Lesson Plan for The Diary of a Killer Cat by Anne Fine - Report Example

Lesson Plan and Section # of TABLE OF CONTENTS TOPIC PAGE NO. Introduction 2 Lesson Plan 2 Critical explanation of Lesson Plan 5 References 9 INTRODUCTION: In the following paper, the lesson plan for 3rd/4th class (ages 7 to 9) based on the novel The Diary of a Killer Cat. By Anne Fine is presented. The lesson plan is followed by a discussion of the learning experiences provided and the variety of methodologies used in creating the lesson plan. LESSON PLAN: Objectives: 1. The book will be read out aloud to the students 2. Students will be engaged in activities that enhance their vocabulary 3. Students will act out parts of the story and hence gain knowledge of role playing. 4. Students will be engaged in creative writing activities such as rewriting parts of the book as they would like it to be. 5. Students will also write a character sketch of the cat. Materials required: Vocabulary sheets and Dictionaries Anticipatory set: Students will be told the beginning of the story’s plot. Suggestions would be taken on how the story may unfold. It would stimulate the imaginations of the children and make them interested in the story. Completion of Objectives: The students will be encouraged to write down new terms in a notebook along with their meanings which would allow their own private dictionary to be made. The students will be divided in groups and each group would be assigned a part of the story to be acted out in class. Students will pick passages from the book of their choice and rewrite the plot/dialogues in a new way. Students will write character sketch of the cat, they may choose to describe the character or give their own opinions about the character. Return to anticipatory set: Once the children have known the entire story and dwelled into its different aspects, they would be asked to reflect back on the ideas they had generated on how the story should have progressed. They may appreciate the differences and learn how to develop a story. Evaluation: The evaluation of children would be done separately for each objective of the lesson plan. For vocabulary lesson, vocabulary sheets would be filled out from all the students. They will be assessed on the number of words they get right. A peer review will be conducted for the dramatic representation of different passages of the book. The class will vote for the group whose performance they liked best on the basis of following the script, creativity and good acting. The rewriting of passages of book and writing character sketch will be marked by the teacher. Originality, creativity, retention and writing skills will form the criterion for a good piece of writing. Adaptations according to individuals: Adaptations in teaching plan will be made according to any known weakness of a child. Further more, following the assessment results, individual attention will be given to the children with weak performances. Discussion of learning Experiences provided and methodologies used: The above lesson plan has been designed keeping in mind the pre-existing language skills and knowledge of a 3rd / 4th grader. The proposed design will maximize the learning experience of the children. The teacher will begin with reading out aloud the beginning of the book. It is proposed in the anticipatory set that the teacher would pause here and ask the children regarding how they would expect the plot to develop. Such an activity is included so that the reading of the book doesn’t appear monotonous to the children and they taken interest in the story. Also it would stimulate their imagination and allow them to take up the role of story writers themselves hence providing them an opportunity to enhance their creative thinking skills. Furthermore, the teacher may pause at later instances as well to ask general questions regarding what has been read. Such an exercise would keep the students alert and allow greater comprehension skills to develop as well. As the story would be read aloud to them, the children would be encouraged to make a list of the new words they come across. At the end of the reading session they’ll be handed out student dictionaries and showed the manner in which they can locate the meaning of a desired word. Such an activity would work to teach the use of dictionary to the children as well as enhance their vocabularies. A vocabulary test will be carried out at the end in which vocabulary sheets will be given out to the class. The students will be expected to write meanings against the words taken out from the book. The assignment will bring competitive flavor to the vocabulary learning process and allow the students incentives to know more than their peers. The students may be asked to provide oral summaries at the end of the reading as well which will allow the teacher to ascertain the level of comprehension and retention of the students. Oral summaries are non time consuming and efficient ways of engaging the students in class activity. It also develops the habit of understanding the main idea behind the story and retaining the important and relevant details according to SCORE i.e. the ‘Schools of California Online Resources for Educators Project’ ("Teachers guide," 1999) Small groups of children working together on acting out of the assigned parts of the script would enhance their interest in the book. It would also allow them to capture the wordings of scenes in real- life actions. It would give them an opportunity to familiarize themselves more intensely with the characters and plot of the story. Such an activity would also teach effective team work to the children. They would learn to divide roles and play them well individually in order to make a perfect whole. Team work makes children more socialize-able and develops their communication skills. A peer-review will be conducted in order to maintain the spirit of group work alive. Students will be made judges of their own work in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses better. Creative writing habits will be developed among students by allowing them to choose a passage from the book and rewriting it in the form they would like it to exist. It would allow the students room to play with the context of the story while integrating their imagination or language skills to direct the story into interesting and unique directions in terms of plot as well as usage of language. Such ‘student-centered’ and ‘literature-based; ways of instructing classes has been seen as an essential way of improving thinking skills and creative writing of students according to Cathy Collins (Collins, 1993, pg. 140). Writing skills along with comprehension skills will be added to through the exercise of writing character sketches. The writings of the children will exhibit the extent to which they have comprehended the attributes of the cat and the context in which they unfold. The children would be encouraged to give their own inferences about the character as well. This would allow the students to think critically and develop a habit of analyzing the content they read in order to form their own opinions about the subject. At the level of 3rd/ 4th grader, mature inferences and analysis will not be expected but it should be noted nevertheless that the habit of thinking outside of the box needs to be cultivated in the minds of the children at the earliest possible. Adaptations according to the individuals present in the class forms an integral part of a lesson plan since the teacher needs to be aware of the differing levels of understanding manifested by different students. Any known disability needs to be handled accordingly. For a child persistently weak in an area e.g. creative writing, the teacher will offer greater help in completing the task since the aim is to bring all students to a higher degree of understanding without letting any individual be discouraged be dropped out of the learning process. Furthermore brilliant students may be assigned tasks with a difficulty level higher than the average in order to maintain the challenging and motivational aspect of the lesson alive. Since students may come from very diverse backgrounds and understanding abilities, it becomes a challenge for the teacher also to keep up with the differences and utilize them for the best. Lesley Mandel Morrow discusses such problems and their practical solutions in detail in her work ‘Handbook of instructional practices’ (Morrow, 2001, pg. 221) Therefore, the objectives and assessment plans have been designed keeping in view the practicality as well as fruitful higher learning experience for the children. The activities have been designed to maximize enjoyment of the students. Challenging outlooks will be consciously provided to each of the activities in order to motivate the students to work harder and achieve more. Moreover, the lesson plan provides a great range of experiences including oral, reading as well as writing activities to enhance their understanding at all levels. Opportunities for personalization and choice have also been incorporated, catering to the specific needs of the students so that each individual may derive maximum benefit out of the lesson. References Collins, Cathy. (1993). Strategy instruction in a literature-based reading program. The elementary school journal, 94(2), 140. Morrow, Lesley. (2001). Handbook of instructional practices for literacy teacher-educators. Routledge. Teachers guide. (1999). Retrieved from http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/treasure/treasuretg.html Read More