Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Amanda Mazzio
Stephanie Hennigan
Lesson Plan 1
Learning Target (Task, Assignment, or Content Knowledge):
In a 9th grade English class, students have been reading The Catcher in the Rye. The class has
finished reading Chapters 14-20. For today’s lesson, students will be analyzing the theme of
phoniness by looking at character interactions within these chapters. The original lesson was
comprised of a class discussion and a tableau activity (which is explained further below).
Collaboratively, the mainstream teacher and I worked together to create a new lesson plan that
would be more appropriate for the new ELL students in the class.
The class will begin with a short free-write journal exercise, in which the students explore what
phoniness means to them. For the bulk of the class, students will work in groups to dissect an
interaction between two characters. Given what is presented in the text, students will infer
whether either character is acting “phony”, supporting their opinions using examples from the
book. The students will use a worksheet to guide their investigation. To conclude the lesson,
each group will present a tableau of their characters’ interaction. A tableau is a living sculpture, a
still-life pose that portrays a character’s emotions or intentions through the use of facial
expressions and body language. For this lesson, the students will act out a still image that they
believe captures the spirit of their assigned interaction. The class has done this activity multiple
times in the past because it is a fun assessment that allows teachers to assess the students’
understanding, separate from their language skills. Although the mainstream students are
familiar with this activity, the teacher will once again model how to do a tableau so that the new
ELL student(s) understand and are prepared for the task. The teacher will model the activity for
the whole class as a “reminder” so that the ELL student(s) do(es) not feel singled out.
Content Area and Grade level: 9th grade English class with a mix of native English
speakers and English Language Learners
Teacher: Stephanie Hennigan Date: Middle of the unit, The Catcher and the Rye
Language Structures
While reading, students can think to themselves “The character’s
words and actions match because…….” “This interaction is odd
because……” or “If I were Holden, I would feel
_______________.”
While discussing:
-I believe that _______ because on page X, we see that
___________ OR (Character X) says “____________”
-I believe that the character’s actions portray______
but his/her words show ___________.
Self-Learning Skills
-Looking for relevant information
-Asking questions while reading
Other Skills
-Agreeing with or challenging others’ ideas in socioculturally
appropriate ways.
Section 3: Activity(ies)
Procedures
-Asking students to define phoniness for the journal prompt based on their own experiences as
well as how the main character, Holden Caulfield defines it activates their own memories of
phoniness as well as gets them thinking about the novel. This helps prepare the students for the
activities that follow.
-By having the students work in groups, they have the chance to validate their thoughts about the
characters’ interaction, and share the workload for finding textual evidence to support their
claims.
-By modeling the worksheet and tableau to the students, the teacher is demonstrating what she
expects each group to accomplish while they work together in small groups.
-By walking around to each group and commenting on what the students’ say each time they
participate, the teacher is validating their contributions.
-By this point in the year, students would already be familiar with tableaus, and group work, and
finding textual evidence. It would have been modeled for them and they would have practiced
multiple times. This scaffolding would have prepared the students to be able to complete a task
like the one in this lesson.
Materials/Resources/Technology
Character Analysis Worksheet
Name:____________________________
Character Interactions & Theme: CR, Chapters 14-20
*Your character’s
name:________________________________
The activities in this lesson were chosen to help the ELL students keep up with the assignments
given in a mainstream classroom. Finding textual evidence in a book might be an easy task for
native English speakers, but for the ELL students it would be much more daunting. The small
groups will help the students, as well as the assigned pages and character interactions. That way,
the students only have to look at a few pages, and focus on ONE interaction between two
characters. This lesson is universal for all students, including ELLs, because everyone, no matter
what culture you come from, knows how to use facial expressions or body language to portray
their emotions. That is why it is so much easier to understand a person if you can talk with them
in person, instead of my email or in text. Therefore, this lesson allows students to take advantage
of their knowledge of body language, hand gestures, and facial expression with the tableau
activity in order to really present the two characters they had to analyze. The ELL students have
the option of being the ones to be the living sculpture or tableau for the presentations instead of
verbally talk about their worksheet findings. In the presentations, someone has to be the tableau,
and someone in the group has to talk about it. So, the ELLs have the option of doing the
kinesthetic part (the tableau) instead of the speaking part if they are uncomfortable. The
worksheet also helps to give the ELL students a visual for what they are discussing in the groups
and keep them on task with the native speakers in the group. I also incorporated a few ideas from
the SIOP model. I listed the content and language objectives on the board and go over them with
the class so that the ELL students know what is expected of them and what they must do in class.
Also, I am also able to give the students plenty of time to interact in their small groups so that the
ELLs do not have to be intimidated to speak to the whole class, but instead, can have the chance
to speak within the small groups. I am also doing the informal assessment of walking around the
room to help each group (and make sure the ELLs are on task) with completing the worksheet.
That way, I can provide proper feedback and individual comprehensible input to the ELL
students, if needed.
-Activating the students’ prior knowledge helps prepare them for the activity. Connecting the
journal prompt to their prior world knowledge helps them make connections to the new material.
This sort of discussion is also more helpful for ELLs then asking them a question based solely on
the text. The discussion of the journal prompt would help the students practice using vocabulary
about phoniness that they will use when they analyze the phoniness of the other characters.
-By modeling the worksheet and the tableau for the students, the students know what they are
expected to accomplish in their small groups, and what they must produce to present to the class.
-By allowing the students to present their tableaus, the students can remember what the groups
did for their tableaus easily for future assignments. They can remember which characters were
phony and which characters weren’t based on the tableau for each group. The tableaus are also
useful for holding the students accountable to their group work because they know they have to
present their tableau and the findings in the worksheet to the class.
-The worksheet will help guide students through finding textual evidence. It is a scaffolding tool
because the goal would be for students to be able to do this strategy on their own and in their
head. Eventually the teacher will be able to assign students a reading and the students will
employ this strategy on their own to help themselves.