MDT Day 1: AU ‘09

Multi-Day Teach Day 1: AU ‘09

Subject Area: English 11/12 – Contemporary Lit

Title of unit (of which this lesson is a part): Women & Men & Relationships

Lesson Title: Tone Words

Purpose/ Goals	Students should be able to use tone effectively in their own writing.  This skill will help them to use their writing to achieve their goals.  If they can effectively use tone, then they will be able to influence their audience to feel and react they way they want.  They also need to understand how the author can use certain words in order to manipulate his or her audience into feeling a certain way about a subject matter.
Objectives:	I can identify tone and tone words in a piece of text.   I can use tone words in a piece of text to make it more descriptive. I can explain how word choice affects the overall tone in a text.
National & Ohio Standards	What are the specific national (professional organization) and/or state standards, key ideas, performance indicators, and major understandings that you will address in this lesson? Explain how this lesson meets these standards in a brief narrative.   Writing Process Benchmark -       Use a variety of strategies to revise content, organization and style, and to improve word choice, sentence variety, clarity and consistency of writing. Students will be exploring how word choice effects tone in a piece of writing.  They will experiment with changing the tone of a text by manipulating the word choice. Communications Oral and Visual GLI -       Evaluate how language choice, diction, syntax and delivery style (e.g., repetition, appeal to emotion, eye contact) affect the mood and tone and impact the audience. Students will be examining how word choice can influence their audience Reading Applications: Literary Text Benchmark -       Analyze how an author uses figurative language and literary techniques to shape plot and set meaning. Students will be looking at tone words, and how the word choice of a piece of writing can influence the overall meaning of the piece. Reading Applications: Informational, Technical and Persuasive Text Benchmark -       Analyze the features and structures of documents and critique them for their effectiveness The tone of a piece influences the way an audience responds to it, and thus how effective the author is in communicating his meaning.  Students will be focusing on tone and how it influences meaning in this lesson.
Assessment	Summative   The summative assessment will take place at the end of the lesson
	Formative   I will be asking for student input on an example task after I have modeled a task.  This will let me know if they know enough to answer questions.  If no one volunteers answers, then I will first try to reframe the question and ask specific students for input.  If they still don’t seem to understand the concept, I will try re-explaining the material, and then continue by putting them in groups to work. When the student are in groups I will be sitting in and listening to their conversations as they engage with the material and begin putting it into use.  This will allow me to gage where the students stand in their understanding and judge whether they are yet able to work alone, rather than in groups.

Community Knowledge and Experience:	One of the ways to explain tone is by asking students to think whether or not they’ve ever been told “Now don’t you take that tone of voice with me!” by their parents or caregivers.  I can ask them to connect to their own lives to see if they can figure out the meaning of tone.  By putting some of the lesson into kid-speak, and talking to them on their level, I think I can help them to understand the concepts more fully.   I also will be asking them to create their own interpretation of a bland poem.  This will let them put some of their own voice into their work.  I will be asking them to bring in a poem or song that they enjoy and can connect to as homework for the next day.  This choice in what they want to bring in will allow them to hold some stake in their learning.
Procedures including:   • Opening •Activities • Closure	Opening: (2-3 min)   Bellringer: Vocab Builder (2-3 min) -       Student will present their vocab word to the class Activities: (34-49 min) Defining Tone: PowerPoint (3-5 min) -       Hand out guided notes worksheet. -       Ask class to define tone.  I write it into the PowerPoint on the Smart Board.  Then I bring up the formal definition of tone. -       Ask class to explain how tone is used.  I write it into the PowerPoint on the Smart Board.  Then I bring up the formal explanation of how tone is used. -       Hand out packet of descriptive words and remind students to hang on to this packet for tomorrow. Model Finding Tone Words: Endymion Spring (3-5 min) -       Underline tone words in the text on the Smart Board, and describe how they portray the gloomy tone. Class identifies tone words: Oliver Twist (5-7 min) -       Ask students to take a minute or two to find tone words in the next text.  Then ask for volunteers to come up and underline tone words on the Smart Board.  If no one volunteers, then call on students. -       Ask students what they think the overall tone of the passage might be. Model Poem Strips (3-5 min) -       Show students how I can look in the packet of descriptive words to change the bland poem into something more flavorful. -       Write new version of poem up on the Smart Board. Class Poem Strips (12-15 min) -       Have the class count off into groups of 6 and then hand out a bland poem stanza to each group.  Each group will need to designate a leader to focus and guide the group, a recorder to write down the poem on the group’s sheet and on the Smart Board, a speaker to present the stanza to the class, and 2 word finders to search the packet for appropriate vocabulary. -       Groups 1-3 will be making their bland happy and exciting; groups 4-6 will be making their poem sad, gloomy, and dull. -       Students will be given about 10 minutes to work on improving their stanza.  I will be walking around and sitting in on each group for a minute or two at a time. -       At about the 10-minute mark I will instruct students to begin writing their stanzas on the white boards.  I will have marked out where each group should write their stanza. Read Class Poems (3-5 min) -       I will begin by reading the original bland poem.  Then I will ask the speaker for each group to read their stanza.  Groups will go in order. Discuss how word choice can change tone (5-7 min) -       I will ask students how word choice can affect the overall tone of a piece of writing.  In order to scaffold this I will ask some of the following questions: What are some contrasting words between the happy poem and the sad poem? Why did you choose this word to add to your poem instead of another that carries the same tone? How did you specifically make the two poems you created differ in tone? What would changing this word do to change the tone of the poem? Possible Overflow: Peer-editing -       I will ask groups to revise each other’s poems (1&4, 2&5, 3&6), so that they will be revising the same stanza, but the other tone. -       I will then ask groups to share their revised pieces. Closure: (4-6 min) Briefing for Tomorrow: (2-3 min) -       Tell students that tomorrow we will be talking about parody and begin experimenting with tone in their own original writing. Assign Homework: (2-3 min) -       Ask students to bring in either a poem or a song that uses a specific tone, such as a love song, a ballad about adventuring, a sad song, or a scary poem. -       Remind students that it needs to be school appropriate. -       Tell students that the text they bring in should be between 20 and 50 lines long. -       Remind students to bring their descriptive word packet back tomorrow.
Resources	What texts, materials/resources, websites, and equipment will you need? How will you access and/or distribute them? -       Copies of Readings – available as handouts -       Smart Board – in classroom -       Poem strips – available as handouts -       Whiteboard & markers – available in classroom
Applications, Connections, Extensions	I will be following up this lesson by having them complete a writing assignment that includes tone words to convey a meaning.  I will also address how tone is used in speeches (such as political candidates and agendas) so that students can be more aware of how the media and other sources are trying to affect them.  It’s also important for student to be able to use tone to persuade their audience to agree with them whenever they’re trying to use language to get what they want.  If students know that the language they use and the word choices they make will affect the outcome of their appeal, they will be more empowered.
Inclusive Instruction	I will be modeling every activity so that students can hear the activity being described as well as see it done before they make an attempt at it.  I will also be putting the students into heterogeneous groups so that students can see as many viewpoints as possible, in addition to letting them work within their zone of proximal development.  I will be moving through these groups to listen in and help out where I’m needed to guide students toward understanding.