Lesson Plans

Ok, every year I look for lesson plans online and every year I find some that I think will be great. I print them off and never look at them again.

So, I'm hoping that this time I'll actually use these.

The first lesson plan I will talk about I found on www.atozteacherstuff.com which is a wonderful site for lesson plans. It is a quick way to work on summary, note taking, main idea and details. You read to students aloud for 5-7 minutes and they will take notes on a large sticky note, writing down every important fact I say. After that, they narrow it down to a medium sticky note and then to a small sticky note. This forces students to only look at what is actually the most important ideas. After that we go to summary - the essence - plus only one or two details. This is just a quick overview, but I do think it will help to get the kids to narrow down to the main idea of the excerpt.

The second lesson plan is probably more of just an exercise, but I think it's a good one (and it's created by Ted Kooser :) ). To create new metaphors:
1. Students brainstorm a list of totally dissimilar things.
2. Next, they pick the two things from your list that are the most dissimilar and try to figure out if there are any relationships between them at all. Make a list of similarities.
3. Start drafting a short poem that shows the relationship between your two subjects. Make sure each detail works logically on both sides of the metaphor.
4. Ask a friend or classmate to test the logic of your metaphor. Are there places where your metaphor is weak or where you've introduced a detail on on e side that does not apply to the other?
5. Based on this feedback, revise your poem until it reads like a clear bridge between two dissimilar things.
6. Proof and polish your poem.

I don't do a lot of poetry, but we do talk about metaphors and I think this would work even if the students did not ultimately create a poem. By the way, I found this on scholastic.com.