This lesson
is fitting for the 9th grade of ESL learners in the Norwegian
school, and the content areas are Norwegian and English.
Language objectives
- Deconstruct
the rhyme/fairytale and analyze it. Which characteristics does it have?
- Organize your
ideas and give a brief account of your observations.
- Present/perform
your rhyme/fairytale to the rest of the class.
Content objectives from the Norwegian curriculum:
This lesson
focuses on the characteristics of poems and fairytales as well as oral communication
skills. A relevant competence aim from the Norwegian subject curriculum after
year 10 is to enable the students to “discuss the form, content and purpose of
literature, theatre and films and present interpretative readings and dramatizations”
(Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013a). Relevant aims from the English subject
curriculum after year 10 are to enable students to “use different situations,
working methods and learning strategies to develop one’s English-language
skills, express oneself fluently and coherently, suited to the purpose and
situation, and read, understand and evaluate different types of texts of
varying length about different topics” (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2013b).
Relevant websites:
Lesson plan
In the
first part of this lesson, the students brainstorm what they know about fairytales
and poems/rhymes, and what their characteristics are, using the IGP framework.
They will first sit individually and write down their ideas, before they
discuss with a partner. After this, the teacher will open the mind mapping tool
https://bubbl.us/ on the SmartBoard and the
students will tell what they know as the class makes a mind map together. This
map can be used as a tool for the students in the main activity in this lesson.
This brainstorming activity activates the students’ knowledge, they practice
writing, and they have to use their oral language to communicate with others.
This first part of the lesson should take about 10-15 minutes.
In the main
part of this lesson, the students will work with fairytales/rhymes in groups of
3. The chosen rhymes are from Roald Dahl, who has taken famous fairytales and
rewritten them as poems/rhymes. Each group is going to choose one rhyme out of
the three (1-3 under “relevant websites”) from the website https://allpoetry.com/, deconstruct it to
find characteristics from fairytales and rhymes/poems, and organize these
findings in a Google Document that later will be shared with the rest of the
class (https://docs.google.com/). In
addition to doing this, each group will present/perform their poem to the class
as an exercise in oral communication. As an estimate, the deconstruction of the
rhymes, preparing the rhymes and performing them should take about 35-40
minutes. As soon as the groups finish their list of characteristics, they will
be able to start preparing/practicing.
In the last
part of the lesson, the students get to discuss in their groups what they
learned and what they liked/disliked by working like this, before sharing in a
discussion with the whole class. Was there anything they found particularly
interesting? What did they think of Roald Dahl’s rewritten fairytales? They also
get to give feedback to the presentations to the other groups. This final part
should take about 5-10 minutes.
Assessment and reflection
The students
get to (somewhat) chose their own rhyme/fairytale to work on, which gives them
a choice in the given framework of this lesson. It might have been better if
they had a bit more time preparing the rhyme, some groups/students might react
to this or wish to have been able to prepare a bit more. However, I think the
student will like this type of rewritten fairytales, and this lesson includes
both written and oral work, so it should appeal to a broad spectrum of
students. A challenge the teacher might encounter is if students refuse to
perform the rhyme or not join in on the group work. This has to be handled in
the exact situation/class where this happens, since all student are different,
and the teacher should rely on his/her relations with the student to work this
out.
By using
Google Documents, the students can work on the same document on separate
computers, as well as it is easily shared with the teacher and others. It is
also a tool that works on all computers since it is internet-based, so you don’t
need to download a specific program. The website https://allpoetry.com/ is also a great resource/tool
as it has a lot of great and interesting poetry, which is available anytime and
anywhere. Hopefully these rhymes, who are rewritten fairytales who are well
known to the students will engage to a lot of student activity and creative
performances. The website offers a range of poems that all the students can access
from their computers, which were not the case a decade ago. Using the internet
as a tool for activities and resources is great to include technology in
lessons, which may make them more interesting and engaging for the students.
References:
Utdanningsdirektoratet.
(2013a). Norwegian Subject Curriculum
(NOR1-05). Retrieved from http://www.udir.no/kl06/NOR1-05?lplang=eng
Utdanningsdirektoratet.
(2013b). English subject curriculum
(ENG1-03). Retrieved from http://www.udir.no/kl06/ENG1-03?lplang=eng
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