Recognizing and producing the genre biography
Lesson Overview
Topic
This lesson helps students develop their listening and writing skills. Specific skills include recognizing the different ED sounds (/t/,/d/,/id/); recognizing the characteristics of a biography; using the regular and irregular verbs in the simple past to write a biography.
Description
Students will read a short biography of a famous
person in order to learn what a biography is and identify actions in the past.
After that, they will review the difference between regular and irregular verbs and learn
the different ED sounds (/d/, /t/, /id/). At the end, they´ll be able to write
a biography of a family member using the verbs in the past tense.
Student Characteristics
Student Group
8th grade students.
Skill and Language Level
Novice mid on reading skills; novice low on writing skills.
- They can understand short texts but writing is a big challenge for the students.
Curriculum Alignment with Learning Outcome(s)
Supported Outcomes
Students will learn the characteristics of a
biography and produce one, they will also learn the simple past and the ED
sounds.
Student Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:
1 – Identify regular
and irregular verbs in the past tense used in a biography of a famous person.
2 – Identify the characteristics of a biography.
3 – Create a biography of a family member using relugar and irrelugar verbs in the past tense.
4 – Use the characteristics learned to write the genre biography.
5 – Identify the different ED sounds for the verbs in the past tense.
Materials
Teaching Materials
Student Materials
Notebooks, pencils and cell phones.
Technology Requirements
The teacher will need a projector, a cell phone and speakers.
Lesson Plan
Knowledge Check
1. The teacher asks the students if they have an idea of what a biography is and let them try to answer and give examples;
2. The teacher asks if the students remember what the simple past tense is and ask them to try to differentiate the regular and irregular verbs.
3. The teacher asks students to remember someone important in our history and talk about that person (Who was she/he; where did she/he live; why was she/he important?).
Introduction/Warm-up
· Questions for brainstorming: Why is it important to know the history of the people who came before us? For example, why is it important to know the history of our parents and grandparents? Or the important people of our city?
· There are some people around the world who made the difference in people´s lives. Do you know them? Let´s talk about them! Work in pairs then share the information with the class.
Guided PracticeIndependent Practice (or Student Production)
- Students receive a text about Rosa Parks and have to find and underline words related to actions. (2 min)
- The teacher asks the students about similiarities between the verbs and then review the relugar and irregular verbs.
- The teacher explains to the students that they will do a listening exercise with the verbs from the text. They have to write the verbs in the correct column according the ED sound.
- The students will listen to another exercise to differentiate the ED sounds and categorize them.
- Brainstorm what the characteristics of a biography are. Let the students
work in pairs to discuss and the teacher can collect the ideas of all students and
bring in the next class in the Wordcloud format. After, the teacher can check if their thoughts were appropriate
for the genre.
- The students do a matching exercise related to Martin Luther King Jr´s life.
The students receive another biography, at this time about Martin Luther King Junior. Then they have to answer the questions below.
o When was Martin Luther King Junior born?
o Where was he born?
o What was the segregation?
o What event in his life inspired him to fight for equal rights?
o According to King, what was the best way to fight for social change?
- Obs: The text is in the Text_Biographies file.
- Assessment: the teacher explains how to create a comic strip using a web tool and as part of the evaluation students must create a comic strip about Martin Luther king Junior´s life. This assessment should be held in class, so the teacher can help students when necessary.
- Build your story on Storyboardthat.com
- The final assessment is producing a biography
about someone in the student´s family, someone who they admire and would like
to write about. They must use some of the verbs learned in this lesson and the
characteristics of a biography. The teacher can use the Rubric to check this
assessment and then return it to the students.
Feedback
1. The teacher elicits corrections from the entire class regarding the errors from the biography writing that s/he has pointed out on the rubric. The teacher does not single out any student, but s/he generalizes corrections orally or on the board.
Closing Activity/Wrap-up
The teacher can make a four square activity, as the example below, in order to review the content of this lesson.
The teacher can divide the class in as many
groups as needed but in a way that no more than four students will work
together. Each group receives a different verb. At the end they share their
outcomes.
Extension and/or Differentiation
As an extension activity the teacher can use the Coffee Pot Game. In a pot the teacher puts all the simple past regular verbs learned in this lesson plan. In small groups, one of the students takes out a verb and makes a sentence with that verb, but instead of saying the verb, the student says “coffee pot”, as shown in the example:
Ex: (worked) I “coffee pot” a lot yesterday! I´m so tired.
The other students try to guess the verb.
Assessment Methods
The students will produce a biography according to the characteristics of this genre and using verbs in the simple past tense.
Grading Criteria and/or Rubrics
Assessment Differentiation
In order to adapt assessment for the students who do not have equal proficiency and the ones who had not acquired the content properly, the teacher will give a template that offers more tools to students succeed.