This lesson is a continuation of a previous lesson of a study on the poem “The Longest Journey in the World” by Micheal Rosen, found in Rainbow Volume 2 (their literature textbook). The poem talks about this little boy (the speaker) who competes with his brother every night to get ready for bed, as the last one to get ready would have to switch off the lights. This lesson was taught to my sole literature class, a banded class of 21 secondary one students from the normal academic stream in a 40 minute period. The objective of the lesson was for the students to understand the imagery (personification) and the themes that appear in the poem.
I started the activity by getting the students to close the windows and lights to ensure that the room was as dark as possible. Next, I got them to blindfold their eyes with black cloth. I told them that they would have to listen to the sound clip and let me know what they thought the sounds were, why they thought that those sounds were what they thought they were and how they felt as they listened to the sound clip. Thereafter, they had to write their thoughts on the whiteboard. This sparked off a discussion on the idea of imagination and fear of the dark (themes) and attitude of the speaker in the poem.
Next, I distributed worksheets for the students to work in groups of threes and got them to generate responses to a series of questions related to the ideas of imagery and theme. The worksheet was fairly simple and I used mind-maps and a graphic organizer to help them organize their points. Thereafter, the students had to share their responses.
Finally, in the last part of the activity, I returned the students the floor plan of a room. Previously, they had worked on sticking stickers of various objects (objects which appear in the poem eg Bed, Painting, Water Pipe, Light Switch, Pyjamas) on the floor plan of the little boy’s bedroom so that they had an idea why the little boy was so fearful of the journey between the light switch and his bed. The students will draw a new object on a sticker and paste it in the room. They will have to explain the following on their worksheet: i. their choice of object ii. the reason for their choice of the object (how the object would be frightening to the little boy when it comes alive (personified) in the dark.
I started the activity by getting the students to close the windows and lights to ensure that the room was as dark as possible. Next, I got them to blindfold their eyes with black cloth. I told them that they would have to listen to the sound clip and let me know what they thought the sounds were, why they thought that those sounds were what they thought they were and how they felt as they listened to the sound clip. Thereafter, they had to write their thoughts on the whiteboard. This sparked off a discussion on the idea of imagination and fear of the dark (themes) and attitude of the speaker in the poem.
Next, I distributed worksheets for the students to work in groups of threes and got them to generate responses to a series of questions related to the ideas of imagery and theme. The worksheet was fairly simple and I used mind-maps and a graphic organizer to help them organize their points. Thereafter, the students had to share their responses.
Finally, in the last part of the activity, I returned the students the floor plan of a room. Previously, they had worked on sticking stickers of various objects (objects which appear in the poem eg Bed, Painting, Water Pipe, Light Switch, Pyjamas) on the floor plan of the little boy’s bedroom so that they had an idea why the little boy was so fearful of the journey between the light switch and his bed. The students will draw a new object on a sticker and paste it in the room. They will have to explain the following on their worksheet: i. their choice of object ii. the reason for their choice of the object (how the object would be frightening to the little boy when it comes alive (personified) in the dark.
Where did u get the blindfolds and the sound clips?
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