Content Objective: 1.02 Analyze expressive materials that are read, heard, and/or viewed by monitoring comprehension for understanding of what is read, heard and/or viewed. 1.03 Interact in group activities and/or seminars in which the student shares personal reactions to questions raised and gives reasons and cites examples from text in support of expressed opinions. 4.01 Analyze the purpose of the author or creator and the impact of that purpose; evaluate any bias, apparent or hidden messages, emotional factors, and/or propaganda techniques.
Language Objective: Join small group discussion about a reading passage and corresponding questions; discuss O. Henry's use of irony.
Essential Question: What is an
analogy and can I create one?
Class began with a review of yesterday's viewing of
Jimmy Valentine, a video version of O.Henry's short story,
A Retrieved Reformation. Students had the opportunity to demonstrate their skill in making connections and comparisons. We discussed the instances of irony (at least five); this discussion led to a greater understanding of the concept and a greater appreciation of the story. Next, students formed pairs; together as a class we read a reading comprehension practice selection. Students worked together to answer related questions; follow up discussion revealed a higher level of success than on last week's reading comprehension quiz. If I could read each passage aloud and have similar level students work together to reach consensus on answers, our
EOG scores would be much higher. This embodies cooperative learning at its highest level, yet the suggestion would be not only unacceptable, but laughable. Some students had time to go to the board to add their created analogy. I asked them to leave out two of the words in order to stimulate higher level thinking and discussion.
Some examples:
AC/DC is to rock as _______ is to __________.
Cake is to __________ as chili is to _________.
Lead is to pencils as _________ is to ________.
Gun is to _________ as knife is to _________.
Bug is to monkey as _________ is to _______.
Plus, we went to the book fair, and some students continued filming their commercials.
Homework: Reading comprehension practice #11;
SSR.
Class began with a review of analogies. I wanted to remind them of yesterday's activities in which students created their own analogies. We had a quiz which contained both reading comprehension and analogy construction components. Students were asked to create analogies after only being given one out the four words needed; this type of assessment hopes to give students the opportunity to demonstrate higher level thinking more than a more traditional fill-in-the-blank exercise might.
