Time: 40 minutes
Lesson Overview:In the seventh lesson of this communicative lesson sequence, learners practice writing descriptions of cute monsters one final time before being introduced to the Monster Box Project, the capstone project for this communicative lesson sequence.
Objectives:
Language Learning / Concept / Strategies
Body part words
Present tense, verb to have / Labels/Names of things
Number
Colour
Size
Shape
To have / Paying attention.
Cooperating with peers.
Using imagery.
Overviewing and linking with already known material.
Repeating.
Materials:
- Classroom monitor
- Classroom computer/WiFi
- Powerpoint
- Shoeboxes or similar shaped box x 1 per student
- Learner generated/chosen monster images x 3 per learner
- Long plastic straws or wooden chopsticks x 3 per learner
- Construction paper, tape, glue, colour pencils to share
- Lined writing paper
- A camera or smartphone connected to the Internet.
- A free image hosting site such as imgur.com or your school’s private website.
- QR Code Generator
- “Go Away Big Green Monster” manipulated/predictive book in Big Book format or presented as a digitized “Big Book” (see Appendix A).
- “Go Away Big Green Monster” chant
- Develop knowledge
- Writing while reading along.
- Understanding the monster box project.
Part 1: Warm Up “Monster Slide Show”The instructor should collect all student generated monster images and input them into a powerpoint slideshow.
Part 2: Read Along Writing Practice As a whole class, learners watch the short “Go Away Big Green Monster” video. Then, with the instructor leading them they will watch again chanting along to the words on the screen as the monster is constructed and deconstructed.
Part 3: Read Along Writing Practice Put Period 7 Go Away Big Green Monster.ppt up on the classroom monitor. Learners will need lined paper, with lines numbered 1-16 (the number of the slides in the PPT) and room to write a full sentence (this depends on their writing skill and how large/controlled your learners’ handwriting is).
For the first half of the story (as the monster is being built), learners receive contextual support as only 1 or 2 words are missing from each page as well, they can see the picture. They must write the whole sentence for each slide (including the missing words). After a minute or two, click the slide to reveal the correct word and check everyone’s answer.
In the second half of the story (as the monster is being deconstructed), learners receive only the picture for contextual support. They must rely on their memory, clues from the picture, and sentences they wrote for slides 1-8 in order to predict and write the sentences for the last half of the book.
Part 4: Introducing the Monster Box Project A monster box contains the complete construction and deconstruction of 3 different monsters (based on the monster images selected as part of the homework from Period 1) presented as 3 mini-books that hang inside a Monster Box.
Each monster’s construction and deconstruction exists as a hand-drawn, self-contained storybook suspended from a chopstick or drinking straw inside the box and stamped with a QR code which links to the original image uploaded onto the internet. The construction should take at least 5 sentences and the deconstruction should take the same number of sentences. So for a 5-sentence construction (one sample sentence could be “Big Green Monster has three yellow triangle eyes”), there would be 5 sentences of deconstruction (one corresponding sample sentence could be “Go away three yellow triangle eyes”!) for a total mini-book length of 10 pages. There will be 3 mini-books per monster box.
It is important that learners use PENCIL ONLY for writing their sentences at this point, since they will need to be edited later on.
See Period 9 Appendix B for a completed Monster Box sample.
Appendix A: “Go Away Big Green Monster” presented as a digitized “Big Book”
See the accompanying Powerpoint titled Period 7 Go Away Big Green Monster.ppt.