Mar

8

Foreshadowing/Prediction via Implication/Inference

March 8, 2008 | Literary Technique, literary term, Voice, word choice, writing technique  |  2 Comments

Objectives:

Notice how an author uses hints to influence an audience by:

  1. manipulating tone via word choice
  2. using “negative indicators”

Understand the value in making predictions:

  1. monitoring comprehension
  2. making inferences

Warm-up:

Look at this famous optical illusion and explain how artists can use negative space to make meaning.

negative space

Mini Lesson:

Talk about what the students thought about the optical illusion.

Sometimes what is missing or left unsaid is as important as what is. Hints often depend on association, which can come in the form of the cannotations of words, incomplete concepts, conspicuous omissions or other techinques. However it is done, an author raises an issue or feeling to the reader. Whenever presented with a question or an incompletion, the brain always seeks an answer; for the reader this often takes the form of a prediction.

Listen to the first verse of Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” and write down a prediction of what you think will happen.

Now listen to the rest of the song. Here’s the lyrics.

Guiding questions for discussion:

What effect do these words have on the audience:

  1. young/boy
  2. restless
  3. wonderlust
  4. cried

How effect might the absence of a father character affect the characterization of Billy?

Application: (as you see fit)

Mar

5

Setting

March 5, 2008 | Conventions, Genre/Form, literary term, Sentence Fluency, writing technique  |  Leave a Comment

Objectives:

  1. Know what setting is
  2. Understand how setting is communicated through context clues

Warm-up:

In your learning log, paraphrase the following definition:

(Holman, C. Hugh, and William Harmon. “Setting.” A Handbook to Literature. 5th ed. 1 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1986.)

The physical, and sometimes spiritual, background against which the action of a narrative takes place. The elements making up a setting are:

  1. the actual geographical location, its topography, scenery, and such physical arrangements as the location of windows and doors in a room;
  2. the occupations and daily manner of living of the characters;
  3. the time or period in which the action takes place, for example, epoch in history or season of the year;
  4. the general environment of the character, for example, religious, mental, moral, social and emotional conditions through which the people in the narrative move.

Mini Lesson:

Discuss the predominant threads of several kids’ warm-ups

Pass-out the lyrics to Marty Robbins’ “El Paso”

Guiding questions?

  1. What clues are there in the story that tell WHERE the action took place?
  2. What clues are there in the story that tell WHEN the action took place?
  3. What are the moral/emotional/spiritual constraints on the characters/story?
  4. What effect does the setting have on the audience?

Application: (according to your needs)

Suggestions of other songs to use?

Modifications to the lesson?

Mar

4

Dialect

March 4, 2008 | literary term, Voice, word choice, writing technique  |  Leave a Comment

Objectives:

  1. Know what dialect is
  2. Understand how dialect creates effects mood

Warm-up:

Pretend each person in the following situations asks you how you are feeling. Write a sentence or two, appropriate for the situation, answering the question.

  1. Your at a black-tie ball, and a waiter politely asks…
  2. Your at a concert, and that person you’ve noticed all night finally comes over to ask…
  3. Your walking down the street of an unfamiliar part of town, when you become aware of a slow persistent squeal come to a halt as a rusted van with “candy” spray painted on the side stops beside your path. As you walk nervously by, a greasy haired man rubs his hand across the scratchy stubble of his neck and chin as he asks…
  4. It’s your twenty-first birthday, and your best friend and you just celebrated by skydiving out of an airplane for the first time. When you land, your friend still euphoric from the adrenaline rush, comes in bounding skips to celebrate, yelling…
  5. Your worried father, who told you he’d rather you not go out on such a night, walks into your hospital room as you begin to come-out of anesthesia from the surgery resulting from a car accident. His first words, as he takes your hand in one of his and uses the other to brush your hair from in front of your eyes, are to ask…

Mini Lesson:

  1. Consider all the information carried in the way we say our words…not only our emotions, but possibly our region, our age, our education, our gender and so much more.
  2. Sometimes we even change these aspects of our voice or vocabulary to fit-in or to keep from drawing attention to us.
  3. Think about all the baggage we carry in our dialect…and how much an author can communicate about a character just by giving him/her a specific dialect!
  4. Rather than tell us about a character’s background, a good author can lead us to assume so much about a character…assumptions that can quickly develop a character, or twist the plot.

Listen to this 1947 song called Cigaretes & Whusky by The Sons of the Pioneers. Here’s the lyrics.

Guiding Questions:

  1. How is dialect used in the song?
  2. What purpose might the author be intending?

Discussion

Application: (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

As always, please suggest:

  1. other songs that would work well
  2. modifications to the lesson

Mar

4

Onomatopoeia

March 4, 2008 | literary term, Uncategorized, Voice, word choice, writing technique  |  Leave a Comment

Objectives:

  1. Know what onomatopoeia is.
  2. Understand how “sound-words” can convey meaning that strictly denotative words can’t.

Warm-up:

Describe a situation or a time when words could not express how you really felt, for example when something amazing or devastating happened, or when you felt uncomfortable or “on the spot.” What kinds of words/sounds came out of your mouth by choice or mistake.

Mini-Lesson:

  1. Start talking about what kids wrote…
  2. What about the ubiquitous “umm” of stressful times when your brain works so much faster than your mouth?…Or those extra special times when you finally get to talk to that special someone and all that comes out are mashed-up words…What about those crazy made-up sounds that work like inside jokes?…What about that cough-masked explicative?
  3. Onomatopoeia is/is derived from Greek for “name-making”
  4. Lyrics to Cab Calloway’s “Jumpin’ Jive” are not necessary to catch the examples of onomatopoeia.

Guiding questions:

  1. What kinds of non-sense words (without denotation) are used in this song?
  2. What effect do they have on the audience?

My students love this clip of Cab Calloway’s “Jumpin’ Jive” with the Nicholas Brothers.

Some of Cab Calloway’s songs use onomatopoeia to mask references to drugs, alcohol & sex, topics that ranged from illegal to taboo during a career that coincided with Prohibition and organized crime. If you’d like to explore some of these topics, you might consider handing-out a copy of the song’s lyrics.

Application: (usually adding onomatopoeia to a draft, but otherwise…as you see fit)

Another song that works well for onomatopoeia: “Doo, doo, da is all I want to say to you” The Police.

As always, please suggest:

  1. other songs that would work well
  2. modifications to the lesson

Mar

3

Imagery

March 3, 2008 | Literary Technique, literary term, Voice, word choice, writing technique  |  3 Comments

Rationale:

The magic of writing comes when an author and an audience harmonize–the author anticipates what the reader needs, and the reader feels like the author “gets” them. Mastery of this art means we can commune(icate) over centuries, across cultures and past other chasms that would divide us.

It’s not so unusual to feel this in conversation (in dialogue) because there are so many more channels besides our words carrying meaning. If we notice the discussion going awry, we can change our posture; the tone, pace, pitch & volume of our words; or our facial, hand & eye gestures. Let’s face it, the interaction changes the very words we choose to use & when we use them. None of this seems to be available to the writer…at first.

Students need to see that meaning can be borne by many channels in writing, just as it is in talking. All sorts of figurative language, sound devices, connotations, forms/genre, sentence/paragraph construction and organization can be manipulated. Which grammatical rules are broken or preserved, the layout & media, and images depicted by the words all subtly nudge and coax the reader wherever the author wishes to go.

Objective: Know how imagery can affect the reader & influence meaning.

Warm-up:

Write a quick sketch-in-words about your room. Make sure to describe it well enough that we get a sense of who you are.

Mini Lesson:

Discuss a couple of examples from student warm-ups–focus on a couple of meaningful depictions.

Explain that the following song is somewhat vague, in a literal sense–that much of what is meant could be up to individual interpretation.

Eventhough it’s literal meaning might remain elusive, it’s use of imagery is quite vivid.

Pass-out the lyrics (suggested), and ask them to focus on the guiding questions:

  1. What images did you find interesting?
  2. What do you think the author might achieve by using these images?

Play “Cast a Hook in Me”Cast a Hook in Me by Laura Veirs.

Other songs that might work well:

  1. “Strange Fruit” especially performed by Billie Holiday
  2. “Maybe Sparrow” by Neko Case
  3. “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone

Application: (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

Mar

3

Audience vs. Speaker

March 3, 2008 | Literary Technique, literary term, Uncategorized, writing technique  |  2 Comments

Sometimes students have a hard time distinguishing the speaker (particularly of a poem) from the author. The fact that authors pick specific speakers for their work is an important literary technique to develop meaning; not only does it lend subtext via the point of view, but often satire and other techniques are predicated upon it.

Objectives:

  1. Figure-out via contextual clues who the speaker of a work is.
  2. Understand what effect the use of a speaker has on the purpose & audience.

Warm-up:

  1. What do you think the nature and value of pretending is?
  2. Why do children do it? Do animals do it? Adults?
  3. Can you state a claim with examples/evidence?

Mini Lesson:

Discuss the students’ ideas about pretending.Relate pretending to the author’s “speaker” as a literary/writing techniqueParallel the purposes given for pretending with their appropriate audiences/targets, and then also to the author’s purpose for her/his audience.Prepare the exemplar:

  1. Pass-out the lyrics to Nada Surf‘s “These Bones”
  2. Guiding questions:
    • Who is the speaker? How do you know?
    • What effect does it create for the audience?
    • How can this purpose be achieved more easily/differently than by the author alone?
  3. Play nada-surf-see-these-bones.mp3.
    • Available from KEXP’s “Song of the Day” podcast for free.
  4. Discuss the guiding questions ’till the satisfaction of the goals.

Application: (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

Does anyone reading this entry know of any other mini-exemplars that would work with this lesson? How about modifications to the lesson? Leave comments if you would like.

Mar

2

Motif &/or Folk Tale

March 2, 2008 | Genre/Form, literary term, writing technique  |  1 Comment

*Note: All three of these lessons could be done separately (to keep them as “mini” as possible). This lesson covers three days; the first day focuses on the first song in the series & “Folk Tale,” where the kids’ application usually involves a quick write reflecting the elements of the genre study. The next day covers “motif” & the next song; application involves revision by considering pre-existing motifs that might enhance their draft. Day three focuses on purpose/audience & application of their draft towards some end.

Day 1:

Objective: Know what a folk tale is.

Warm-up:

In your own words, tell how “folk tale” is different and similar to “myth” and “legend.” Try to think of specific examples to support your argument.

Mini-Lesson:

Discuss their ideas regarding their definitionsGenerally, folk tale include myth & legend, however…

  1. folk tale’s chief function it the transmission of culture/nationalism.
  2. folk tales serve to transmit the essence of a people group
  3. folk tales can be cautionary

Myth’s usually are religious/faith based

  1. they focus on creation/explanation
  2. have prehistoric roots (beyond the scope of culture/nation)
  3. but in as much as faith is a part of culture, they can be considered a sub-set of folk tale

Legends

  1. a known person
  2. a known area
  3. use exaggeration
  4. Legends usually talk about values, so they can overlap culture. For example, both China & Mongolia trace their foundation to Genghis Khan and probably have legends about his greatness, but they are still very different culturally.

Pass-out the lyrics to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and consider the following essential questions:

  1. What people group is this for?
  2. What lesson/value/message might be transmitted figuratively through this story?
  3. What might the purpose of such a song have?
  4. What elements of the previous genres does this story have?

Application: (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

Day 2:

Objectives:

  1. Figure-out the motif that was carried from yesterday’s song to today’s exemplar
  2. Notice how the use of motif reinforces the purpose/genre of folk tale

Warm-up:

Write a single paraphrase for the following definitions for “motif” into your learning log:

 

  • A motif is an idea, a theme that is repeated or carried through an individual work as when John Steinbeck’s narrator constantly compares Lenny to an animal such as horse or bear throughout the novel Of Mice and Men. There are musical motifs as well. In Jaws, the approach of the shark is always signaled by a strumming of bass strings slowly as the music builds in pitch and speed.
  • A motif is also an idea which is so powerful and recognizable that it will be used by many authors and artists in many different works in many different ages. Many writers will liken the ages of a person to the seasons of the year. In the spring of one’s life is youth and the winter is old age when older persons are said to have snow on the roof.

Mini-Lesson:

What was in common to both definitions?

How were they different?

Now that you know what motif is, lets see if you can see which motif(s) are carried from yesterday’s song to today’s, “Major Tom” by Peter Schilling. Here’s the lyrics.

Discuss

Application: (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

Day 3:

Objectives:

  1. Understand one way motif can be used to create meaning
  2. Understand the power of picking the proper from for your purpose and audience

Warm-up:

Considering the content of the previous two songs, what nations could this “folk tale” be serving?What value would such people find in this tale?

Mini-Lesson:

Background of space accidents:

  1. Deaths: Apollo 1, Challenger & Columbia for USA
  2. Near deaths: Apollo 13 for USA
  3. Soyuz 1 & 11 for USSR

Realms of Mutable/Mortal & Immutable/Immortal:

  1. Space as the heavens
  2. Motifs of Ascendancy or Transmutability or Deification of a hero

Listen (and follow the lyrics) to The Long Winters‘ “The Commander Thinks Aloud” and consider the guiding questions below:

  1. What point of view is it written from?
  2. Consider Columbia’s re-entry disaster, what purpose might the application of motif & folk tale play for this song’s purpose and audience?

Application (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

Does anyone reading this entry know of any other mini-exemplars that would work with this lesson? How about modifications to the lesson? Leave comments if you would like.

Mar

2

Allusion and Implication & Inference

March 2, 2008 | Literary Technique, literary term, writing technique  |  1 Comment

Objective (really one objective written from two different perspectives):

  • Understand how authors IMPLY meaning though ALLUSION
  • Know how to INFER meaning by investigating references

Warm-up

  • Read the following excerpt from the Worsley OnLine school project
    • An allusion is a literary device that stimulates ideas, associations, and extra information in the reader’s mind with only a word or two. Allusion means ‘reference’. It relies on the reader being able to understand the allusion and being familiar with all of the meaning hidden behind the words.
    • “As the cave’s roof collapsed, he was swallowed up in the dust like Jonah, and only his frantic scrabbling behind a wall of rock indicated that there was anyone still alive”.
    • The allusion in the sentence above is to Jonah. The reader is expected to recognize the reference to Jonah and the whale, which should evoke an image of being ‘swallowed alive’ … in this case, behind a wall of dust and rock.
    • Allusions in writing help the reader to visualize what’s happening by evoking a mental picture. But the reader must be aware of the allusion and must be familiar with what it alludes to.
  • List as many allusions as you can think of from literature, film, music or other media in your life

Mini Lesson

  • Discuss the examples the students provided from their warm-up
  • Emphasize:
    • packing a whole association into just a few words
    • the reader’s awareness
  • Prepare the class for the audio exemplar
    • Explain the context of Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner”
      • finale of Woodstock 1969
      • Woodstock as peace movement/protest against Vietnam War (esp. since Tet 1968)
      • Juxtaposition of picking the national anthem as media for finale of protest
      • Curious omission of vocals
    • Hand-out lyrics to “Star-Spangled Banner”
      • Scott wrote these lyrics while watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore in 1814
      • Hendrix could assume his audience would know the lyrics
    • Essential Questions:
      • Where does Hendrix stray from the lyrics?
      • What implication (via allusion) could Hendrix be making
        • Purpose
        • Audience
        • Form
  • Discussion
    • What did the kids notice?
    • What might Hendrix be saying?
      • Notice the cacophony accompanies the lyrics reference to
        • “rockets red glare”
        • “bombs bursting in air”
      • Instruments
        • guitar cacophony
          • air strikes (re: Operation Rolling Thunder ’65-’68)
          • whistle of dropping bombs
          • grinding of jet engines
          • explosions/napalm
        • snare drum
          • irregularity
          • small arms gun fire

Application: (according to your classroom or curricular needs)

Does anyone reading this entry know of any other mini-exemplars that would work with this lesson? How about modifications to the lesson? Leave comments if you would like.

Mar

1

Sentence Fluency

March 1, 2008 | Sentence Fluency, word choice, writing technique  |  Leave a Comment

*Note to teacher:

  • “Fluency” is a term that seems confused in education…especially in writing instruction.
  • I’ve heard teachers talk about “fluency” as being the ease to which a student can put words and sentences down on the page. I contend that this is not fluency, but automaticity or expertise.
  • Fluency (for the purposes of this lesson) is the prose equivalent of poetic “meter.” It is the rhythm and flow of the sentences and paragraphs making up the prose composition.
  • I believe this is an important distinction not only because our inaccuracy can cause confusion for our students, but because of my belief that mastery in prose is predicated upon poetry; and therefore the prose writer’s ability to match his/her fluency regarding his/her purpose, audience and form is an essential yet neglected prerequisite of good prose writing.

Objectives:

  • Realize that the way you organize and order your words, phrases & clauses within your sentences have an effect (intentionally or unintentionally) on your audience.
  • Know how sentence length changes your reader’s understanding, perception or mood.

Warm-up:

  • How many different ways can you reword the following sentence:
    • I hope to see the day when people can live in harmony with nature.

Mini-Lesson:

  • Regarding the sentences you created:
    • Did you use any synonyms, punctuation, order or other modifications?
    • How does the meaning change between your sentences?
    • How does the sound of reading the sentences change?
    • How does the emotion of the sentences change?
  • Listen to Warren Polks student’s social commentary piece, “A City Bigger Than.” A City Bigger Than by Warren Polk.
    • What is his purpose?
    • Who is his targeted audience?
    • Does his word choice and sentence construction carry an emotional meaning?
    • When does he use long sentences?…short ones?…inverted order?
    • What other techniques does he use?

Application: (According to your classroom/curricular needs)

Does anyone reading this entry know of any other mini-exemplars that would work with this lesson? How about modifications to the lesson? Leave comments if you would like.

Feb

27

Stream of Consciousness

February 27, 2008 | literary term, Organizational Methods, writing technique  |  1 Comment

Objectives:

  • Students know that stream of consciousness as an organizational method of writing
  • Students understand the essential role of “Gestalt” in stream of consciousness

Warm-up:

  • Paraphrase the following definition of “Stream of Consciousness” from my old college text

Mini-Lesson:

  • Share paraphrases
  • From what you’ve heard, what can be the problem with reading a selection employing Stream of Consciousness
    • randomness
    • getting lost
    • boredom
  • Explain the essential role of “Gestalt” in Stream of Consciousness
  • Set-up musical selection (tell them this is what you’d like them to listen for)
    • Seemingly random events (transient state of waking on a spring morning, a great breakfast, love, media critique)
    • What is the purpose in sharing all these images?
    • How do they accomplish the author’s purpose? What is the author’s purpose?
  • (Optional) hand-out typed lyrics to the song (makes following along easier)
  • Play “The President’s Dead“, by Okkervil River

    • Available via free subscription from KEXP‘s “Song of the Day” podcast
    • (Optional: play the video)
  • Discussion
    • Talk about the previously asked questions
    • Outline the circuitous route of the lyrics.
    • Would you say this organizational style is more literal or figurative?
    • How is this an example of “Stream of Consciousness”?
    • What other techniques do you think they used to accomplish their purpose?

Application (according to your classroom/curricular needs)

Does anyone reading this entry know of any other mini-exemplars that would work with this lesson? How about modifications to the lesson? Leave comments if you would like.