Karen Klass: CI 473 Lesson Plan: How Hollywood has portrayed the poor ( part of a larger social studies/ELA

interdisciplinary unit on the influence of mass media on social conditions. The ELA class is reading selected portions of The Grapes of Wrath) Name: Karen Klass Class/Subject: 9th Grade Social Studies Class Date: February 11 and 12, 2013 Student Objectives/ Student Outcomes: 1. Students will, given the article From D.W. Griffith to The Grapes of Wrath, How Hollywood has portrayed the Poor and teacher scaffolding of prior knowledge, engage in directed reading-thinking activity in order to evaluate the ways that that the plight of the poor has been depicted in Hollywood movies over time. 2. Students will, in teacher designated small groups, using vocabulary self-selection each nominate one word from the portion of text that they have just read for clarification in order to understand the use of the word in multiple contexts and subsequent readings. The teacher will participate and nominate the following words from the text: provocative, inadvertently, amiable, stark, and uncompromising. Content Standards: 1.C.4a Use questions and predictions to guide reading. 1.C.4d Summarize and make generalizations from content and relate them to the purpose of the material 1.A.3b Analyze the meaning of words and phrases in their context
16.A.4b Compare competing historical interpretations of an event.

Materials/Resources/Technology: Whiteboard Dry Erase Markers Reading Handout

Procedure/ Lesson Flow/Assessment 8:10 AM Start of Class Teacher will hand out the reading to each student in the class and read the title aloud. To scaffold prior knowledge, the teacher will point out that Griffith was an early 20th century film producer. The class will then be asked to make predictions about the article based on the title. Teacher records predictions on the whiteboard. In shared reading, the teacher reads the first paragraph to the class, and then checks the predictions made about the title for validity and then solicits new predictions based on the text of the first paragraph. Teacher is prepared to scaffold based on predictions/ questions from the paragraph. For example, who was Bernie Madoff and what was the 2008 economic collapse. Teacher records new predictions. . Each student within small groups will silently read the second paragraph. Students will then make new predictions and assess the validity of previous predictions. Teacher will be prepared to scaffold prior knowledge and set the context historically and summarize for the class the message of the paragraph. Students will silently read the next two paragraphs, make additional predictions, and check previous predictions. Teacher will scaffold prior knowledge as required. At the conclusion of the first four paragraphs, each group will be assigned to re-read a different paragraph and select one vocabulary word and an alternate word that is unfamiliar to them. The groups will present the word they have selected to the whole class by defining it, modeling its use and making an argument for its inclusion on the word wall. The class will vote for the top two words that will be included on the word wall. Teacher will record the words for their frequent use and reinforcement. Assessment/ Check for understanding Student will, in their in-class notebooks, write a brief (2-3 sentences) summary of the passage read in class. Teachers will circulate among students to assist. Student summaries are a

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formative assessment of the effectiveness of the lesson and the difficulty of the text. They will be used by the teacher to adjust the pace of the lesson, if required, and to identify students who need additional assistance

CI 473 Lesson Plan Rationale Karen Klass

11 February 2013

The readability of the article From D.W. Griffith to The Grapes of Wrath, How Hollywood Portrayed the Poor assumes that the reader has a fairly well developed prior knowledge of the history of U.S. filmmaking, the ability to connect significant events in 20th Century U.S. history to make sense of the societal/ political context in which the film was produced, and the unwritten reasons that issue films are not made with regularity, or that their production is delayed until there is consensus. In terms of decoding, the article is moderately challenging, so most of the students in the class can read the words in this article. However, they will most likely walk away from class with little comprehension of the intent and message of the author without significant scaffolding. Moreover, the flow of the article does not lend itself well to the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity technique in that what is addressed in one paragraph is rarely in this article predictive of what will occur in the next or succeeding paragraphs. Having said that, we would have picked another selection with a more sequential flow of ideas. Given the reading level of the class as a whole, a reading selection with more of sequential flow would lend itself better to DRTA while sufficiently addressing the theme of the lesson. Part of this is confidence building and we think that this particular reading would be frustrating most 9th graders. We estimate at least two periods of class instruction would be required to complete a lesson with this article as its focus. We chose to use DRTA as a comprehension strategy and Vocabulary Self-Selection (VSS) as a vocabulary building strategy in this lesson. As depicted on our lesson plan, the class will be broken down into six groups and good readers will be paired with emerging readers. This allows stronger readers to model their thinking and help emerging readers as they develop their predictions while reading the text. Because of the prior knowledge required to comprehend the article, we will use shared reading technique for at least the first paragraph so the teacher can model and scaffold students knowledge so they can better comprehend the major themes of the text. VSS will be used to determine what words will be included on our word wall for mastery in use, both orally and writing. In terms of evaluation, we chose to have the class write a short summary of the text covered in our lesson of 2-3 sentences. This is done in class, because 60% of the class will not complete it at home, and is a formative assessment to not only check the students understanding, but also to assess our teaching strategy and where individual emphasis may be required. This is a very diverse class, and as such, the article does not deal with the subject manner in a way that addresses the plight of ethnic minorities. All of the films mentioned in the article, even the more recent ones, with the exception of The Blind Side, are about white families, and their economic struggles. Therefore, in the course of this particular lesson using this article, it needs to be pointed out that at the time The Grapes of Wrath was produced, for example, that African Americans could not even enter a local movie theatre. These films were geared for a white movie going audience because they bought the tickets, which produced the revenues and profits for filmmakers. After reading this article we would introduce and discuss who is represented historically in the movies depicting the plight of the poor. We would also focus upon why that is true, and why minorities were not included.