Lesson Plan Resources

1. Hobbit Movie Youtube Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSHLGnexe-w

2. Character Lesson Prezi: http://prezi.com/ht8l1cz9nuws/the-hobbit-unit-character/

3. Closure Assignment Handout:

You be the Author!

Employing all four lessons taught so far, you are going to write a short piece of fiction to share with the class. You piece needs to include: 1) The five elements of plot, 2) At least one of each of the four different character types, 3) At least two distinct and carefully described settings, 4) At least one person or place in the story needs to have a name that you make up.

The word needs to be entirely new, in that you must not know of it from somewhere else. You must also give it a definition and background just like Tolkien’s words that you investigated.

Additionally, each student will create a blog to act as the home-site for their story materials and a location for commentary and criticism. Those who wish, may include pictures in their stories from Google or Flickr.

We will have five in-class days to draft, workshop, and rewrite stories. Whatever isn’t completed in class must be completed by the 6^th day as homework and brought in polished and read to read to the class. The entire assignment is work 80 points: 30 for the story itself, 30 for the blogging, and 20 for the presentation. There is no page limit, minimum or maximum, nor is there a topic you must write on. Be creative and cover the requirements.

Unit Defense

The Hobbit, as a text, requires very little defense as an effective tool for teaching the elements of fiction. Its merits are self-evident in the text and the masterful style that Tokien employed when he wrote it. Creating a unit using technological tools, however, does take some defending, as technology shouldn’t be included for its own sake but rather for the betterment of the students’ education. This unit employs several different digital and technological tools, many of which are relatively new to classrooms. Some of the tools are used for the entire class at once, while others are brought up as options for diverse learning styles.

            All of the presentations and lectures over the course of this unit employ either Prezi or Powerpoint. Both of these formats allow the instructor to lecture hands free and pay attention to the classroom while filtering through the information (as opposed to writing and lecturing from the board). Additionally, both tools include audio, video, and image options to appeal to a variety of intelligence types. Students who are spatially intelligent will enjoy Prezi lectures in particular. These digital tools can both convey information to the entire class at once in a quick, efficient way and can be designed to be aesthetically pleasing to the audience.

            One of the major digital tools provided for student use is Google. Within itself, this site contains a variety of different applications (scholar, document, images, earth, and the search engine itself). Students will be allowed to access this site to research information for projects, share documents with fellow group members, find images for presentations, and locate areas of the planet for settings study. Its applications are so broad and irreplaceable that this site finds its way into several of the lessons. Similar to Google, in that every student will be using it, Blogger is a digital service that will allow each member of the class to have a localized site for their work. Student work can be available to the teacher and the rest of the class, and commentary can be made online without any need for paper copies.

            Several other digital tools will be made available for students as optional guides and helpers. Often these tools will act as alternatives to more traditional response mediums. For instance, students who do not feel that they are strongly artistic may use storyboards.com as an alternative to drawing their own storyboards. Similarly, Glogs will always be acceptable in place of posters or other creative, image-based response. Bubl.us is another website that aids with organization for visual learners, but its use will only be mandated once—at all other times it will be available as an optional tool for students to use. Visual learners will also benefit from the inclusion of youtube video clips to add another dimension to lectures.

            The Hobbit has always been a book worth teaching to students. Its storyline, characters, setting, and language are so rich that it provides a great mentor text to young writers. Technology does not change that, but simply provides faster, more efficient, and more appealing ways of conveying the lessons that this book has to offer. This unit plan has not reinvented anything about the way that books are taught to students, but simply changed the media of instruction and, in so doing, made the material more accessible to students growing up in the digital age.

Unit Calendar

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Reading The Hobbit	Reading The Hobbit	Reading The Hobbit	Reading The Hobbit	Reading The Hobbit
Powerpoint on Plot	Story-boarding	Story-boarding	Story-boards due; Prezi on Character	Working on character Glogs
Working on character Glogs	Glogs due; presentations	Introduction of setting, groups formed, students work on bubl.us	Students combine their bubble maps work on creating setting poster	Working on posters
Posters due; Introduction to language with prezi and student word choices	Computer research of etymology	Responses due; Hand out and explain closure assignment, create blogs	Pre-writing and drafting	Lit circle workshops and drafting
Lit Circle workshops and drafting	Lit circle workshops and drafting	Lit circle workshops and drafting	Presentations	Presentations

Lesson Plan #5: Closure

Grade Level: 9^th

Subject: English

Overview: The Closure assignment for The Hobbit unit plan is a creative writing assignment which requires that students combine the lessons they learn on plot, character, setting, and language to create a short story on a topic of their choosing. This synthesis serves to not only push students and write and “be producers,” but also reinforces lessons already learned and puts them into practice. Rather than have students take an objective tests on the subjects covered, they will prove their mastery of the different unit components by demonstrating their use in a short piece of fiction.

Standards:

·         1.2: Adapt verbal and nonverbal delivery techniques to effectively enhance messages of varying lengths and formats.

·         1.3: Apply and evaluate effective listening strategies to fit the purpose, situation, and setting of the communication.

·         3.1: Analyze the ways in which authors develop literary elements (setting, plot, character, conflict, point of view, mood, tone, theme) to impact works and readers.

·         4.6: Create and evaluate media messages for a variety of audiences and purposes.

·         5.1: Apply the steps of the writing process to develop, evaluate, and refine writing.

·         5.5: Demonstrate knowledge of language choices and their impact on writing by showing purposeful control of voice, sentence fluency, and word choice.

·         5.6: Apply conventions of standard written English (e.g., usage, punctuation, spelling) appropriate for purpose, audience, and form.

·         5.8: Write using a variety of forms and genres and evaluate one’s own and others’ writing for effectiveness of form and genre.

21^st Century Skills

·         1A: Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.

·         2A: Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

·         3A: Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.

·         4B: Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies and providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.

Technologies Used

• ·         Blogger: Students will create their own blog for their stories where they will post or attach their entire pieces. Students assessing and commenting on their work can then simply respond to the blog post with criticisms and complements.

• ·         Flickr: Any students wanting to accompany their performance of their story with pictures may use flickr or flickr storm to create a slideshow to go along with their reading.

Lesson Plan Activities: Each student will be given a copy of the closure assignment handout and the instructor will explain the parameters of the assignment. They will be asked to write a creative piece of fiction employing all of the lessons they learned throughout the unit. Their stories will need to include the five elements of plot: introduction, problem, rising action, climax, and conclusion; at least one example of each of the four prescribed character types: flat, round, static, dynamic; at least one major change in setting with descriptions that set them apart; and at least one word (name of person or place) that they create complete with its own etymology. There is no page limit for the final assignment and there is no required genre or style (it may be fantasy like The Hobbit but it doesn’t have to be).

            One the first day of the assignment, students will start with making a blog where they will post or attach their story once it is finished. Day two will be spent in class pre-writing and brainstorming, with the beginning of their first draft due in class on the third day for writers workshop. In groups students will peer review their work and continue writing their stories. The workshops will continue for three days, with the final draft being due on the seventh day of the lesson. Completed works will be posted or attached onto blogs and students will be required to comment upon their peers’ stories on their blogs. Each story will be read aloud in class by its author. If students want pictorial accompaniment, they will be allowed to use flickr slideshows.

Assessment: The closure assignment is worth 80 points, with 20 being given for the reading aloud and 30 given for the blog. The remaining 30 will be given based on the rubric.

	One	Two	Three	Four	Five
Plot	Only one element present	Only two elements present	Only three elements present	Only four elements present	All elements present
Character	No recognizable differences between character types	Missing three character types	Missing two character types	Missing one character type	All character types present
Setting	No sense of place in the story	Only one setting in the story	More than one setting, neither described in detail	More than one setting, only one described in great detail	More than one setting described in great detail
Language	Language aspect ignored	Uses an existing word or definition	Uses a new word, but does not offer a definition	Name of person or place used, not defined well	Name of person or place used as assigned and cleverly defined
Conventions	More than eight errors	More than six errors	More than four errors	More than two errors	Two or fewer errors
Timeliness	More than three days late	Three days late	Two days late	One day late	On time