At the end of last week, Sneha and I decided to introduce another integrated subject unit to the students. We felt the class had reached a moderate level of comfort with our integrated history unit as they were increasingly volunteering to participate, so we began our English unit, as well.
Sneha wants to focus on grammar, reading comprehension and fostering creativity throughout our English unit, so we are basing our lessons off a music drama program created by the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
Our unit objective is that the students will be able to demonstrate understanding and correct usage of preposition and tense grammar through the creation of an adapted music drama.
We chose the Free the Children story, which we had used during one of our early history lessons to begin a discussion of leadership. By bringing back the same story we are not only increasing the students’ reading comprehension, but we are also creating connections across curricula that help students make connections within the context of their own lives.
To begin the first lesson we showed the children the following comic strip and guided a discussion the characters, the setting, the moral/theme, the beginning, the middle and the end.
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http://www.thecomicstrips.com/subject/The-Education-Comic-Strips.php/1
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The objective of this activity was to introduce the main elements of storytelling and to demonstrate that stories can be told through visual representations as well as written.
We then guided the same discussion for Free the Children, and once the students had a clear understanding on the main points, Sneha and I instructed them to create a drawing for the beginning, the middle and the end to depict the story visually as the comic had been.
As we had experienced during a drawing activity in history, the students were hesitant to begin and wanted clear instructions of what exactly to draw. Sneha and I would only answer by reviewing the main elements of the story that the students had come up with during our discussion. By referring the answer back to what the students had devised themselves, we encouraged them to follow their instincts and use their creativity to create the drawings.
Once they shed their fear of perfection, though, they were on a roll and it was not long before they were asking to come to the front and share their drawings with the class. Since we had actually moved through the session quickly (*gasp*) we had time for other students to create frozen tableaus to the presenter’s drawing. The students really enjoyed combining visual arts with theatre and they all seemed to have a strong grasp of the story.
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Session #1 |
Objective: SWBAT demonstrate reading comprehension by drawing the 3 main scenes from Free the Children. |
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Activity |
Description |
Materials |
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Opening |
Comic strip - Pass out copies of the educational comic strip (pictured below) or project it on the screen and allow a couple minutes for reading. |
Copies of comic strip |
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Icebreaker/Spark |
Idea Map - Create an idea map about the 3 sections of the comic, including main character(s), setting, events and any moral or theme to show comprehension. |
Writing surface |
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Investigation |
Create a story map for Free the Children, writing out the main character(s) and event for the beginning, middle and end of the story. The class should come away with a concise and clear written outline of the three parts of the story. |
Writing surface |
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Main Game |
Visual Story Board/ Comic Strip - Each student will show individual comprehension of Free the Children by creating a drawing for each part of the story: beginning, middle and end. Instruct the students to make the pictures as detailed as possible to show all the main character(s) and the main event of the specific part of the story. |
3 pieces of paper per student |
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Reflection/Closing |
Draw a picture to represent how you felt about today’s lesson, share it with your partner |
Student journals |
Free the Children:
One morning when Craig was flipping through the newspaper for the cartoons, he was struck by a courageous story about a boy his age named Iqbal.
Iqbal Masih was born in South Asia and sold into slavery at the age of four. In his short life, he had spent six years chained to a carpet-weaving machine. Iqbal captured the world’s attention by speaking out for children’s rights. Eventually, Iqbal’s wide media coverage caught the attention of those who wished to silence him. At 12, Iqbal lost his life defending the rights of children. What Craig learned from Iqbal’s story was that the bravest voice can live in the smallest body.
Craig gathered together a small group of his 7th Standard classmates to start an organization called Free The Children in order to free the children from poverty and free the children from the idea that they are powerless to bring about change. Every day the movement grows and every day more young people are free to achieve their fullest potential.
