Lesson Plan #2: Literature Extension

Objective:

• TSW identify and label the various parts of speech found in Jabberwocky.
• TSW summarize the action of and rewrite the poem.

Relevance or Purpose:

• The student is able to understand that their ability to express themselves increases with their increased knowledge of the English language.

Previous Knowledge:

• The students have a general knowledge of the parts of speech from their previous English classes.

Assessment:

• Group activity: how well/accurately did the student label the different parts of speech in the poem?
• Independent: revision of a poem--how well did the student understand various parts of speech and how the parts of speech work?

Materials:

• Copies of Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky for each student.
• Transparency indicating in a simple list patter the parts of speech.

Procedures:

1. After distribution of poems, the teacher will read aloud the poem Jabberwocky.
2. Ask students for comments about the poem. During the discussion, ask the students the meaning of certain words in the poem, such as ‘gyre' and ‘wabe.'
3. Tell the students that some words in the poem are made up, but we can tell what part of speech they are because of the words' placements in the text. We can decide that the word ‘gyre' is a verb because of our past experiences with picking out different parts of speech.
4. Show the students the transparency of the parts of speech and how the different parts of speech relate to each other. As the students look at and copy the transparency in their notebooks, be sure to point at the overhead and to discuss each connection so that all students can hear, read, and write the information simultaneously. Be sure to discuss each part of speech.
5. Ask the students about their feelings toward grammar. Have they had good or bad experiences with past English-grammar classes?
6. Inform the students that grammar is taught to help increase the ability of expression. Ask have they ever had problems with expressing themselves to their parents, teachers, friends, or boy/girl friends? With an increase knowledge of the English language, each student will be able to increase their ability to express themselves in all aspects of their life.
7. Tell the class to get into their work groups (these groups will be assigned the first week of school, dictated by the students' abilities/weakness. The groups will be mixed ability to accommodate all students).
8. Each group will identify the parts of speech located in the poem (from basic grammar [noun, verb, etc] to more complicated grammar [clauses, phrases, etc.]).
9. After the groups finish this activity, the students will then return to their seats and begin to rewrite the poem with their own words, replacing the made-up words with their own choice of real-words.
10. Have the students turn in their poems to be looked over by the teacher. No grade will be given now.
11. Return the poems ungraded the next day for the students to rework and to put the finishing touches on them.
12. Have volunteers to read their poems to the class.
13. The students will turn in their revised poems to be graded. This will give the teacher an opportunity to evaluate the students' grammatical ability.