Creative Lesson - Poetry

I don't think the lesson is considered creative, but it was interactive as it generated discussion from the Sec 2 NA classes, and I enjoyed teaching it.

The poem I used was Grace Chua's "Letter From Home" which can be taken from http://210.193.6.218/story.asp?id=95 . Having the context of the poem in mind,  I started the lesson by asking the students, if they could pack up and leave the country alone tomorrow, to study in a different country, would they? The replies I got were mostly Yes (for obvious reasons?), and they were very enthusiastic to share the countries of their choices - Paris, London, USA, Japan... Asking the students why they would choose to leave, elicited even more responses.

The discussion really kickstarted the class and I did not hear any complains when I handed out the poem, and told them to keep what they said in mind. The discussion I carried out with the class focused on the themes and the mother's emotions. At the end of the class, I checked back with the students by asking them how would they feel if they had receive such a letter from their mothers while they were away, and what would they do. While most of them said they would Skype, email or write their mothers, there were a few (even the boys) who said they would cry or even come back home. It was very endearing. I think both the students and I enjoyed the lesson.

A creative lesson plan

The lesson is done with my Secondary 2 Language Arts class. The focus of the lesson is on character study of some of the key figures in Animal Farm—Old Major, Mr. Jones, Napoleon, Squealer, Snowball and Boxer. As this lesson is conducted during the school’s theme on popular culture, I have decided to ask the students to work in groups to create a found poem based on the character allocated to them.

What they are supposed to do is to select appropriate words and phrases from the first 3 chapters of Animal Farm that will help them create a found poem that illustrates the character traits of the particular character. In their found poems, they should include descriptions of the character as well as the key events that are related to the character. They can also play around with the color and fonts used, as well as the structure of the poem. However, they will need to explain why they have chosen to present their found poem in a certain way.

After the groups are done with the found poem, one representative from each group will have to write down the main discussion points on the whiteboard. This enables the students to learn about other characters aside from the one they are working on. In a single period lesson, the students have learnt about the 6 characters although they have been working only on one for their found poem. Selected students are to present on the group’s found poem.

My creative lesson at Presbyterian High School

My “creative” lesson was not so much as creative as it was a different style of approaching the novel for the students. As it was highlighted in the first post, Friedrich is approached in a very methodical manner, whereby only the key chapters are covered in depth in class. In these lessons, a summary is provided, the chapter is read through as a class and the teacher highlights important quotes and issues along the way.

Although I understood that Literature is being approached this way so that the Secondary 1 students can find this new subject manageable, I found it problematic as students took the novel just as it was being taught to them- in chapters. They did not make cross-references to other chapters or understand the significance of certain events. They also did not sympathize with the character Friedrich for the sufferings he had to go through as a Jew.

So in my first lesson with the class, I started the lesson by claiming that the chapter in focus for that lesson (“The Pogrom”) showed ‘Change’. They looked completely mystified as they never had approached a chapter thematically before. Then, instead of reading through the entire chapter with them, I highlighted important quotes from “The Pogrom”, where these quotes were either on an event or a character. For every quote from “The Pogrom”, I followed it by a quote from another chapter, on the same event or character. Then for every pair of quotes I showed, I flashed the questions “Is there a change in how Jews are treated?” and “Are they being treated better or worse?” and told them to mentally consider them.

Essentially, the lesson flowed like this.
Claim about ‘Change’
“The Pogrom” quote 1
“The Way to School” quote 1
Questions flashed.
“The Pogrom” quote 2
“The Way to School” quote 2
Questions flashed…

Again, I can’t say I was being creative. I was just presenting the chapter to them in a different way. For one, they actually looked interested, paid attention (this class is notorious for being unable to do that) and responded well. I was able to guide them to the understanding that the seemingly random events/characters in the chapter do actually bear significance. Along the way, I introduced new concepts like ‘private space’ and ‘mob mentality’ which they happily applied effectively in their homework. This was my creative lesson.

A creative lesson plan

The objective was for students to identify dramatic tensions in a text.
In the pre-activity the students will listen to two audio clips and are to write down three words that describe the the audio/vidoe clip.The first audio clip is from the Jaw's soundtrack (the theme song). The second is a video clip from the movie Shining. (It is a horror movie and the scene chosen shows a boy on a scooter riding along a narrow path, he will then hear the voices of two girls calling him and speaking to him. The clip will be cut before he sees a scene of the two girls lying in a blood pool). I asked students for their responses nd discusses with them how in an audio clip tensions can be brought out through the rhythm, beat and creseando while in a video it is through the silence, darkness, what is seen and unseen. The fact that most students wanted to know what happens next is evidence of the tension that is built up in the clip. I then discussed how tensions help in engaging the audiences' attention.
In the main activity I taught them four kinds of tension. They are tension of task (need to achieve a goal), tension of relationship (arguments between people), tension of surprise (you know whats going to happen but not when likewalking into a haunted house and knowing you will be scared) and tension of mystery (when you do not know hwat will happen next). I then discussed with the students how these tensions are similarly seen in play. We looked at extracts from the play and I modelled how to identify the tension and with what clues.
There were 5 extracts in the worskeet. I modelled and did the first one with the students. The second extract the students and I did it together and the students were told to do the third extract in pairs.
I then went through the answers and made them highlight relevant dialogue, stage directions and expression.
For the post-activity I showed them one more video and they were to identify what kind of tension was expressed.

Their homework was to do the last two extracts. 

A Creative Lesson Plan for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

One creative lesson plan that I conducted successfully involved using role-play to get students more physically and emotionally involved in an introductory lesson about the history of racial discrimination in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. It was a 60 minute lesson, and I started off the first half giving the students a very brief summary of the what happened in the years leading up to  the novel itself, which was set in Mississippi of the 1930s. I prepared a short Powerpoint Presentation and used a lot of pictures to explain the early years of slavery and the American Civil War. Then I spent a little more time setting the scene of the novel itself, outlining 3 main issues of the times: The Great Depression, Jim Crow Laws, and the prevalence of lynching.  Rather than pilling them with a mountain of facts, I was trying to get them to understand and empathise with the plight faced by African Americans during that time.

In the second half, I instructed the students to push their tables and chairs to side, and form a large circle of chairs in the middle of the classroom. They were quite familiar with this practice, so it was carried out fairly quickly. Before the lesson, I had scripted 3 scenarios about racial discrimination, selecting bits from pre-existing texts such as Angelica Gibbs’ short story, “The Test,” a scene from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and a final one from the movie, “The Colour Purple.” The 3 scenarios also involved an increasingly large number of students and an increasing amount of action. Only the selected students were given the scripts, while the rest of the class was assigned to predict what would happen, based on the character profiles provided for each scenario. I then gave the selected students 1-2 min to prepare themselves and run through the lines with their fellow actors. Although the students started off quite shy and embarrassed, they gradually got into the flow of things, and the 3^rd scenario was done quite well I think, given the limited time they had to prepare.

Finally, I showed them the original clip from “The Colour Purple,” which the 3^rd scenario was based on, so they could examine the differences between their interpretation and Hollywood’s version of that same scene.   

A creative lesson plan

I do not know if this was very creative but I personally liked this lesson plan because of the amazing work given by the students. It really made me laugh and smile.

The main aim of the lesson was for the students to realise that poems create an image and it was to break their fear of looking at all the words. This lesson was for Secondary two Normal Academic students. The theme of the poems chosen was on saving the environment. Hence, I started the lesson by showing them the climax of Lorax. Once I showed them the video, I elicited what the message was from the students. Once they managed to point out “Saving the environment”, I introduced the first poem, “The Day the Bulldozers Came”. I picked a student to read a stanza and I showed them an image of what the stanza was about. I repeated this process with stanza two and three. Hence, the students got an idea on what it meant by the poem trying to depict an image.

Then to develop the lesson, I introduced the second poem, “In Defence of Hedgehogs”. Students were to get into groups of four and I allocated one stanza per group. There were five stanzas and ten groups. Each group had to draw out the image(s) of their allocated stanza. After giving them about 15 minutes, I collected back all the drawings and we went through the poem as a class. We read each stanza and I would show the pictures drawn for that particular stanza. This way all their work was seen by the classmates and it was also a way for me to provide feedback.  At the end of it, we put up the pictures to look like a comic strip. The best thing about this lesson plan was seeing all the creative ways in which they depicted the image(s) in their stanza.  At the end of it, the students understood the poem and also realised that it was not that hard.

Blog Post 3

Frankly, I have not had the chance to test out my 'creative' lesson due to time constraint. As such, I will present a not-so-exciting lesson that I had implemented.

The students in my class are in the habit of shouting out generalized answers without checking for its accuracy in the text. As such, I was trying to encourage them to actively look for details in their texts, instead of recalling sometimes (in)accurate facts off their heads.  

In this lesson, I needed students to recall the details of the physical transformation (from a male to a female) made by the main character Andrew, in the short story “Father and Son” by Catherine Lim, to help them visualize how Andrew could turn into a girl by the end of the story. So, instead of having students shout out generalized answers, I drew a picture of a boy on the whiteboard and told students that they are to look for specific details of Andrew’s physical transformation then, run up to the board to make changes to the picture.

Initially, the changes made by students were conservative, where they only added details to the image. However, they quickly warmed up to the ‘game’ and started erasing details I had drawn, and replacing it with details they had identified in the book. For example, they erased the black shorts I had drawn, to replace it with a red cheongsam.

While this has not been a particularly creative lesson idea, the students had fun as they were excitedly volunteering to draw the next transformation. Through this activity, apart from being able to visualize the physical transformation, students also familiarized themselves with the specific changes that Andrew had taken, to transform himself from a boy to a girl.