Lesson Plan: A Short Story Idea

So I was realizing that I haven't shared a lesson plan idea in a while, so this is one I did in English class this past week.  It is great to be able to find resources that you can use online in your classroom.  I had wanted to do a unit on short stories to help the students with their own reading comprehension and grappling with a difficult text. One trick is that a lot of the short stories I would go to they do in their regular curriculum and I didn't want to use one some kids had read and others had not, so I got the idea of some story ideas from this teacher.  One of which was "A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain.  As I was searching I also found some great lists of things to know about short stories.

So I decided to go over the five essential parts of a short story with them: plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting.  There is a great rap from Flocabulary that talks about this that my students still remember a week later and can quote!  Even though it was a bit lame, I haven't had one student roll their eyes too much at it and they even seem to imply with their body language that they actually learned something! (P.S. All of these ideas are also pinned to my Pinterest board if you'd like to see other similar ideas).

So we started off with the rap, and then I wanted to read the story with them.  I had never read this story prior to my lesson preparation, so in my research I learned that knowing about the Cardiff Giant is useful so I found this website  with a video podcast of the Giant.  Just a warning with the video, fast forward the first minute because he goes on this rant about Obama and the birth certificate thing.  We watched that video, and then read the story which has a great print-off on this same website.

After reading the story and discussing what made sense and what didn't, I had the students identify the five essential parts of a short story.  This was great because there are easier parts like the setting and plot and even characters.  But we talked about conflict and theme, which sets us up to dive deeper into those harder topics with future short stories.

The students seemed to enjoy the story.  I was a little worried they wouldn't because it is not one of those "SCARY" stories, but it held their attention, it wasn't too long, and when asked had the decency to say it wasn't completely lame. Go Mark Twain, continuing to hold the minds of teenagers for a couple of pages.

Yep that's our guy

Women in Television

So today I watched the end of the season of Elementary.  Have you ever seen it?  I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it yet so SPOILER ALERT!  If you haven't seen it and had no desire then feel free to keep reading.  It is a Sherlock Holmes drama.  Sherlock Holmes moves to New York after getting out of rehab, and is assigned a live-in sober companion--Joan Watson.  It finally makes sense to me why Watson hangs out around Sherlock.  But the cool things is that it is a female Watson! The show goes through as Holmes consultants with the NYPD.  He eventually comes across his arch-nemesis...Moriarty.  This show then turns around a reveals that Moriarty is a female character too!! In the books and movies, Moriarty has always been a male character.  I am way excited that this show decided to write and create strong female character roles.

We have so much in the media in which women are the stupid, emotional, irrational people.  We can't make decisions without a man's help in a lot of situations.  There are shows that do not follow this, and I love how Elementary doesn't!

Yay Lucy Liu as Joan Watson!

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

This week I will feature stories from ABCNews.com

5. This was an interesting article today....Alleged Nazi SS Commander Found Living in Minnesota.  He is 94 years old and is just now being discovered.  I think about what that does to your life? http://abcnews.go.com/US/alleged-nazi-ss-commander-found-living-minnesota/story?id=19404716

4. This is a cool video...a 10 year old boy in San Antonio sang the national anthem at the beginning of the finals game and then was criticized for doing so because he is Mexican.  The kid stood up for himself, and told the world that he was American born and raised, and that the color of his skin didn't matter if he was American.  The finals then invited him back to sing again.  How cool is that!!
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/instant-index-10-year-sebastian-de-la-cruzs-19407344

US News | Weird News | More ABC News Videos

3. Immigration Law Proposal Clears Hurdle...it would be nice to maybe see this resolved in a way that people are relatively okay with http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/immigration-law-proposal-clears-hurdle-19377735?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19378524

US News | Weird News 

2. NSA Leak...this guy I have spent most of the week trying to figure out who he is....this video is somewhat helpful. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/reported-nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-19369193?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19369746

US News | Weird News | More ABC News Videos

1. This was honestly my FAVORITE story in a long time.  This story is about a husband and wife team of doctors...she says that she can't sleep because he snores.  They get a sleep study together and apart...and she sleeps fine either way.  I love the husband's look...it is totally "I was ACTUALLY right!" http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/solutions-couples-sleep-19369498?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=19369746

US News | Weird News

Places You Will Go!

So I am plum out of ideas about what to write about today....so I looked to Paula's Place for inspiration.  Her prompt today is: "Someplace you'd like to move or visit".   I have lots of places that I would like to go visit.

1. Washington D.C.
2. Boston
3. Philadelphia
4. Palmyra, NY
5. Kirtland, OH
6. Mount Rushmore
7. Italy
8. France
9. England
10. Germany
11. Switzerland
12. Spain
13. Vatican City
14. Hawaii
15. Nova Scotia
16. Prince Edward Island
17. Australia
18. New Zealand
19. South Africa
20. Visit all the LDS temples in the lower 48

I could probably keeping going but I like the evenness of 20...it will be funny if I actually ever go to all of these places.  It sure sounds expensive for a girl who doesn't have a passport or a lot of time off and not a lot of money to spend on extra stuff like that. But I want to dot the world!

www.mapsofworld.com

P.S. I am blogger famous!  I got a shout out on Trish's blog, go check it out! 

Shakespeare Plus Autism

So my only actor friend (well at least that I know of...there might be some high school friend that acts but I clearly don't talk to them that often) shared this article on Facebook [yes you Katie :)] The article is called "The connection between Shakespeare and autism" And we taught Shakespeare together once for a MAGNIFICENT summer at Cedar Ridge Academy.  So of course I clicked on it because I want to know what is out there. This is actually quite the interesting article.

Our school does not teach highly autistic students, but we do see students on the other end of the autism spectrum (like NLD and Asprerger's).  As this article points out, with these students you are not going to immediately think of Shakespeare. But I have seen students that would have NEVER tackled Shakespeare on their own, take it and run with it.  They immerse themselves in the language and let them try it out and guess what they are getting at--and suddenly they are not scared and they can handle it.  

So go check out the article...what Shakespeare play would you try with students that aren't great with language?  Hmm....what about with ESL?

Thank you to shakespeare.mit.edu for the picture which is also where I get my copies of plays when I do it in class.  Printing them for a small class like mine is cheaper than buying books.

Life, it is full of...

Life, it is full of....

drama

stress

heartaches

drama

pressure

headaches

Yes, life is complicated, hard, and confusing sometimes.

Today was a hard day....but I've done hard days.

And today was so hard that I really don't even know how to process it.

But life is also full of...

happiness

perspective

growth

and learning

So though I have learned a lot on this roller coaster

I don't like that I can't seem to get off the roller coaster

I have survived before, I am going to survive this time.

P.S. Thanks guys for letting me be vague and vent even if it was through some pretty lame poetry.  I hope you see that I'm fine and just needed to get it all out!

Thanks to this link http://www.boolumaster.com/mixes-dj-blog/positive-quotes-11-9-11-enjoy-your-life/ for their great thoughts

Movie Review: Inside North Korea

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-North-Korea/dp/B004HFKPOK

So I was thinking about something to review today and I wanted to share what we have been doing in class recently.  So not only is this a great movie review but it is also a great lesson plan idea for when you want an easy day.  This movie is done by National Geographic.  This follows Lisa Ling into North Korea as she films a documentary about a Nepal eye surgeon. He is going to heal 1,000 people of cataracts.  While they are there, they can film the culture around them.

So why do I like showing it in class? It is a great visual for the students of what North Korea is like.  They have trouble understanding the US tension with them and concern we have about the nuclear threats until they see this video.  They also have trouble understanding the truce between North and South and the DMZ.  If you don't show anything else from this movie except the clip of them at the DMZ then that would be worth it.  You can really understand what it is like there.

http://torrentbutler.eu/51376-national-geographic-inside-north-korea

Concerns to have as a teacher: So as always, every good teacher should preview the movie/clip they are showing in their class because you know your students best! But the biggest concern that I have had every time I show this video is creating a prejudice against the people of North Korea.  I emphasize with the students that we don't know how much choice the people of North Korea have so they might not really "hate" us.  I also emphasize difference of culture and though we view them as "strange"/"odd", they might find us strange and odd too. So we talk about accepting diversity when we watch this movie.

Another thing to keep in mind too is that this movie is now dated.  It was created before the death of Kim Jong Il, and his son is now the third dictator of the country--Kim Jong Un.  (Not to be confused with Kim Il Sung the original dictator) Getting this straight in your head and student's is also really helpful for when watching.

While Watching: I usually have a set of nine questions that I wrote for my students to answer.  They get a lot out of just watching and asking questions so sometimes I have them just respond to the film at different points too with questions and statements.  It is about an hour long so great for a classroom but usually we end up watching in about an hour and a half because I pause and clarify things, answer questions, and ask questions.

Oh p.s. I first just showed this to my US History classes because of the Korean War in US History class.  However, I recently showed it in all of classes with the World History spin with communism, Government spin of foreign policy, and World Geography spin of the theme place/region.  Overall,  it is a great way to connect current events with history too.