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What was important, given where Hama’s students were at?
This is a bilingual Year 9 class with a wide range of abilities in English, and a variety of literacy skills. This lesson occurred in Term 3, in a class where there has been a writing programme throughout the year. Hama wants his students to achieve success as Māori. In order to do this, he uses strategies that allow him to co-construct the learning with the students. Students are actively involved in leading the learning where possible.
Video clip: Co-constructing
What evidence did Hama draw on?
Te Kotahitanga’s focus on culturally responsive pedagogy is the underlying factor in all practice for the bilingual unit. A large part of this teaching philosophy is the recognition of each individual within the group. In addition, the English department has a particular understanding of teaching and learning writing that has been developed through the Collins Writing programme.The students range from Level 2 to Level 5 in e-asTTle Reading. Hama did not want to focus on this in his teaching but rather used an Achieved/Merit/Excellence rubric to set high expectations for all students in the class and to allow them to set their own goals for their writing.
Video clip: High expectations and goal setting
What evidence did Hama draw on from his own practice or that of his colleagues? The bilingual unit sits between the Māori department and other subject departments and functions as a cohesive unit. Therefore there is a commonality of practice across all the subjects. This allows for a much greater transfer of knowledge and content across subjects than is usual for secondary students. It also means that Hama has a deeper knowledge of his students in other subjects and beyond the classroom.
Hama's class - teaching inquiry
Students are encouraged to engage with and reflect on key themes, develop their understanding of characters and appreciate the historical context of the play. They then plan and write essays on selected topics.
Learning Outcomes | Teaching and Learning | Assessment and Evaluation | Printing Version
(What do my students need to learn)
Processes and strategies
Integrate sources of information, processes, and strategies purposefully, confidently, and precisely to identify, form, and express increasingly sophisticated ideas.
Ideas
Select, develop, and communicate sustained and insightful ideas on a range of topics.
Language features
Select, integrate and sustain a range of language features appropriately for a variety of effects.
Structure
Organise texts, using a range of appropriate, coherent, and effective structures.
(What do I need to know and do?)
Planning Using Inquiry
English Teaching and Learning Guide
Learning task 1:
Learning intention(s)
Establishing prior learning and linking it to the text
KCs:
Thinking – explore texts
Relate to others – peer discussion
Learning task 1
Introduction
Learning task 2:
Examining key text aspects
Thinking – using a range of thinking strategies to build understandings
Learning task 2
Plot
Complete a plot diagram that allows visual learners to see the dynamics of the play. Two settings are outlined: Belmont and Venice. Identify who goes where and why. The four plot elements: give the casket plot, the pound of flesh plot, the ring plot and the development plot a different colour.
Character
Focus on characters using following worksheets:
Themes
Focus on themes starting with issues. Consider issues in the play and rank them in order of agree and disagree continuum. Each worksheet has a symbol attached to the sheet and students pair up with the person with the same symbol. This allows students to work with different people. Pairs discuss their opinions and then relate them to the play. Pairs write two paragraphs about two of the issues.
Three level guide about appearance and reality
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano. A stage where every man must play a part And mine a sad one" (1,1, 79-80).
Tick or cross the following statements. Defend your reasoning with supporting evidence from the play.
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Learning task 3:
Thinking – close reading
Learning task 3
Making connections
Imagery in the play
Imagery is important in a text because it adds another dimension to the text. It enhances and extends meaning and often helps to develop character or theme. Complete the imagery resource. Think carefully about who is speaking and to whom.
There are nature images - Antonio's reference to mountain pines "fretten with gusts of heaven" (4,1,77) and Gratiano's image of the ship (2,6, 14). The floor of heaven is described as a mosaic "thick inlaid with patines of gold"(5,1,58-9). Cowards are said to have false hearts like "stairs of sand"(3,2,83). Gratiano describes men whose faces are like ä standing pond" (1,1, 88). Shylock is compared to a dog and uses the image himself (4,1, 133, and 3,3,6). Also see Shylock's description of how Christians use dogs (4,1, 90-93).
There are also images about the city. Antonio's ships are like rich burghers (1,1,9-14). When Bassanio wins Portia he feels like a prize-winning wrestler who hearing the applause stops "Giddy in spirit.." (3,2,144). Later he feels the "pleased buzzing" among the crowd after a speech by royalty (3,2,179).
What matters is the choice of image but these points are relevant. Do not, however, go on at length about them in an essay.
Bassanio and Portia use the most images in the play, between them accounting for half of the images in the play. Imagery is used unevenly in the play. It centres mainly around Bassanio's choice of casket and Act 5.
In the three casket scenes, imagery is used unevenly to create different tones and feelings. Morocco uses 4 images in 79 lines, Arragon uses 3 in 84 lines. With Bassanio's choice Portia uses 7 in only 18 lines (3,2, 44-62). Bassanio uses 12 in 32 lines.
Noteworthy is the fact that the trial scene does not use much imagery - 10 in 457 lines.
Music
As well as using images, Shakespeare refers to music in order to build up atmosphere. Spurgeon (1952) shows how the two moments of emotion and romance are accompanied by music: Bassanio's choice of casket and the return to Belmont by Portia at the end of the play. In Act 5, scene 1, lines 53-98 (45 lines) it is named more often than in any other play. Shakespeare describes how the power of music can tame and subdue a herd of young horses:
"If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze" (Act 5, scene 1, lines 76-78).
Lorenzo goes on to assert that no man should be trusted if they cannot be moved by the power of music. This is very fitting in a play that is about emotion. Shylock does not like the music of the masque earlier in the play and urges Jessica to "stop my house's ears" (Act 2, scene 5, line 34).Reference: Caroline Spurgeon (1952). Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us.
Conclusion
Learning task 4:
Drafting and polishing writing.
Use language, symbols and texts – structure and express understandings about texts
Learning task 4
Developing an essay
Preparing for AS90722 at the end of the year
Learning task 5:
Extending learning
Learning task 5 – Additional Resources
Electronic
Lists some useful sites and both raises and answers several questions about the play
Print
Other
(What is the impact of my teaching and learning?)
Provision for identifying next learning steps for students who need:
Tools or ideas which, for example might be used to evaluate:
leading to :
If you are not able to access the zipped files, please download the following individual files.
On the World Map find New Zealand, Turkey, Germany, Russia, Australia and England. Look at the distance between each country. Discuss how the young soldiers might have felt being so far from home. Provide students with a map of the world to find and colour each country a different colour.
On a map of Turkey locate the Dardanelle's, Constantinople (Istanbul), Gallipoli, Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. Give the students their own copy of the map and help them to use mapping skills to locate each place.
On a map of the Gallipoli Peninsular, locate and name ANZAC Cove, Suvla Bay, Chunuk Bair, Quinn's post.
Use the information to discuss with the students the silence and with-drawal.
Explain how the ANZAC soldiers deceived the Turks, practicing making no noise and no talking for weeks before the evacuation. Discuss the devices used to trick the enemy. Explain the contraptions they made to fire their weapons when there was no one left to shoot.Discuss with the students:
Discuss what information should be added to the class ANZAC chart. Teacher records the information based on the class discussion. Add information to the original chart - silence and withdrawal and the use of ingenuity.
Read to the students the story of Simpson and his Donkey. See also other sites about this story: John Simpson Kirkpatrick.Discuss:
Over 2,000 teachers are already using Ready to Read Phonics Plus (RTRP+) books in their classrooms with the help of the University of Canterbury’s Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA). The books, resources, ... Read more »
The next issues of the School Journal and Junior Journal are on the way!Junior Journal 64 and the November issues of the School Journal are now being distributed to schools and will ... Read more »
Ask students to write the following sentences on the board:
Students read these sentences aloud to each other in pairs. Check that they understand: Who? Where? What? When? Why? How?
Ask students to choose the best headline for this report:
Ask students to explain to a partner why they chose this headline, then write the explanation in their books. Sort the sentences into the correct order.
Use the models of the reports you have read and the FactsSheet (Word 44KB) to write a short report. Look at the Assessment (Word 24KB) before you start your report.
Give the students the following extension task.
Choose something that is going to happen or has happened at your school and write a news report about it. This could be a real event (such as sports exchange or a cultural event or some news about a teacher or student) or you could make up an event.
Write your report, give the report a headline, find or draw a picture for the report and give the picture a caption. Display the report in the classroom.
Use a learning review sheet to make a (individual) list or a concept map for newspapers:
1. Issue each student with a copy of the short story The Garden Party.
2. The teacher reads, or better still, plays a dramatised tape while students follow the story on their copies. It is suggested that you break the text into three parts or page by page. After each reading: clarify, question, summarise and predict similar to the reciprocal reading process, for example:
3. To encourage confidence with reading model the reading strategies at the end of the vocabulary worksheet and loan out the tape.
The activities in this section are designed to provide students with the techniques and skills required for writing a characterisation. Tasks focus on sentence structure, developing and organising ideas and essay structure. They are sequenced in order for teaching, but the order may be changed.
See also, Characterisation from the English Online Unit, Writing for Publication
Expected time frame: 2–3 lessons
These post-reading activities are designed to enable students to understand and think about key events, setting and participants in and beyond the text. They also enable students to follow a lexical chain, understand how pronoun reference works and identify some verb processes in a historical recount.
Providing many opportunities for academic language use with a focus on using authentic language
Give learners many opportunities to first notice then use new language
Lexical chains
Almost every paragraph has a synonym or substitution for "army"as the first element of the topic sentence to help track the information through the text viz. Para 1 D Day, Para 2 (In June 1940) the Allied army, Para 3 (Four years later) they, Para 4 The commanders of the army, Para 5 The first day they chose, Para 6 The generals, Para 7 Change of focus – Nowadays – so "army" is no longer the focus.
Pronoun reference
Ask the students to identify the nouns and noun phrases in the pronoun reference task (Word 39KB) . One example has been done for students, but some may need further guidance.
Verb processes
Reflection
Ask students to complete the learning grid (Word 33KB) at the end of the unit to identify which of the language learning outcomes they think they have met. Discuss with students to see if further teaching and learning needs to be done on specific outcomes for individuals or groups of students.
Where to next?
It is suggested that students read more complex historical recount texts at ELIP stage 3 using guided reading approaches.
For students who are interested in learning more examples of idioms in English the following resources may be useful:
http://languagearts.pppst.com/idioms.html
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