Third Informal: Limericks

For my 3rd (and last) informal observation, I taught a lesson on limericks. I knew this would be a fun topic, but at first, I had no idea what to do for my lesson plan! I had to do a lot of research to find ways to teach it without being boring or obvious, and I am pretty happy with how the lesson turned out. I started by asking my students what the definition of a limerick is. To provide an example, I showed this clip of "The Brothers Limerick":

Then we discussed the defining qualities of a limerick, such as rhyme, rhythm, and how to properly use inflection, pitch, and rate. For examples, I used poems written by Edward Lear, author of A Book of Nonsense (1845) and Limerick legend.

Finally, I showed this clip from Spongebob Squarepants to demonstrate the proper way to perform a limerick:

The students then had to make their own limericks, so I figured we'd have a little fun with it. I had them download a picture of Gary reading a limerick into Pic Collage and insert their own limerick. Here are a few examples of what they came up with:

They then memorized their limerick, and recited it to a group of students in class with proper inflection, pitch, and rate. Overall, it went very well! We had a few technical glitches the first time around, but it all came together. The kids had fun and I was happy with how it turned out!

Sources:

Pic Collage // http://pic-collage.com/  

Springboard, level 1, lesson 5.9 

Second Informal: Tone

Got my second informal out of the way today! Once again, I think it went well and I had a lot of fun with it.

To bridge the gap between the poetry we've been analyzing and the drama unit we are about to start, I taught about Tone. We defined tone as a speaker's or writer's attitude toward his or her subject. We also clarified the difference between Tone and Mood- Tone shows the emotions of the speaker, whereas Mood is how we feel when we read and react. I also used a tonal scale worksheet to make sure the students had vocabulary to express the tone.

We also discussed the difference between reading tone and speaking tone. We understand tone and "hear" tone as we read through the descriptive language, punctuation, and figurative language that the author uses. When we perform, we can further convey tone using our voice, facial expressions, and body language.

I had a lot of fun with our first activity. I randomly selected a student using an App called GroupMaker. The student then picked a number, 1-12, which corresponded with a picture of a person or animal whose expression portrays a certain tone. The students then draw a sentence from and must read the sentence in a tone that matches that of the picture. The students loved it!

Next, since we had been working on "Sonnet 130," I used that poem to look at different interpretations of tone. We discussed what Shakespeare intended the tone to be and then compared that to three different performances of the poem.




While the kids listened to the interpretations, they used todaysmeet to contribute what they thought the tone of each version was. Todaysmeet allows all the students to simultaneously contribute to an online forum. As a teacher, I can then make sure everyone is participating AND I can use their comments as a means of formative assessment. With this transcript, we had a class discussion to pin point the tones of each video clip, as well as which clip best matched Shakespeare's tone.

Finally, I had the students write their own sentences conveying tone using descriptive language and figurative language. This, again, was a great formative assessment to help me see if they are grasping the concept.

The lesson went well and I had a lot of fun planning it AND teaching it!

Ozymandias

Mrs. M taught a great lesson on "Ozymandias" and poetry analysis. She started out by having the students listen to "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. As they listened, they used Padlet to record words and phrases that stood out to them during the song (Padlet is like an online corkboard that allows each of the students to post notes simultaneously).

After they listened to the song (which they loved), Mrs. M pulled up Padlet on the smart board and organized the posts they had all contributed to give the class an idea of what had stood out to everyone. Next, the class had a discussion on the meanings of the words and phrases they had written to figure out what the song was about. They also went through the lyrics and identified figurative language. The kids made great connections and got a lot out of the song.

Next, Mrs. M introduced Ozymandias by first talking about the author's background as well as the background of the poem. Ozymandias was written by Percy Bysshe Shelly as part of a bet with his friend and fellow poet, Horace Smith. When the bust of Ramses II was shipped to a London museum, Shelly and Smith made a friendly wager to determine who could write the better poem about the Ramses the Great, or Ozymandias.

Here are their two poems:

"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelly

I met a traveler from an antique land  

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone  

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 

  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,  

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read  

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,  

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; 

  And on the pedestal these words appear:  

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  

Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”  

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare  

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

"Ozymandias" by Horace Smith

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

The students analyzed "Ozymandias," compared "Ozymandias" to "Viva la Vida," Red Scarf Girl, and Smith's "Ozymandias" through class discussions held over a couple of class periods. Does that give you a good idea of how impressive my GT kids are??? I have also seen Ozymandias taught a couple of other ways. In my Literary analysis course through BYU, we compared Ozymandias to "On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness" by Arthur Guiterman, and then had to describe which was better poetry. This poem would also be very appropriate for younger audiences.

OZYMANDIAS COMPARISON POEMS. State, of these two poems of similar theme, which contains the more excellent poetry. Then, briefly, tell whether the other is bad or whether it can be praised for achieving something different.

"On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness by Arthur Guiterman 

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls

Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just

Is ferric oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear whose potent hug

Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,

And I don’t feel so well myself.

A couple of my classmates at UTD also taught lessons on Ozymandias and included this interpretation by Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad).

We weren't sure about using this one with 6th graders because of the association they may discover...

Sources:

Padlet // padlet.com

Viva la Vida // http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE

Brian Cranston recites "Ozymandias" // http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3dpghfRBHE

TPCASTT

To teach our students poetry analysis, we are using the acronym TPCASTT:

• Title: Predict what the poem will be about by analyzing the title.
• Paraphrase: After reading the poem, paraphrase what it is about by putting it into your own words. Who is the speaker?
• Connotation: Look beyond the literal language and assign additional meaning by focusing on figurative language
• Attitude: Identify the tone of the poem. Does the author's attitude mirror the speaker's attitude?
• Shift: Look for transitions within the piece that occur in tone, setting, etc. When do they occur? Why do they occur? What is the effect?
• Title: Revisit the title to determine further meaning.
• Theme: What is the overall message? Identify literal and abstract ideas.

To help drive this practice home, we analyzed "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes with our classes. We went through the poem using TPCASTT and used the smart board to annotated it. I love poetry, and I was impressed with how this activity made meaning more accessible to these young readers. They really got into it!

"Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

Allusion

Day 2 of student teaching is done and I still can't believe this is my life now! I have definitely found the right career for me. Mrs. M and I didn't have anything planned for me to do today, but after I'd seen her give a presentation on poetry for one class, she let me take the reins and teach the other classes later in the day. I introduced the students to several poetry conventions while they took notes on their ipads using Evernote. I quickly found that I need to be paying more attention to timing, that I really need to know my stuff before I get up in front of students, and that I need to do a lot less of the talking! I am used to being the student, so I find myself wanting to share my thoughts and ideas when I should be seeking to help these students cultivate their own.

My favorite part of the lesson had to do with teaching allusion. The students enjoyed my example of how the main character in the book Wonder references "the cheese touch," which is an allusion from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We discusses the following quote from A Christmas Carol as well:  

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail...  

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

This was a perfect example and led to the discovery that many phrases we use today were coined by Shakespeare and, in fact, allude to his great works. 

For the second half of class, Mrs. M introduced a new project the students will be working on in relation to what they are studying in Social Studies. This requires some additional explanation. These GT students are a part of a "Discovery" program. They take GT English and GT Social Studies, and their teachers from both classes work collaboratively to create projects that encompass both subjects. Their Social Studies teacher has them doing an assignment wherein they will be thoroughly researching a country in Africa. Using Smore, the students will work in groups to create an interactive flyer about their country's geography, travel, government, foreign policy, economy, social and ethnic groups, religion, language, country flag, traditional holidays/festivals, traditional clothing, food, history, and notable people. For English, the students will use this information to create a news program wherein they will be writing, recording, and presenting four different topics about their country in both hard news and soft news formats. The kids seem pretty excited about it, and I love the way they connect the different subjects!

Smore looks pretty cool. It's a website where you can make interactive flyers with links and pages for additional information. They are artfully created and easy to share online (and they're printable). I'm very interested to see how they're used within the classroom!

Mrs. M is also involved in a GCISD program called VALOR. Essentially, she is involved in a group of teachers who observe, critique, and assist one another. While she instructs her class, she has other teachers come into her classroom who identify where she is excelling and provide strategies that could improve her effectiveness. I sat in while she received some feedback, and I think this is a great program. This is a way that Mrs. M can make sure she is always learning, growing, and being the best teacher she can for her current students.

I am also getting ready to help Mrs. M start grading student work (!!!). I love her grading philosophy. She is trying out Standards Based Grading (SBG). Here is the gist:

• Grading policies reflect academic achievement ONLY (behaviors are not factored in)
• Formative assessment is used throughout to help teach and prepare students for summative assessments.
• New evidence of mastery of standards replaces old evidence (grades should reflect latest learning)
• Assessment is most effective if done with students rather than TO students
• Grades are extrinsic motivators and can destroy intrinsic motivation. Poor grades have NO motivational value
• Make sure students know from the beginning what they will be graded on
• GIVE FEEDBACK THROUGHOUT
• Students should always be given opportunities to make-up assignments. Zero's are not an option!

2 days down and I've already learned so much! And I'm excited to come back for more :)

Sources:

Smore // smore.com