template

Overview and Background: Unit: Words Mean Things

How are standards assessed – don’t seem to match Performance Task. Standards, Understandings & Task not aligned. Rubric?

Name: Melodie Hofer

Cheney Middle : Grades 7

Title:	Words Mean Things
Topics:	positive messages, encouragement, negativity, attitude, middle-school aged perspective, parental perspectives
Time Frame:	4 full-block class periods
Start Date:	November

Other Designers:

Summary:
After studying three poems and the poet’s attention (or non-attention) to the connotation of words, students will create a project in which they demonstrate they know the impact of choosing the right word for the situation.

Print Materials Needed:

connotation/denotation texts

connotation/denotation worksheet

copies of the Roethke poems

graphic organizer/note-taking guide for filmstrip

Resources:

· Words” by Pauli Murray found in Discoveries in Literature. America Reads Classic Edition. Scott, Foresman, Glenview, Illinois,:1989.

· Handouts: “A Child On Top of a Greenhouse” & “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke (taken from teacher’s Modern Poetry text)

· http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/43.html--the waltz poem

· Audio Tape; The Hidden Drama of “My Pap’s Waltz.” Thomas S . Klise Company. 10 Minutes

· A Filmstrip: The Hidden Drama of a Poem: 15 Minutes. Tomas S. Klise Company

Resource Attachments:

Internet Resource Links:

http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/43.html (“Papa’s Waltz”)

Theordore Roethke links

http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=13

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/roethke/roethke.htm

http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/

http://www.arches.uga.edu/~squirt33/theodore.htm

Pauli Murray links

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmurrayA.htm

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/630/A_woman_of_foresight_Pauli_Murray

http://www.ncwriters.org/pmurray.htm

http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lp-2001/murray.html

http://www.moondance.org/1998/winter98/nonfiction/pauli.html

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/whm2001/p_murray.html

Notes:

Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

State:

Title:

Communications

Standard(s):

State Reading Standards

Standard 1: Learners demonstrate skill in reading a variety of materials for a variety of purposes

Local Writing Standards

Course/grade level Standard 1: Use a writing process that includes: prewriting, drafting, editing,

revising, publishing, and technology to express meaning.

1. Generates ideas using various prewriting strategies including brainstorming, free-writing, graphic organizer, and outlining.

2. Write multiple versions through revision by referring to student-generated and teacher-designed rubrics, and the 6 Trait Writing Rubric.

3. Proofread and critique self and others' writing using editing checklists and rubrics.

5. Generates a copy suitable for publication.

Course/grade level Standard 2: Use the six-trait writing model: ideas & content, organization,

voice, word choice, sentence fluency, & conventions to express meaning.

1. Write from personal experience and imagination.

9. Spell words correctly in published written work.

12. Use specific nouns, powerful verbs, vivid adjectives, adverbs, and descriptive phrases in writing.

Understandings:

Overarching

Personal experience impacts perception.

Unit

Personal experience impacts how a word or phase is interpreted.

Words can hurt.

Words mean different things, depending on context.

Essential Questions:

What makes some words negative? And positive?

When should emotionally charged words be used?

What does word choice say about an author’s attitude?

Under what circumstances should people censor their own speech and word choice?

Knowledge and Skills:

Definition of connotation & denotation

Definitions & different forms of the vocabulary words related to the poems

Different between formal and informal language

Write a neutral message and an emotionally charged message

Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

Assessment Summary:
Students assume the role of writers to demonstrate that changing a few words can dramatically change the tone of a word.

Student Directions:

You have been hired by PBS to create a piece of media (in print) that demonstrates for middle-school aged students and parents alike that how they talk to each other makes a difference. The executives at PBS want you demonstrate in the printed media that changing only a couple words can impact a person’s attitude. Using Microsoft Excel, design a poster demonstrating the power of the connotation of words for the middle-school aged audience and their parents.

Rubric:

Other assessment evidence to be collected:

vocabulary sheets, study guides for the poems, checklists for discussion participation, graphic organizers

Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

Learning Activities:

· Students will read connotation handout/PowerPoint with text that has same basic message but words are changed and emotionally charged

· Students will pick out what makes the three texts different—they should say word choice

· Review (if the class has already had a poetry unit) the ?’ s asked when reading poetry: (1) Who is the speaker? (2) Who is being spoken to? (3) what is happening in the poem—setting, action, relationships between characters, and (4) What is the tone/feeling of the speaker?

· Teacher will distribute information for end-performance assessment & essential questions for this short poetry unit

· Teacher will distribute the Roethke greenhouse poem with the title take off of it.

· Student will read the poem to themselves silently a couple of times.

· Each person will write down what they think the poem is about citing specifics from the text to back it up. Share with cooperative learning team as teacher directs.

· Teach will be circulating to here the discussion (arguments). After some time, the teacher will re-group students based their positions.

· Teacher will facilitate class discussion on what the poem is about. After a certain amount of discussion, she will direct them that it is not about a tornado or a storm (which many will believe).

· Students will have to re-think and again, re-read and look at each word carefully.

· Discuss how the words & phrases: billowing, clouds rushing, and pointing are the ones that will lead the students to think it was a storm

· Look for other words in the poem with strong connotation—make a graphic organizer with positive/negative/neutral to do this

· To review connotation/denotation, student will complete simple paper/pencil worksheet dealing with conn./den.

· A similar activity will occur with the poem, “M Pap’s Waltz”

· After much team and then class discussion, the class will listen to a cassette tape of a small group of students having the same discussion—probably similar to their own disagreements about the poem

· View the filmstrip about poetry and the power of words

· Students will complete a graphic organizer as they view it

· Students will read the poem, “Words” and discuss with their team the class how this poem first the point of this unit

· A graphic organizer with the 7 types of words the poem refers to will be handed out to students

· The GO will be filled out individually with students using prior knowledge, new vocabulary, the thesaurus to write specific examples of those types of words under the appropriate category

· Challenge teams to find examples of positive/negative connotations in the newspaper, magazines or other printed materials—this will be a short competition among the teams

· Share & discuss the word choice of the writers

· Students will use the previous activity as a spring board to design their print media project targeting middle school-aged students and parents to be careful of their word choice.

· Students will create their print media project in MS Excel, Word, or Publisher. They may also do it by hand or at home in PrintShop.

· Students poster will be displayed in the hallway to give the message to students, as well as teachers, about our choice of words and its impact on people.