MHalepis 1
Maria Halepis
August 22, 2012
ENG 611
Alexander Mueller
Rationale
Unit focus
This is unit is designed to be part of a college level class on the short story. The class could be adapted for a community college or four year college setting. The class meets three days per week for 50 minutes, so there are enough lessons to cover 3.3 weeks of the course. The unit covers character, narration, point of view, setting and theme. We learn about these elements and how to identify them in short stories. I want students to be able to juxtapose stories characters, settings and themes. The goal is to provide students tools that they can apply to other forms of literature such as poetry and drama.
Unit focuses on the short story and includes an eclectic group of stories. The selections vary by author, theme, period and author’s country of origin. The short story is manageable in length, and the stories often contain a lot of details with in that short space which is perfect for studying character, setting and theme. I tried to choose texts that could easily be juxtaposed, that had complex characters that we could analyze, that had detailed settings that we could study. I also tried to choose stories that have themes that students might be interested in or might be able to relate to as well as stories that offer students a glimpse into a world that might be different from their own (Rosenblatt 179, 185). Stories range in topic from gothic, psychological terror to relationships.
Pedagogical approach
A variety of pedagogical approaches are used in this unit. Approaches include those found in Smith and Wilhelm, Blau, Rosenblatt and Bomer. I also incorporated philosophies from the Teaching of Composition course at UMB where we used Bartholomae and Petrovsky and Berthoff to approach critical reading and writing. I also incorporated ideas from the students and professor in the Teaching of Literature course. These approaches offer ideas on how to sequence lessons, how to get students to more complex ideas and analysis, how to read critically and how to provide students with the tools they need to understand what they are reading.
A few of the lessons begin with quickwrites which use students’ personal experience to accomplish two things to bring them into the lesson. This approach accomplishes two things – it show students that they already know something about the subject matter, and it is a way for me to assess what they already know. With that knowledge, I can gauge where I need to start the lesson. This approach is something I learned in the Teaching of Composition course, and Bartholomae and Petrovsky also write about this approach in their book Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts. In addition to the idea of beginning with students’ personal experience, Bartholomae and Petrovsky also address sequencing lessons. Each lesson builds on the previous and becomes increasingly complex. Also, each lesson circles back to what students have done in prior lessons (something the student is familiar with) and includes this lesson in future lessons so that what the students have learned is not forgotten. Everything taught in Bartholomae and Petrovsky’s lessons have meaning and purpose. I really like their approach to sequencing, and I tried to use it when designing this unit.
This unit also includes techniques from Ann Berthoff’s book Forming, Thinking, Writing. Her ideas on building classifications and relationships to understand concepts are a great way to understand theme. Excerpts from her book are used in the lessons on theme. The classifications are used to help students differentiate between topic and theme. This is an important differentiation to make. Smith and Wilhelm address the importance of understanding the difference between topic and theme in their chapter Thinking About Themes (1558-159). Berthoff’s classifications help the students understand that topic is more general and theme is me specific. The excerpts on relationships are used in lessons to help students see relationships between characteristics in the story and see relationships between stories (juxtapose stories).
In this unit, I take Blau’s idea on demystifying what I know and what I do. Students are provided contextual information to help them understand what they are reading (lesson five, six). This helps them to understand where teachers get their prior knowledge (Blau 88 – 89). Also during class, I want to help students further their ideas and encourage them to keep trying when they feel frustrated with a text. The graphic organizers are meant to help them sift through the details of the story and create patterns that might help them understand theme. I also use texts that I am not familiar with because this takes the authority away from me as the teacher, and we can work together as a class to obtain an understanding of the story (Blau).
Rosenblatt is the last source I address because I feel that her book is very important. Throughout the book, she emphasizes the importance of literature. It is hard to not feel infected by her enthusiasm. She influenced my choice of short stories for the unit. I wanted stories that students could relate to in some respects but also learn something from. I also wanted students to experience a world different from their own. I want students to read stories that might help them grow as a person.
The influence of these authors can be seen throughout the lessons in the unit. There are also mini rationales in each unit where ideas from these authors are cited.
General objectives for student development(see lessons for specific objectives)
-Students will be able to juxtapose stories by comparing characters, settings and themes between stories.
-Students will learn how character and setting provide clues to figure out the theme of the story.
-Students will learn ways to analyze setting by using graphic organizers provided in class to facilitate their analysis.
-Students will learn critical reading skills and interpreting stories by marking up texts, looking for patterns in language, images, and characteristics.
-Students will learn how to use background and contextual information to help understand genre and analyze theme. These are skills they can take with them to other courses.
-Students will develop the ability to use evidence (textual in this case) to build an argument or substantiate their claims. They are asked to do this in several lessons and in their first project.
-Students will learn to look critically at each other’s work and provide feedback in a constructive way.
Assessments to Determine Students’ Achievement of Objectives:
There are multiple homework and in-class assignments that will help to determine if student objectives have been achieved. Examples of in-class assignments that will help me assess student progress are the completion of the graphic organizers, character sheets and quickwrite sharing. I should be able to tell by their responses if students are achieving the objectives of the lesson and grasping the material. I will also conduct informal assessments when students are in groups by walking around the room to listening to discussions. The last assessment tool for the unit is the student project. The project will be used to assess the students’ knowledge of the materials covered to-date. These will be peered reviewed by members of their groups, and students will use apeer review form for this review. The projects will also be assessed by me using a rubric which will be distributed to the students.
Unit Hesitations:
-Time allotted for each element – If this was a plan for a one semester course, I would spend more time on narration and point of view. I cover additional stories that are all written in a different perspective with a different kind of narrator. Character is another element that I would spend more time on. I would choose one or two more stories in addition to A&P to address character.
-Homework assignments – There are nights where I feel there might not be enough homework for a college level course (200 level course).
-Do the lessons (story and activities) gain students’ interest?
-Is Snowball lesson not appropriate for this level?
-Project timeline is too fast (lessons 8 – 10).
-Berthoff clips may be too confusing (lessons 5 – 7).
Ideas forAdditions to the Unit:
-Second paper will be more complex. Students will chose two stories and juxtapose based on character, theme or setting.
-Additional lesson on The Yellow Wallpaper setting to be inserted between lessons one and two.
-Look at more than one element in each story in a lesson to get at theme so students can see how all the elements (i.e. character, setting) build the theme of a story.
-Incorporate more from Smith and Wilhelm on theme.
-Incorporate more multimedia such as video clips in future lessons.
-Use more stories from other parts of the world, i.e. African Literature, South American Literature. Hopefully this will open many students up to a new kind of literature and a new experience (Rosenblatt 185).
-Address interpretations (Blau’s chapter – Which Interpretation is the Right One?)
-Expand the timeline for the project, and ask students to provide a piece of background information (article, video clip, historical information, etc.) to give context to the story they chose for their project.
Artifact Index
Artifact # / Artifact Title / Used in Lesson…1 / Setting Graphic Organizer 1 / 1
2 / Setting Graphic Organizer 2 / 1
3 / Character Sheet 1 / 2
4 / Vincent Price Narration –
Cask of Amontillado / 4
5 / Quickwrite quote from Norton / 4
6 / Jerry HogleArticle (pages 1-3) / 5
7 / Venn Diagram Organizer / 6
8 / Snowball Question Slip / 8
9 / Peer Response Form / 7, 8, 9
10 / Rubric for Project / 7, 8, 9
11 / Misery by Chekhov / 3
12 / Character Sheet 2 / 3
13 / My Wife by Guy de Maupassant / 7
14 / Project 1 Tasks and deadlines / 7, 8, 9,
15 / Berthoff Excerpt - Classifications / 5
16 / Website on Genre of Literature / 5
17 / Presentation Schedule / 7, 8, 9
18 / Quick write quote from Oates / 6
19 / Berthoff Excerpt - Relationships / 7
20 / Personality Questionnaire / 3
21 / The Temple by JC Oates / 6
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Lesson Plan 1 - Monday: The Yellow Wallpaper
Lesson rationale:
In this lesson, we will look at the setting of a short story. I think this is an important lesson because it teaches students to look critically at the text and work directly with the words on the page. My goal is to take what they know to the next level and show them how craftily it can be used in a story. I chose pieces from Smith and Wilhelm’s chapters on setting to incorporate in my pedagogical approach. The chapters had diagrams that would be helpful in peeling back the layers of a setting. Their approach to looking at setting in terms of micro, meso and macro influences and the type of information being provided – temporal, physical, psychological and social is very detailed and can help students get an understanding of what is happening in the story. In addition, this approach can help them identify a theme.
I chose The Yellow Wallpaper for this particular lesson because I thought there were a lot of details on setting and there are also many layers to the setting. There is the house, the room and the wallpaper itself as well as the characters and their interactions. In addition to reading the story, I also ask students to do an in-class writing exercise where they write about the home setting. We use their writing to fill out the diagrams as a class before looking at the story in groups. This approach serves two purposes: 1. There is a gradual release of responsibility. This is something that Smith and Wilhelm address, and there are several members of our class that have talked about using this approach. 2. I capitalize on students’ prior experience with setting. This is a great confidence builder, and shows students’ that they already have some knowledge about what setting is though they may not have thought about it in those terms before. I learned about this approach in the Teaching of Composition course at UMB.
Objectives for student development:
-Students will understand that they already know something about setting by creating a setting of their own in a quickwrite.
-Students will pick out details of the setting by looking what characters say about their surroundings.
-Students will learn about setting by looking at characters’ attitudes
-Students will pick out key words used by the author to describe the setting.
-Students will learn to look for textual clues to analyze setting (Smith, Wilhelm 94).
-Students will identify physical aspects of setting in their quickwrite and The Yellow Wallpaper
-Students will learn the different levels (microsystem, mesosystem, macrosystem) and dimensions (physical, temporal, psychological and social) of setting.
-Students will apply levels and dimensions of setting to the setting they create in their quickwrite and the setting of the story.
Materials:
-The Yellow Wallpaper
-Artifact 1 – Graphic organizer for setting from Smith and Wilhelm
-Artifact 2 – Graphic organizer for setting from Smith and Wilhelm
Assumptions:
-Students read The Yellow Wallpaper for homework.
-They will come to class with notes on the story, and the notes will include any observations, questions or opinions.
Procedures:
-Class will begin with a “quick write” to frame the class lesson and get everyone warmed up. We will spend 5 minutes writing about where they live including details on their bedroom, house, family, friends,neighborhood and city. I believe this will put the lesson in a context that students understand. This “quick write” will also build students’ confidence as they will see that they already know a bit about setting (Bruss).
-I will explain micro, meso and macro levels of environment/setting. I will ask students to pull examples from their “quick writes.” See below for detailed description of discussion.
-I will explain physical, temporal, social and psychological aspects of setting. I will ask students to categorize elements from their “quick writes.” See below for detailed description of discussion.
-The class will break into groups of 4. We are going to take what we did with the “quick writes” and apply it to The Yellow Wallpaper. Two groups will breakdown micro, meso and macro levels. The other two groups will fill out a table on the aspects/dimensions of setting – temporal, physical, etc.
-Review homework: review your group work, review the story and add to your diagrams. See if you can come up with a potential theme for the story. We will discuss next class.
Discussion on society levels as a way to interpret setting (Smith, Wilhelm 66-67)
-Has anyone ever heard of the 3 levels of society? These levels are seen in sociology and psychology courses, but they can be applied to our texts. Anyone want to take a guess at why these might be relevant to literature? (List on board)
-There are three levels of society: microsystem, mesosystem and macrosystem. Many of you may have seen the words (aka prefixes) micro (smallest) and macro (largest) in other places. Meso is what I like to call the “in-betweener.”
Microsystem – immediate influences (family, friends, community, and neighborhood)
Mesosystem – intermediate levels of influence (city)
Macrosystem – most distant level of influence on an individual (global, national)
-Look at the description of setting you just created. How would you categorize the elements in your setting? Where would you place family, friends? (Artifact 6 to diagram on board)
Discussion on aspects of setting (Smith, Wilhelm 70-71)
-Within the three systems, we can further break down parts of a setting by their type. For example – some of you mentioned the color of your house and the location. These are physical aspects of your setting.
-In addition to physical, there is temporal – meaning time period or era. Sometimes based on how the physical is described, we can figure out the time period of the story. There are also social and psychological aspects. Social and psychological refer to relationships in the story, i.e. the relationship between you and your friends or family, John and narrator.
Assessment:
-I will be able to determine if students are picking up the idea of setting based on the information they chose from their quickwrites when we are filling out the organizers as a class.
-There is also informal assessment as I circle the class listening to the group discussion.
Homework:
-Finish the setting organizer on The Yellow Wallpaper
-Read A&P
-Complete character sheet 1 for A&P
Artifact 1 – Setting Graphic Organizer 1:
Physical / Temporal/Time / Social / Psychological(Smith, Wilhelm 96)
Artifact 2 - Setting Graphic Organizer 2:
Lesson Plan 2 - Wednesday: Character – A&P
Lesson rationale:
In this lesson, we will look character. I will use A&P as the first story to open up discussion on character. The story is very short, but there is so much going on in terms of character. I think students will become interested in the story because everyone has either stuck up for or been stuck up for at some time in their lives. Gaining student interest is so important. I also think students will be interested because many of us do spend time analyzing people like Sammy does in the story. Some of us even, dare I say, gossip and make assumptions about people which are also some things that Sammy does in the story.
A&P is a great story to use when discussing characters. The narrator, Sammy, says a lot and provides a lot of information about other characters in the story. What he says, what he does and what he says about others gives readers a lot material to review about the characters including Sammy. The story in itself is almost a character analysis (carried out by the narrator). There are also a few different groups in which the characters could be classified. These groups will allow students to look at characters based on their group membership. Analyzing characters is another great way to get at theme.