These past two weeks having been moving pretty slowly for me as a student teacher. I'm hoping when I get on the other side of things and start following a pacing guide that I can see progress and movement. They wrote a rough draft of their personal narratives last week and this Friday they will start typing them formally for a grade. They also watched a short film called "The Crush" (I highly recommend it to anyone of multiple age groups) and a little Disney clip as well. We used these short films to introduce plot diagrams and development throughout the story. They did the same plot development diagram for lyrics of songs they have probably heard of before.
This led into their short story unit and analyzing the text for conflict, themes, ideas, and more. This is right along the lines of Grade 9 Common Core standard: "CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2" which states, "Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text." (Reading: Literature)
These break downs of plot and themes help understand the central idea of the story and how the conflict rises to a climax then resolves itself through the falling action and denouement. To make things a little more interesting and hands on, I put the 20ish students into 5 groups and bought poster board, cut out strips of paper with key events on them, glue sticks, and markers so that they could create a detailed plot diagram, understand key terms, and work together as a team to figure out the parts of the story. The short story is titled "The Necklace" and has some debate what the climax of the story is. My CT and I both agreed on the placement of events and let the students work.
The only thing I would do different than my CT is that I would let them work completely independently, and if they had questions, I would question them until they figured it out on their own. My CT pushed them in the right direction but I think gave too much away and told them when they were right and wrong instead of asking questions/free thinking. I don't want the students to think we won't help them but I refuse to just give away the answer.
If I student raises their hand and asks, "Is this right?" or "Does this go here?" What would you say? I feel like the right answer is answering their question with a question like, "Is there evidence to support it?" or a statement like "Tell me why that is or isn't correct." This makes them depend on their peers and themselves rather than a authority figure to tell them what to do.
I'm excited to see them complete their diagrams tomorrow, move on to their typed narratives, and hopefully start their novel soon. (Which I will introduce in a week and a half as my 5 day unit)
Here's an example of a plot diagram: http://exchange.smarttech.com/details.html?id=14ade8f2-d8bd-4ef2-a565-5dac41f63f02
Works Cited:
"Reading: Literature Grade 9-10." English Language Arts Standards. Common Core State Standards
Initiative, 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.
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