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LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE -SECONDARY

Teacher Candidate: Jordan Loo
Grade Level: 12 Subject/Content: English Lit.
Title: Thou Art the Man- Identifying Key Themes
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS (e.g. ethnicity, gender, exceptionalities, ELL, GATE, etc.) which need
differentiation in instruction and assessment.

My class has 22 students in it and 18 of them are Caucasian. Of the remaining 4 students, I
have 2 Native American students, and 2 Hispanic students.
There are 12 females and 9 males in the class.
There are no ESL or exceptionality students in this particular class.

WALK-AWAY (what do I want students to know, understand, and be able to do?)

Common Core Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3

Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story
or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced
and developed).
Content, Reading/Language Walk-Away:
Walk-Away:

Students will identify key themes within a text and discover the importance of themes in relation
to plot lines and what is considered strong writing.

ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE (formative/summative checks for

learning) (Match the Content Walk-Away)

-Students will take a written pre-test asking them to identify

themes within a few well known books and film.
-Formative assessment: students will each take part in class
discussions and small group activities. (participation)
-Summative assessment: A quiz and journal entry will require
students to identify themes as well as understand how themes
influence the development of plot, setting and characters within

Modifications/Accommodations

(ELL, IEP, GATE, etc.)

-Instead of a written pretest I

could take aside students who
need extra help and have a mini
discussion to find out what they
know about themes.

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literature or film.

ACTIVE LEARNING PLAN

Modifications/
Accommodations
(ELL, IEP, GATE, etc.)

Activate Prior Knowledge/Experiences

Fear is something that everyone experiences. It is interesting to learn
why we have them and the power fears can have over people. Most
students understand what a theme is but it is important to point out that
there can be multiple themes within a work and the order they are
revealed can be crucial in the overall success or relevance of the piece.
Focus Lesson (I do it)
-I will present to the class a PowerPoint presentation about themes. I will
also go over the pretest with the students and identify themes within the
known pieces of literature and films listed.

Guided Instruction (We do it)

-In a whole class setting we will pick a few more popular works and
identify themes within them and discuss why certain themes can
influence the reader more than others.
-Look up a few popular film trailers on YouTube and identify key themes
in each trailer along with different reactions. (Excitement for adventure,
laughter for comedy, fear from thrillers, etc)
Collaborative/Cooperative (You do it together)
-The class will break into groups and read/preview Edgar Allen Poes
Thou Art the Man they will collaboratively write in their journals and
discuss the elements of the story. I will then show a short YouTube video
on Poe and his life.
Independent (You do it alone)
-Each student will begin to write their own fictional short story using the
theme of fear at some point hopefully ending with a twist. (May take a
couple class periods to complete)

-I will insert myself into

as many small groups
discussions as I can but
focus on those students
who may need a jump
start to get going.
-Depending on the
severity of the students
needs I can have them
draw or help them write a

story.

Summarization/Closure
- Class discussion on fear as a theme for horror and why it is interesting.
Talk about examples of fear as a theme mixed with action, comedy, or
romance themes within Literature and film. Reflect on why they are
interesting (popular)/ or why they are not. Also talk about how themes
are everywhere in pop culture and it would benefit the students to be able
to identify key themes when analyzing books and films in the future. I
anticipate each class will have a different discussion course, however, I
want them to walk away realizing that different emotions usually
correlate with different themes used in art and literature. For example
What emotions does the viewer usually encounter when
reading/viewing a comedy? What about a Romance?
NOTES TO TEACHER
What do I need to remember to do?
- Review Power Point slides.
- Prepare modifications for possible ELL and IEP students in class.
- Read/review Thou Art the Man (for myself as the teacher)
Materials to have ready?
- Student journals
- PowerPoint/ YouTube video
Approximate time needed for lesson?
- 1 class period
Reflection:
I think that this lesson may take a few class periods to complete if I want to do it right. I need to
prepare so that each class will be at the same point as any other so that no one gets left behind. Since I
havent taught this lesson in a real-life situation I am curious as to how interested the students will be.
I wonder if the interest will vary from class to class and why that might be the case. I will be able to
use the assessments to decide if I can continue to more complex elements of literature or if I need to
continue to focus on the basic elements such as theme, setting, character roles, etc After each class
finishes a segment I think it would be valuable to take notes about things that the students already
knew and what they may have struggled on.