Blogpost 3: Creative Lesson

My most creative lesson was, undoubtedly, the introduction to the character of Joseph Strorm, the father of the protagonist in The Chrysalids. To get the students to have a feel of the character, I had to do a little acting during the start of the lesson.

I studied the character for a week through his appearances in the first few chapters of the novel, paying attention to his speech (the specifics words he says as well) and mannerisms. I then printed out the class rules (each rule on A3-sized paper) and taped them around the classroom, to make it look similar to the description of the protagonist's home, where rules from The Repentances (the other book that survived the nuclear fallout in The Chrysalids) are put up on every wall of the house.

The students were shocked when I greeted them with a scowl and I proceeded to discipline them about their behaviour, lack of punctuality and attitude. Their flaws did aid in the portrayal, as they genuinely thought I was disciplining them. Talks later with some of the boys revealed that they did find it odd that I used terms that seemed oddly familiar (they were from the book). The boys did say afterwards that they felt oppressed in the classroom, and it felt weird that I was so furious for a good ten minutes ("I thought Sir had lost it"). The ruse ended when I got the boys to "bow their heads and pray for repentance", something which is common in The Chrysalids after any character makes a mistake, and my CT and I started laughing that they actually did so!

The lesson continued with a handout that required them to record how they felt when put in an environment like this, as well as how my character looked, moved, and interacted with others. They then compared their observations with their knowledge of Joseph Strorm, a character who they now had to produce a character sketch of. To aid them in their task, I had two volunteers from the class to act out two key incidents from the book with me to let the boys get a visual feel of what was happening in the novel. Their character sketch and a mindmap they produced afterwards (this was also something that was required of them) did inform me about their understanding of the character and all signs did point to a successful lesson in the end.

Assessment of Literature in St. Andrew's Secondary School

St. Andrew's Secondary School mainly uses summative assessment in grading its students. Two assignments and a test or exam is used to collate the students' CA or SA marks at the end of the term. There are other projects that test their learning as well, such as the Favourtie Poem Project that the Secondary Ones do that to test on their understanding of poetry which they covered in Term 1.

Other interesting programmes available for the students, such as Poetry Slam for the lower secondary and Drama lessons for the upper secondary actually get assessed under their English marks, as part of the LangLit approach for the masses at St. Andrew's so that it benefits everyone, not just the Literature students.

As for the Secondary Three who I teach, they are mainly assessed via the two-assignment, one-common test/exam format, with the teacher being given the freedom to choose their best two assignments to include in their CA marks. Their Drama and Kite Runner project (where they read the text, produce a presentation and scrapbook about it, and make a kite to fly) will begin next term and will be included under their English CA.

Blog Post 3

I had to teach metaphors to Secondary 1 Normal Academic students for one of my lessons. As it was a follow up from a previous lesson on simile, I had to ensure that students do not confuse similes with metaphors. I did a quick assessment by raising examples on powerpoint and asking students to answer if the example was a simile using the given colored paper (green for yes, red for no). These examples included metaphors. For those that were metaphors, I used the opportunity to introduce the concept of metaphors to them. 

After they have grasped the basic concept of metaphors, I used pop music from Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Akon etc to arouse their interest at the same time to better teach them the concept of similes and metaphors. They had to listen to the music and fill up a prepared worksheet and identify the simile/metaphor present and explain what was compared and how they recognized it to be a simile or metaphor. 

It is surprising that they are able to identify the metaphors and similes in the music and categorise them accurately within a short time. They were also able to explain the some of the meaning of the metaphor/similes. They found it enjoyable and were able to learn faster. They also liked the using of paper to “voice out” their answers and not shout out as a class.Of course, they also had visual aids to help them better understand the comparisons of the metaphors/similes.

Blog Post #3: Creative Lesson

My most creative lesson was the introduction to haikus. As the 5-7-5 structure of a haiku is generally quite easy for students (these are Sec 1 NA students) to understand, I did some syllables-identification with the students as a pre-activity, and then moved on to haiku creation.

I got the 40 students into 10 groups, and gave each of them one object which could be found in the classroom, like the windows, or the whiteboard. Each group had to create a haiku that described the object, or its function; but students could not mention the name of the object in their haikus. After they created their haikus, students were given a template to fill in, and the first person to correctly guess all 10 haikus was awarded with a prize.

Students found the activity easy and enjoyable, and I was surprised that every group managed to come up with quite creative haikus. I guess the 5-7-5 structure is not that difficult to follow, and the students really liked that it was a competition.

Blog #3: Creative Lesson

         One interesting lesson I conducted was when I taught the class about the historical and social context (setting) of To Kill A Mockingbird. It required me to research on the history of slavery and important movements like the Civil Rights Movement in order to paint to the class a clearer picture of the time period in the play. I started the lesson with a trivia quiz about the book. Students were tasked to read the book during the March holidays so this was a chance for both teacher and student to assess how much was understood. Thereafter, I introduced the setting of the play and taught about the events and attitudes prevalent during the 1930s such as the segregation laws in the southern states and racism. To aid in teaching, I made a worksheet with the timeline of all the important events that students need to take note of and showed pictures of that period. I also showed a video which depicted the lives of the black slaves to the time when slavery was abolished. Having understood the idea of white slavery, I made the class take on the perspective of a black American in the 1930s and reflect about how they would have felt during that period. This is an application of what Atticus (from the play) would like everyone do: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Students were emotional and angry after the lesson as they could not understand why the blacks were so badly treated which to me, shows that the lesson was successful as they were emotionally involved with what they were learning. 

Blog Post 3

The first part of the lesson was not very interesting because it was a continuation from the previous lesson. The Literature department has come up with a set of rubrics to mark the students’ answers for Lower Secondary. As a result, I went through the rubrics with the students sitting in their groups, and asked them to assess another group’s answer on Characterisation that they have done the previous week. This is to help them to be aware of the marking scheme so they will know how they are graded.

After that I gave them a worksheet and asked them to predict what ‘Alma’ is about before showing them the short film. I paused when Alma stretched her hand towards the doll and asked the students to predict the ending. Then I showed them the ending. Many of them were able to predict accurately. The students were engaged and they enjoyed the short film. I asked them how they were able to guess the ending and introduced foreshadowing to them. I went through a few PowerPoint slides to explain to them the meaning of foreshadowing, and related it back to “The Monkey’s Paw”.

QCR523 3rd Blog Post

I’m going to admit too that I have not been really creative for my classes, partly due to the lack of time and having to squeeze so many poems in a span of a couple of weeks. For my class, one relatively creative lesson that I have conducted with the Secondary Two students is for the poem "Daffodils" by Wordsworth.

For the class, I was focusing on mood and very briefly, tone of poem. So I basically played two videos of the poem. One video was this rap version of the poem with a mascot squirrel dancing and rapping energetically. The second video is of the same poem, but with a more mellow and relaxing mood to it. After each video, I asked students on their feelings from listening and viewing these videos. Then I got the students to decide which they liked better and which they think is more suitable for the poem.

Following that, I basically explained to the students that in both instances, what influences the students in their perceptions are probably the music and images. However, since normally there will be no accompanying music when we read poetry, the focus here will lie on the images. Through the process of reading, they could visualize the images in the poem.

I got students to list down what are the images that they can see from the poem. As some students are more visual, students can draw as well what are the images that they can see. Students are to quickly do this within 5 minutes. After that I got some students to share on their lines/drawings. They are to also share of their thinking processes in deciding/drawing the images and how this impacted the overall mood of the poem at that point. Finally, I got the students to look at the last two lines, and asked the students what kind of feeling they think the poet is experiencing and how this relates to the overall mood of the poem.

QCR523 3rd Post: Creative lesson

I've to admit that I did not conduct anything wildly creative for my Sec 1 Lang-Arts class, because of very practical reasons: my Lang-Arts CT likes group activities that are fun, but prefers tried and tested activities, and I absorb her ideas and try to conduct lessons that incorporate her ideas in my own style; also, she sits in for most of my lessons, so I don't have much leeway to try things, and when I do go into the class on my own, she inserts administrative things that she did not get to settle with the class.

As it is, this post occurs before my chance to truly try out something new in my class later this week, which I am able to do so because my CT will be away 11-19 April. Hence, although I have not conducted the creative lesson, I will post my lesson idea here in advance.

I plan to teach the class about major themes in the novel Kira-kira and get them to pick out major events from the entire novel. There will be a discussion on major themes as a starter, which is a follow up of previous lessons on historical background (Japanese Internment, WWII, US-Japan tensions, racism, racial identity, Japanese-Americans poverty) to Kira-kira.

I will then ask students to quickly mark out the major events or events that they think are significant in plot/character development. They may do this in groups of 4-5. After about 10mins, I will divide the class into 2 halves. Each half would have around 4 groups. Each group would need to send a representative to the front to take turns listing the events that their groups think are significant. The 2 halves are 2 teams that are competing against each other to see who completes the list in a shorter time. They will write on the board, which would be separated into 3 blocks; 2 blocks would be for the 2 teams to list their significant events, while the 3rd would be for the teacher's input during the class discussion on the appropriateness and significance of events listed by students - the teacher would be mapping the major events along a timeline, depicting rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.

Creative Lesson Plan (Sec 2 Animal Farm)

This lesson focused on Chapter 4 of Animal Farm, where Snowball and Boxer show their bravery in the Battle of Cowshed, for which they are given the awards of Animal Hero, First Class. The main thing I wanted the boys to focus on for this chapter was the characterisation of Boxer and Snowball. I started the lesson with a short stop-motion animation clip of the battle itself, and asked the boys what they noticed, who the main heroes of the fight were and what they did. After this we went through a short summary of the chapter, after which I moved on to the main activity. The students had to create a poster for the award of Animal Hero, First Class, for either Boxer or Snowball (I created a sample poster for the dead sheep's award, Animal Hero, Second Class, for the students to look at). On the poster, they had to state the award itself, provide a list of the character's contributions to the battle, a list of the character's exemplary traits, as well as some quotable quotes. This forced the boys to open their books and actually read them, something they don't usually do. For the visuals on their posters, I printed out different pictures of Snowball and Boxer, and brought glue and markers for the boys to use.Some of the boys got really creative, incorporating the rhetorical language that the pigs use, and making up quotes from people like Alfred Lord Tennyson, praising Snowball and his tactical genius. After the posters were completed, I put them all up on the board and let the boys do a gallery walk. In the end, I marked these against a poster rubric that I found online.

Ideally, I would have liked to carry this lesson out in the computer lab and let the boys create posters on Glogster. However, I have been advised against bringing these boys to the computer lab as the environment (the internet) usually proves too distracting for them, and they become difficult to monitor and will not stay on task. Nevertheless, I think the boys quite enjoyed the activity, and they definitely learned from it, the posters were really well done.

Post 2: Literature Assessment in St Andrew's

St Andrew's includes both cumulative and summative assessments in their CA and SA marks. Across the entire Sec 2 level, there have only been 2 standard written assignments that all students have to complete. Other than that, different teachers may assign whatever homework they wish each week; at the end of all of this, the marks will be collected, and the teacher of the class will decide which marks she will include in the SA. It is quite flexible, the teacher may choose to take whichever assignment has the highest mark.

For my classes, in addition to the 2 written assignments, I have given short writing assignments of about one or two paragraphs each week, completed in class, as well as given the students a poster task and a mindmapping task to complete. The assessments I have set are generally of a more formal sort because the students cannot be relied on to do group work, or complete projects outside of class time. I have tried to use drama as a form of assessment in class, but I have found that the boys have not taken this seriously, and that their attitudes towards paper assignments allow these to be a more effective form of assessment both of and for learning.

I am sorry this post is so late, I am also willing to bear the consequences of my lateness!

creative lesson plan

Creative Lesson Plan

One relatively interesting lesson plan I have conducted so far is with Secondary Two students for The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, focusing on the characterisation of Bruno and Father. For the hook activity, I created character identity cards with blanks that students had to fill in: this allowed students to consolidate their knowledge of the characters’ superficial traits. The main activity comprised two parts: in the first part, students had to complete a worksheet in pairs where they had to sketch in their impressions of each character based on a blank human template, and circle corresponding character traits from a list of character traits that they think best describe the character. On the alternate side of the worksheet, students had to then match the traits they have circled to quotations from the book: this was supposed to help them perform some sort of close-reading in a scaffolded manner. A couple of students/pairs were then selected to showcase what they have drawn and what traits they have picked out. The second part of the main activity, on the other hand, comprised a short dramatization based on an important scene in the book: three students were selected for the skit, and the class had to then reflect on some questions after the dramatization. On the whole, this lesson was relatively successful because it was very learner-centred: there was a lot of pair activity and discussion rather than frontal teaching, which made it more interactive and less dry. Furthermore, the activities were scaffolded, and thus students were able to engage with the tasks on their own with no major issues.

Assessment of literature in SKSS

(Sorry this is way overdue!!! Will bear all necessary consequences...sorry!)

Currently the assessment mode for literature in my school is still relatively conventional, and pretty much based on tests and examinations; there is a much bigger focus on summative rather than formative assessment. For instance, though the Secondary Two students have only just started on a novel this term, they will be faced with a graded test in week five or so, and they will have to sit for a mid-year examination based on the novel in week seven. Consequently, I feel like much of the teaching is geared towards what will be tested in the test or examinations, simply because with one 1-hr lesson a week there is not enough time to cover everything in the novel, yet there is a pressure for students to perform well in graded tests/exams at the end of the day. This is quite limiting in terms of the potential of the subject, as I feel that assessment for literature can in fact be relatively flexible and creative, taking on the form of performance tasks, creative writing, and so on. It is especially quite a pity that literature is assessed in the same way other subjects are (i.e. through conventional tests and examinations) when there is not even upper-secondary literature being offered in the school, as it hinders the level of interest and engagement that could otherwise be stimulated.

Creative Lesson Plan

As mentioned in the previous blog post, all of the Literature lessons are used for project work. I have not had any creative lessons that I could share. However, teaching of PEE using comics could be my most creative lesson as it was the only teaching period that I had since the start of practicum. The comic strip (from Baby Blues) shows a conversation between Zoe and her mother, and I asked the students to contribute adjectives to describe Zoe’s character. Using one of the adjectives that most of the students could agree on, I continued to model the writing process by asking them to pick out the examples and to elaborate on the point. However, the difficulty that I had in preparing for this lesson is to find a comic strip that has examples and sufficient information that can be used to elaborate on the point. I felt that this was effective as the students were able to write their own paragraph at the end of the lesson. 

Creative Lesson - Chung Cheng High (Main)

Due to time constraints caused by the alternate tutorial/lecture week system and unforeseen circumstances such as public holidays and school events, I have had little opportunity to conduct a creative lesson for my Secondary Two students.

The closest thing to a creative lesson is probably my 'crash course' lesson on Unseen Prose while teaching the PIE technique (Personal Response, Interpretation, Evidence) and Characterization. This is also the first (and possibly, the only) lesson on Unseen Prose for the Secondary Twos before their Mid-Year Examinations.

For this, I introduced the short film INSIDE for the trigger activity. After a very quick introduction as to what an Unseen Prose is, I screened the film and later conducted a class discussion where students had to share their opinions about what they thought was going on, who the characters were, what the relationship between the characters was like and what feelings they had for the main character and about the film as a whole. I wrote down the responses on the whiteboard and arranged them according to the different categories of the PIE technique but without labeling them as such. Instead, I asked the class to explain the link between my arrangement of the answers and how the PIE technique was to be applied. Since they are generally uncertain of their own abilities, this was to get them to first realize the connection between the individual components of the technique and to also realize that their answers given were of relevance and that they only needed to structure their answers in a proper manner. Once they came to that realization, I noticed that they became a little more confident of themselves and participated even more during the main activity where we applied the PIE technique in answering short-answer questions for another Unseen Prose.

Creative Lesson (JWSS)

This lesson was conducted for my Secondary Two students who are currently reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

I conducted a lesson on Setting and Atmosphere. Firstly, I showed them some images to help the students to understand what atmosphere is and how setting helps to create a particular atmosphere. This activity was also planned to aid the students in understanding the adjective that are appropriate when describing a particular atmosphere.  After this short activity, I introduced an essay question and got the students to underline the key words and requirements of the question. The worksheet distributed to the students is structured according to the P.E.E.L format. I went through one point with the class by eliciting answers from the students.
The next activity was a group activity. The students have to answer the essay question by coming up with one more point and a drawing of the setting allocated to them. At the end of the lesson, they pasted the A3 sized paper with their completed work on the board behind their class.

This is not exactly a creative lesson, but I only get to see these classes once a week and since they are having their mock exams and MYE soon, I have to be more practical than creative, and no, I don't think the both can go together considering the profile of the students that I'm teaching.

Creative Lesson Plan

My school is currently doing an adapted text of Robinson Crusoe for Secondary 1 students. One creative lesson plan that went quite well in my Normal Academic class was that I actually got students to discuss in groups how they think that they would survive on an uninhabited island with only canned food, coconut trees, fish and a penknife with them. I first got students to read through the 1^st page of the adapted text, and then I showed them pictures of the items that they were able to bring with them to the island. This helped them to remember more clearly what they were allowed to use, as opposed to giving them worded instructions on slides.

After that, I distributed a graphic organizer to them and asked them to come up with solutions as to how they could survive on the uninhabited island using only the items that had been provided for them. After that, I got groups to present their answers using the visualizer so that their classmates could have a look as well. This was quite interesting because some groups managed to come up with very creative answers and they were also able to identify with the experiences of Robinson Crusoe who was trapped on that island.

Creative Lesson: Question Evaluation

I have not really had any opportunity to do anything I would consider extremely out of the box, being constrained by the school’s curriculum (which had already been designed prior to our practicum posting). I have, however, tried to introduce new elements during the lessons on Question Generation (mentioned in my first post) as it is a relatively new thing that we are trying out. Given its newness, it is unsurprising that resources, guidelines, and structure for implementing Question Generation in the classroom are currently lacking. Some of the more experienced teachers in my team are now in the process of designing a Formative Assessment task requiring the students to demonstrate evidence of learned skills in generating questions. Honestly, I feel quite worried about the students’ ability to meet the demands of such an assessment when it is administered. Based on classroom interaction, my sense is that the whole idea of generating questions is still rather ill-defined, and it is really a result of both the teachers’ and the students’ uncertainty about this new process. Some of the stronger students have a better intuitive grasp of how to make their questions count, but quite distressingly many are still fumbling with questions that are lacking in either depth or clarity.

I decided, therefore, to devote one lesson in to giving students an opportunity to evaluate their own questions in a structured manner. This would require outlining a few simple criteria for them to weigh their questions with. For this lesson, I created a question evaluation form (see image above) that would allow students to work on a question of their own design. To keep things focused, I chose ‘literary elements’ questions and inserted the corresponding criteria into the form to guide the students’ thought process. This portion is meant to get students thinking about whether or not their questions had significance (depth)—literal/factual questions that do not really require much analysis will hopefully be ‘weeded out’ or at least improved on.   

Following this, students will be asked to answer the question they have generated. This is an indirect way of asking them what sort of insights they were trying to elicit through their line of questioning. One main problem I encountered during previous lessons was that many students’ phrasing of questions detracted from their actual intentions (i.e. they might be thinking of asking for certain aspects related to a literary element, but their phrasing of the question misleads the answerer into dwelling on other aspects, thus missing the ‘point’ of the question entirely). The next step would be for the students to direct their question to a friend, who will attempt to answer it either verbally or in written form. Students are to compare their own responses (to their own questions) with the responses their friend gave. This is intended to be a casual test of how clear their questions were. If their response and their friend’s response differed greatly, students will be asked to speculate on a plausible reason as to why their question was misunderstood (‘excuses’ such as ‘my friend is not concentrating’ or ‘she didn’t hear my question right’ will not be admitted). Often, re-phrasing, adding, or subtracting from the original question gave rise to improved clarity.

I have tried this lesson with two classes. For the first, I allowed them to use the form on their own, but this led to some confusion especially since students progressed at different speeds (some had to sit around to wait for their friends to be ‘free’ to answer their questions). I also discovered that some degree of modelling would help students to use the form better, and my second attempt doing this lesson was more organized. I showed the students step-by-step how I would work on a question, and gave them portions of time to accomplish each step so that no one rushed through/got left behind in the process. 

Creative Lesson Plan (Sec 3 Unseen)

The poem for this lesson is Carol Ann Duffy's "Valentine", which made use of the onion as an extended metaphor to illustrate the idea of love. My students are generally weak at analyzing ideas, and this lesson was designed to sharpen their sensitivity and analytical skills.

To cater to students' short attention spans and preference for watching films and drama rather than read text on paper, I decided to do a dramatisation of the poem. I got a boy to volunteer to be my "valentine" for the day in exchange for a pack of M&Ms, and got out an onion, which I had prepared and cut before the lesson, to use as a prop.

I told the class to observe my actions and the specific lines at which I made those actions, and started my dramatization. For the first time for all my lessons so far, the entire class was quiet and eagerly looking at me. A few students even took out their iPhones to videotape the show.

After I had done with my acting (and got applause from them), I asked the class to recall my actions and link them to specific lines in the poem. I prompted them to verbalise the significance of my actions and hence analyse the progression of the extended metaphor. Many of the students were able to give accurate answers on what the onion represented, and it was a very encouraging lesson for both my students and me.

I later got them to apply their knowledge of the extended metaphor to Lee Tzu Pheng's "Singapore River" and write an essay paragraph as homework. When I collected their homework from them during the next lesson, many of them told me that Singapore River was easy, and that they would like to have more "easy" poems like it for their examinations. This to me is an affirmation, for "Valentine" was a poem which they struggled with for their Common Test, and to me this was a clear transition from being unable to identify extended metaphors to finding the task simple and straightforward.

Creative Lesson Plan

For my Literature lesson on Impact of colours—how colours evoke emotions, I affixed 6 large pieces of vanguard sheets of different colours (black/white/blue/green/yellow/red) on the walls of the classroom. I instructed students that they are to stand in front of the vanguard sheets and write down/draw whatever comes to mind when they see that particular colour—students are to move around the class in groups of 4 as they write down/draw their associations with the different colours. After every 3 minutes, I would call out “switch” and students would rotate to another piece of vanguard sheet. I repeated this process until every student in the class had a turn at each of these stations.

The objective of the lesson was designed with the intention that students would be able to recognize the power of colours and the emotions they could bring to an individual. This is in contrast to the community in The Giver—the students’ text. In The Giver, the community is incapable of having feelings or emotions because they are unable to see colours. Therefore, this explains the purpose of the lesson—because students can see colours, they are capable of emotions, unlike the community in the novel. 

Creative Lesson Plan (Dunearn Sec)

I conducted this lesson with only 8 students(out of 22 students) in class. [Side note: I had to make do with 8-10 students for two weeks.] Generally, the class is not vocal and they don't respond well to questions. So I attempted to engage their personal response by giving them a modified tic-tac-toe/bingo sheet as a trigger. The lesson is on "Kenny's Big Break". The students have to first fill up the template (which there are 9 questions in 9 squares on a variety of questions such as ""Traitor. Quitter. Army Drifter." (208) Is this how you view Singaporeans who left for 'greener pastures overseas" and others"). After filling the template, they are supposed to go to their peers and "exchange" or discuss their responses and if they are convinced by their peers, their peers should sign on the relevant boxes. The first to get two columns/rows filled will be the winner.

After sharing, I went on to point students' attention to characters traits of Margaret and Kenny as well as exploring the theme of identity. I feel this short activity is successful because students who usually do not speak at all are able to find an opportunity to share their insights with their peers. This also creates an environment where students feel more comfortable to talk in class.

Creative Lesson Plan

The focus of this lesson was to help students to do a recap on the themes in Sing to the Dawn and as well as to teach them how to structure their paragraph effectively by using the “PEEL” structure.

Since students had been taught of the themes of the novel in previous lessons, I started off the lesson by showing them a word splash that includes words that are relevant to the themes and words that are irrelevant. Students are to identify the themes of Sing to the Dawn from the word splash and give explanation to support their answers.  

After that, I introduced the “PEEL” structure to the students. I showed them a sample “PEEL” paragraph and told them that their task was to formulate a “PEEL” paragraph by rearranging sentences.

Students worked in groups for this main activity. Each group was given an envelope that contains cut out sentences from a “PEEL” paragraph about a particular theme. To cater to students with high-ability, certain groups had irrelevant sentences in their envelopes. In their groups, students had to rearrange their sentences so that they will end up with a “PEEL” paragraph that explains the theme they are working on. After they have completed it, I went through the answers with them. (Initially, I wanted the groups to present their paragraph after they have rearranged it and allow their classmates to evaluate their work. However, due to the lack of time, I could not do that. I ended up going through the answers with them instead.)

This lesson was successful as students were excited about the task. They were engaged in their discussions and were eager to complete the task.  

Creative Lesson Plan (Coral Secondary School)

I was introducing the idea of different perspectives on an issue/topic.

I framed the entire class as a court session whereby famous criminals would be tried and given one chance to explain their side of the story. I used "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" as a trigger to show how a different perspective could be formed.

I introduced the other criminals: Stepmother of Cinderella, Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, Wolf in The Little Red Riding Hood, the Pied Piper, the Queen in Snow White.

The class was broken into six legal teams, each taking on the case for one of the criminals. Roles for the students included: legal assistants (scribe, confidentiality keeper, administrative executive), lawyers (legal representative, head of team), and the client. The teams discussed how to best tell the criminal's side of the story to place the client in a favourable light. At the end, they presented to the class, and the class would vote for whether or not the criminal was guilty or innocent.

Students were very excited and participated actively throughout the lesson. At the end, they understood that one story could have different perspectives. When touching on the theme of animal experimentation in Mrs. Frisby, they could easily identify different perspectives and why these differences occurred.

Creative Lesson Plan

I am not sure that this can be considered creative as it was a modified combination of activities which happened all at once (role-play, freeze-frames, close-reading and annotation), but it was quite successful and the kids had a great time and managed to grasp some inference skills.

It was a 45-minute lesson and we were due to cover Chapter 5 of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Since characterisation is an important aspect in the chapter, and the class has quite a handful of restless, loud boys, I decided to pick important scenes to role play. Each scene focused on a different aspect of characterisation--action, dialogue, etc. While role-playing, the actors had to form freeze frames and say out what they thought the character was thinking at that point of time (but not written in the novel). The class would then be asked to refer to the relevant passage in the book, do close-reading to interpret the textual evidence (and what the actors "thought"), and annotate their passage.

At the end of the lesson, they had interpreted textual evidence through role-playing, freeze frames and close reading, managed to identify character traits of Father and Bruno, as well as the nature of the relationship between them.