Life Story Lesson         1

EDU 6522 – Fall 2004 – Team Project

Lesson Plan

A Collection of Life Stories

I.                    Objective: For students to demonstrate effective reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.

PAS Targeted Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening

http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12/lib/k12RWSLStan.doc

1.2 Reading Critically in All Content Areas

1.2.5 Evaluate the role of media as a source of both entertainment and information.

1.6 Speaking and Listening

1.6.5 Compare information received on television with that received on radio or in newspapers.

II.                 Task: Students (groups of 3-4) will be assigned a Life Story movie, and produce a newspaper article, and an audio narrative that re-tells the story.

A.     Students will use MS Word to create the newspaper article.

1.      Articles are limited to one page and should include the following:

a.       Headline

b.      Text – written article with bi-line.

c.       At least one graphic or photograph.

B.     Students will use a tape recorder or create a sound file on a computer to produce an audio account of the Life Story movie that they have selected.

1.      Audio presentations are limited to 2 minutes and should include the following:

a.       Topic introduction – Example: “Life Story: Eleven year-old pinsetters learn a lesson about sticking together.”

b.      Sound other than voice (music, or story-related sounds) that supports the Life Story.

c.       Narrative commentary – organized with a beginning, middle, and conclusion.

C.     Students will present their newspaper articles, and audio narrative of Life Stories to the class. Peers will use Table 1 (page 2) to evaluate and compare the newspaper articles and audio presentations to the Life Story movie.

Life Story Lesson         2

INSTRUCTIONS: Give a score 1 to 5 (1=low; 5=highest) for each of the media. Make a note for the score, and for WHY (see examples) you gave a particular score inside the table.

Table 1

Note to students: The word comprehension means that the information is clearly understood, and can be recalled easily. Entertainment value relates to how well the media holds your interest.

D.     Reflection – Students share their peer evaluations with the class, and discuss the scores from the evaluation in Table 1.

III.               Evaluation

A.     Students will be evaluated based upon their effort and cooperation, as well as peer and teacher scores from Table 1.

Effort – What contributions did the student make to the team project?

Cooperation – Did the student cooperate and collaborate with team members?

Peer scores – Average peer-evaluation scores for the student’s work.

Teacher score – Teacher scores for the student’s work?