Week 6 E2 Unit 2 How does an author use literary elements to develop a Central Idea of his/her story?
Enduring Understanding
Essential Questions:
Pacing Calendar for Unit 2: Theme Analysis through Setting, Characterization and Conflict
03/7/2011 What is the Central Idea | 03/08 The Setting and the Central Idea | 03/09-03/10 (Writing) 2 Paragraph to describe the Setting |03/11 KIM Vocabulary and Polish up the Paragraph(s) on Setting| 03/14 How does the change of setting affect a story?|03/15 Characterization (Physical Traits)| 03/16-03/17 Characterization (Character Traits and Infer) and the Central Idea | |03/18 Vocabulary and Close-Reading of a Character| 03/21 Characterization (Speech and Attitude)-letterCharacterization (Character’s relationship with others)| 03/22 (Writing) 2 Paragraphs on Characterization | 03/23 Conflict and the Central Idea - External (Man vs. Man) | 03/24 Conflict - External (Man vs. Society) | 03/25 (Writing) Conflict - External| 03/28 Conflict - Internal (Man vs. Self )| 03/29 Vocabulary and Polish up Paragraph | 3/30 (Writing) Conflict - Internal | 03/31 How to use characters to illustrate the theme | 04/01 (Writing) Using characters to illustrate the theme | 04/02 How to write about a theme through conflict.|
Objective: Students will understand every author has a specific purpose for his/her story.
Aim: How does the change of settings affect a story?
Materials: Group Roles and Responsibilities Sheet, paragraph check list
Agenda-
Do Now:
Acqusition: Change the setting in the excerpt from When I Was PR
New setting: Esmerelda's migration experience in 1890 before PR became a US territory.
It was raining in Brooklyn. Mist hung over the airport so that all I saw as we landed were fuzzy white and blue lights on the runway and at the terminal. We thudded to earth as if the pilot had miscalculated just how close we were to the ground. A startled silence was followed by frightened cries and aleluyas and the rustle of everyone rushing to get up from their seats and out of the plane as soon as possible.
Mami's voice mixed and became confused with the voices of other mothers telling their children to pick up their things, stay together, to walk quickly toward the door and not to hold up the line. Edna, Raymond, and I each had bundles to carry, as did Mami, who was loaded with two huge bags filled with produce and spices del pais. "You can't find these in New York," she's explained.
We filed down a long, drafty tunnel, at the end of which many people waited, smiling, their hands waving and reaching their voices mingled into a roar of hello's and how are you's and oh, may god, it's been so long's.
Meaning-Making
2. Share with your group members
Transfer: How does the setting affect the meaning of a story?
HW#5 Complete the rewrite of your story with a different setting.
Group# ____ Group Members ___________________________________________________________________ Book Title_______________________ by author________________________________ Original Setting___________________________________________________________________________________________ Summary of the original story____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ New Setting___________________________________________________________________________________________ The Main Idea of your new story based on the new setting_____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Reflection: How does the setting affect the meaning of a story? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
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03/15/2011 Characterization (Physical Traits) and the Central Idea/Theme
Objective: Students will understand how to find textual evidence to describe a character.
Aim: Why are identifying features of a character important?
Skill/Concept: Characterization (Physical Traits)
Agenda
Do Now:
1. Complete Character Map sheet (questions 1 and 2 in the box below)
2. Tuesdays: Reader's Response Day- Students select their best response they have written and share with the class ( 30 seconds to a minute). Name the skill of your focus.
Acquisition – Characterization (Physical Traits)
Mini Lesson: Whether through a short story, novel, or another piece of literature, authors use the traits of characters to help readers identify with the protagonists and even antagonists, appreciate central idea/themes, and propel the plot. While it’s easy to pass over the identifying features of the characters, there’s usually a good reason the author included them in the text.
Mentor Text: Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. Theheaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
After using the character map to help me generate ideas, here is the response I wrote based on the reading passage-
An Example,
Ebenezer Scrooge is the main character in Charles Dickens’ novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness. Dickens describes him as, "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice ..." His last name has come into the English language as a byword for tightfistedness (greed) and misanthropic (distrust of humankind), traits displayed by Scrooge in the story
Meaning Making:
Level 1 Question: What is the physical appearance of the character? |
2. Now organize your notes into a paragraph discussing your impression and insight of the character. Try to reach to Level 4. (What can you infer about the protagonist from your book, based on the physical description.)
3. Resource: Use the link to help you describe: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson175/traits.pdf
Transfer: How did this lesson change your view on judging people?
HW#6: Read for 30 minutes. Continue writing your paragraph (that you started in class) by responding to the following questions:
Level 1 Question: What is the physical appearance of the character? |
03/16/2011-03/17/2011 Actions & Speech ; Drawing Inferences
Lesson: Characterization (Personality Traits) and the Central Idea
Objective: Students will know how to infer personality traits through textual details.
Aim: How does understanding the character change help me to become a better reader?
Materials: Mentor Text – A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens http://www.stormfax.com/1dickens.htm ; Sample Character Chart, Character Map Sheet, Interactive Chart Trait Chart
Agenda
Do Now: Wednesdays: Character Talk Day - Students discuss the main character of the book they are reading. Must include direct quotation from the book when discussing the character.
Acquisition – Characterization: Personality Traits and Making Inferences
Mini Lesson: Menor text excerpt from The Christmas Carol
But the important thing is that characters act! And these actions show us what kind of people these characters are: friendly, sad, nosey, happy, love struck, confused, angry, or inventive. When we talk about a character, we often describe that character in terms of character traits, descriptive adjectives like happy or sad that tell us the specific qualities of the character.
The author may tell us these traits directly, but more often the author will show us these traits in action. Our job as readers is to draw a conclusion about the
character's traits (to infer them) from what the character says, thinks, and does. We might infer a character trait from something a character does only once, or we might draw our conclusions from a series of things the character says and does.
Here is the response I wrote using the four questions below -
Sampler Response-
Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching stingy hoarder in the first degree. He cares nothing for the people around him and mankind exists only for the money that can be made through exploitation and intimidation. He particularly detests Christmas which he views as 'a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer'. Scrooge is visited, on Christmas Eve, by the ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley who died seven Christmas Eves ago. Marley, a cheapskate cut from the same cloth as Scrooge, is suffering the consequences in the afterlife and hopes to help Scrooge avoid his fate. He tells Scrooge that he will be haunted by three spirits. These three spirits, the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, succeed in showing Scrooge the error of his ways. His glorious reformation complete, Christmas morning finds Scrooge sending a Christmas turkey to his long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit; and spending Christmas day in the company of his nephew, Fred, whom he had earlier contemptuous rejected. |
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Meaning Making-
1. Read you book for 15 minutes and take notes using the following guiding questions:
Level 1 Question: How does the character act? (action-what the character says, thinks, and does) |
2. Write your reponse using the notes.
3. Group Work: http://interactives.mped.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=30&title=
Sample Character Chart: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson175/traits.pdf
Transfer: How did the lesson help you "read" a person better?
HW#7: Read for 30 minutes. Continue writing your paragraph (that you started in class) by responding to the following questions:-
Level 1 Question: How does the character act? (action-what the character says, thinks, and does) |
03/18/2011 Writinga powerful paragraph about the main character of the book you are reading
Objectives: Students will understand characterization is based on both physical and personality traits inferred from the character's actions
Aim: What is the one sentence you want to use to describe your character?
Agenda-
Do Now: In your journal, use one sentence to highlight your own character( yourself). Try to use one sentence to tell the listener as much as you can about yourself.
Acqusition:
Writing a powerful and persuasive paragraph-
____1. Topic sentence.( general but with rich implications(
____2. Supporting details.
_____3. Examples.
_____4. Your inferences based on the examples.
_____5. All details and examples are related to the topic sentence.
Meaning Making-
Transfer: How due on Monday
1.Read for 30 minutes and continue the paragraph writing by adding more details and inferences( interpretations of the details).
2. Prepare for KIM Vocabulary chart using one of the words below-
2. Be prepared for the Author's Chair.