Mar
8
Foreshadowing/Prediction via Implication/Inference
March 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Objectives:
Notice how an author uses hints to influence an audience by:
manipulating tone via word choice
using “negative indicators”
Understand the value in making predictions:
monitoring comprehension
making inferences
Warm-up:
Look at this famous optical illusion and explain how artists can use negative space to make meaning.
Mini Lesson:
Talk about what the students thought about the optical illusion.
Sometimes what is missing or left [...]
Mar
5
Setting
March 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Objectives:
Know what setting is
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 [...]
Mar
4
Dialect
March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Objectives:
Know what dialect is
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.
Your at a black-tie ball, and a waiter politely asks…
Your at a concert, and that person you’ve noticed all night finally comes over [...]
Mar
4
Onomatopoeia
March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Objectives:
Know what onomatopoeia is.
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 [...]
Mar
3
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 [...]
Mar
3
Audience vs. Speaker
March 3, 2008 | 1 Comment
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 [...]
Mar
2
Motif &/or Folk Tale
March 2, 2008 | Leave a 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 [...]
Mar
2
Allusion and Implication & Inference
March 2, 2008 | 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. [...]
Mar
1
Sentence Fluency
March 1, 2008 | 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 [...]
Feb
27
Stream of Consciousness
February 27, 2008 | Leave a 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 [...]
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