksheet, and everyone will discuss the passage that they found in the novel. They are all required to be different passages, and no group members can have the same passage. - After these 2 passages are discussed. You will be responsible for drawing the visual characteristics that these passages make you think of OR you can write down what it makes you visualize. - These steps will be repeated for all stations. o Students will assemble into groups and moved along in appropriate time intervals. o At the end of the class period, students will be asked to return to whole class discussion where we will briefly discuss their findings and thoughts/reflections. Assessments: o The student will be successful if they correctly cited passages that reflected characteristics of the correct character at the correct station. o The student will be successful if they were able to draw or write important visuals of the character that they were able to generate according to the passage given and the passage found in the learning station. During the learning stations, I will be conferencing with groups and assessing if they are properly implanting skills of visualization for creating characters based on discussion. After the lesson, I will be collecting their worksheets of cited descriptive passages and drawings of characters. Differentiation: o I will ask questions ranging in difficulty so that all of the students will be cognitively involved.

4 Learning Club Character Station Worksheet: **(This would be the worksheet left on the table)

CHARACTER: Miss Leefolt 1. 2. Open books to page 55.

Choose a member to read the page out loud (one person per station, no repeats). Discuss what this passage makes you visualize.

3.

4.

Search for your own passage on another page (no repeats as other members). Complete Miss Leefolt section on Character Faces worksheet.

5.

5 Character Faces worksheet: EXAMPLE

Name: ____________________________________________________________ GROUP #: ________________________________________________________

Station #: _____

Character Name:________________________________________ Visualization:

Learning Station Passage

PAGE #: ________________________ Brief Description: _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________

Student PAGE #: ________________________ Discovered Brief Description: Passage _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________ _________________________________

6 Writing Mini- Lesson:

Grade: 8 Standards: o W. 8. 1b Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text. o W. 8. 3b. Use narrative techniques such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection to develop experiences, events and/or characters. Rationale: This lesson is a continuation of the previous lesson, which would have been done the day prior. This writing piece targets students ability to independently create a character based on the skills that we introduced in the reading lesson: such as using textual evidence to support why you visualize a character a certain way. Standard W.8.3b was used in this lesson because although students themselves are not creating dialogue, pacing, or descriptions, they are recognizing the authors use of these techniques and writing a reflection on how these techniques lead them to the logical reasoning of creating a character on the Voki webpage. Objectives: o SWBAT compose 2 virtual characters based on their visualizations of these characters throughout the text. o SWBAT create a written reflection of their reasonings behind specific characterizations of their characters; their reasonings are to be supported by correctly citing specific pages and passages of the novel. Materials: o Book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett o Computer cart o Voki Character Project Directions worksheet Procedures: o Review of yesterdays lesson I would just like to start today by finishing what we were talking about yesterday. Can someone remind us what we talked about? Great. And can someone remind us if all visualizations are the same? o Project Explanation So today, we are going to be putting our visualizations into real life! We will be using a website called Voki, has anyone ever heard of it before? Yes? Would you mind explaining what it is? Yesterday we spent a lot of time working with the text and showing how descriptions help us create an image an image of the character. Today, you will be choosing 2 characters that stood out to you the most during our workshop yesterday and you will discover that character deeper today and will be able to create a full visual image of that character.

7 Before we begin, I will show you the character that I have created on Voki. - *Pull up the image of Aibeleen* It was a lot of fun to create this character, and the visual image here represents what I have inside my head very well! However, there are important passages that I used to help shape my image of Aibeleen, and it important that you recognize this as well. There is no such thing as a wrong visual image of a character, but what is incorrect is if you do not cite textual evidence to explain why you feel a certain why about a character. So, what I did as a reader, was take my Voki of Aibeleen, and embedded it into my Wikispace page, so I had space to reflect on my visual characteristic choices This is what I expect your finished product to look like - *Pull up Wikispace page.* In a few minutes, you will all be given independent time to work on your class project. There are 3 important things that belong on your Wikipage: 1. You Voki, 2. Atleast 5 citations of the text, including the 2 discussed yesterday in our character learning stations, and 3. Connections and reflections made between the Voki and your citations on why you made the choices you did on: face type, skin color, hair type, clothes, etc. Before I move on, does anyone have any questions? *Hand out worksheet of explicit directions* and allow students to begin. As they are working, begin to conference with students at their desk how they feel about their ability to visualize a character and the direction that they are taking their Voki and why. o Assessments: The student will be successful if they are able to compose 2 Voki characters out of the selection of 5 characters that were discussed during the learning stations. The student will be successful if they are able to correctly cite passages within the text and furthermore connect these passages to the choices that they made in their visualization process. Differentiation: o I will ask questions ranging in difficulty so that all of the students will be cognitively involved.

8 Voki Character Project Directions worksheet

Name: ________________________________________
Check off boxes as steps areas completed.

Step 1.Log into Voki.com with our classroom username: XXX and classroom password: XXX

Step 2. In another screen, log into our Wikipage with our classroom username: XXX and classroom password: XXX

Step 3. Title your section with your character name.

Step 4. Find your citations. Two will be from your Character Faces worksheet, and 3 will be found independently. Correctly cite the passage with quotation marks , and the authors name and page number in parentheses ( ), at the end of the citation. These citations can be listed.

Step 5. Use these citations to help influence you on creating your Voki! Be creative!

Step 6. In paragraph form, explain how you made the connection of each citation to the creation of your Voki.