Haiku for the Blue Planet Student Mosaic Part 1

So, in the previous blog post I shared a mosaic that my students put together for Earth 2010. This year, we were already working on haikus which are traditionally written about nature to for our unit of poetry. (Happy Poetry Month!) I had my students decide what they wanted the picture to be, draw it, cut it up and each student wrote his/her haiku on a piece of the planet.

We started first by drafting our poems:

Then we checked over them to make sure they followed the correct format:

Then we wrote our haikus on our little pieces of the planet:

Next we put them all together to create our mosaic:

I added a little extra credit assignment that my students were really excited about. We went outside and took pictures of nature with our camera phones and then I had the students post their pictures to Instagram and put their haiku as the caption. We used a hashtag them so I could find them and give them credit. They liked that they could share their assignment on a social media site they often use:

Ode to Earth Student Mosaic Part 1

Back in 2010, I had my students create a mosaic to honor Earth on Earth Day. Each picture has a poem, in the form of an ode, celebrating nature. We pieced them together to create this beautiful mosaic in the hall which we dubbed, “Ode to Earth”. This year I plan to do the same thing with my Creative Writing class only this time we’ll be focusing on haikus since we’re deep into our poetry unit and are focusing on poetic form. (Happy Poetry Month! btw) That mosaic will probably be much more detailed. I will be posting the results. Stay tuned!

Facebook Profile Character Development Lesson

Standard:

CCSS RL 9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

Objective:

Students will analyze the characters’ multiple and conflicting motivations in “Hamlet” in order to determine how these interactions drive the plot. Students must have an understanding of internal/external conflict, plot and character traits.

Essential Question: 

How do the internal conflicts of certain characters affect the external conflict between other characters in the play and how does this advance the plot?

Opening Activator:

I will open with how internal and external conflicts interact all the time. I’ll give and ask students for examples such as celebrity Twitter mishaps and how an indirect tweet can affect their followers. I’ll ask them how often they’ve put how they were feeling about something personal not directly speaking to anyone on Facebook and had comments that showed that it effected other people.

Quickwrite: How would/did your mom react? Boyfriend/Girlfriend? Friend? Teacher? Etc…

Direct Instruction:

There are a lot of soliloquies in this play and the actions of Hamlet, the new King, his mother, effect how each person reacts.

What if this all played out on Facebook? What would it look like?

I will then show them an example of my “Othello” Facebook profile page complete with status messages and comments from Desdemona, Iago, and Cassis.

Facebook Profile Othello Example/Template

Guided Practice:

They will create a Facebook profile page for their character: Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Laertes, Ophelia, Horatio (some have complete profiles, others are contributors)

Students will be working in groups of 4-5. Each student will have a role:

Scribe: type the information into the template

Researcher: look up quotes for status messages and comments

Translator: will provide the explanations for quotes used (write in “Facebook lingo”)

Presenter: Present the information verbally to class

Designer: Provide pictures for the profile 

They will need to have 5 status messages with quotes from the dialogue in the play with their translation of the meaning in “Facebook lingo.” At least 2 pictures should be included with captions, and other information like birth, death, hometown, etc.

Student will present their profiles. 

(Self-Evaluation) Student groups will check their work with their checklists 

Facebook Profile Checklist

Independent Practice:

Students will write a eulogy for the characters that died in the play based off of what they’ve learned about them and how they’ve interacted with other characters. They can give these eulogies as other characters in the play.  They must use evidence from the text (direct quotes).

Example: Laertes gives eulogy for his sister Ophelia.

Sir Ken Robinson: Changing the Education Paradigms

In English

In Spanish