Planning

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Title: Using Words That Describe Date- March 21, 2010 Technology Standards 2. Use productivity tools to publish information.
 * II. Communication **
 * B. ** Use technology to communicate information in a variety of formats..

Description and Lesson Plan: Objective: The students will be able to analyze and identify character traits from //Why Monkeys Live In Trees// in order to complete their self-evaluation chapter, “I Am…”, of their autobiography.

Materials: Why Monkeys Live In Trees by Julius Lester. Small strips of paper (three for each student) Paper Bag “I Am” worksheet

Procedures:

1. Read //Why Monkeys Live In Trees// by Julius Lester

2. Explain to the students that an author tries to create a mental picture of a character. The author reveals the character's traits through the character's thoughts, words and actions. Tell students that these traits are sometimes stated and sometimes implied by the author. Readers often have to draw their own conclusions based on the author's description. 3. Project a list of words that describe character []

4. Ask students to name the Leopard’s main character trait? What does the beginning of the story reveal about Leapord?

5. Write each character trait on a small strip of paper (3 for each student). Place the strips in a small paper bag labeled "character traits." Direct each student to place the strips in the bag.

6. Create a word cloud using Wordle.com. Build a word cloud from the traits listed in the bag.

7. As a student to sort/group the words in the bag.

8. Ask the students to evaluate the word cloud. Brainstorm the relationship between frequency and size of the words in the cloud.

Closure: Review with the students about how authors try to create a mental picture of their characters in order to understand them better. Have them explain some ways an author can do this (by describing how a character looks, speaks, thinks and acts.)

Outcomes: The students will utilize the skill of identifying and analyzing character traits in order to complete the “I Am” chapter of their autobiography.



The students were truly engaged. They were able to select the fonts, color, and layout of the word cloud. They were able to correlate how color reflects or changes mood and tone. We used it as a jumping point to talk about text features, mood and tone. I was pleased to see that many of the students used this tool with their family and friends. They said it was really COOL! This is a great COOL TOOL! We also used Audacity to evaluate the effect that music has on mood. Teaching the concept of mood is somewhat challenging. I read a poem and asked the students of describe the mood. Their task was to identify the words that contribute to the mood of the poem. This is a very difficult concept for English Language Learners. We recorded the poem then applied different audio segment to the reading. They applied jazz, drums, techno, guitars and various other selections. The recording reflects the final version.
 * __ Reflection of project experience __**