1. Topic-
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The Elements of the Short Story
Students will write a short story for the MLEC scholarship submission. |
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2. Content-
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"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"
By Flannery O'Connor
Elements of Plot
Character Development
Point of View
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3. Goals: Aims/Outcomes-
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1.Students will use the work of a professional as a model for their
own.
2.Students will evaluate O'Connor's writing to decide what was well
developed and what could have been different.
3.Students will analyze character development and explore how developmental
change can affect meaning. |
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4. Objectives-
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1.SPI 3002.8.3 Identify and analyze an author's point of view (i.e.,
first person, third-person
objective, third-person limited, third-person omniscient).
2.SPI 3002.8.4 Identify and analyze how the author reveals character
(i.e., what the author tells
us, what the other characters say about him or her, what the character
does, what the
character says, what the character thinks).
3.SPI 3002.8.7 Determine the impact of setting on literary elements
(i.e., plot, character,
theme, tone).
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5. Materials and Aids-
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| book, pen/pencil/computer |
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6. Procedures/Methods-
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A. Introduction-
1.O'Connor read aloud for enjoyment...students will be able to listen
for entertainment.
2.MLEC Speaker about short story scholarship
3.Imagery Art from O'Connor writing. |
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B. Development-
1. Think aloud...to bring attention to both character development
and imagery.
2. If you were going to rewrite this paragraph, what would you write?
Why? Why do you think O'Connor chose the vocabulary she chose? Specifically,
why do you think O'Connor chose the word "violently" to describe mother
and daughter rocking on the porch?
3.Word choice is extremely important when developing character and
plot...choose them wisely. |
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C. Practice-
1. Using the focused writing assignment for the scholarship, we
will start our own short story using O'Connor's style as a model.
2. The focused writing topic is iPower the future. We will start the
introduction of the short story being very careful to include setting
and characters. The names of our characters should reveal a character
trait, as does O'Connor's characters. (Ex- a female character could
be named "Hope Futerre" suggesting a hopeful future and so forth.)
3.The conflict will be discussed and developed in order to make sure
students understand exactly how to go about writing their scholarship
entry. |
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D. Independent Practice-
1. Students will write the first rough draft and begin the editing
process.
2. Students will re-write the rough draft as many times as needed
before the due date of December 3, 2010.
3.Students will share their writing with the class in open forum in
order to make suggestions and hear suggestions to make their writing
better. |
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E. Accommodations (Differentiated Instruction)-
1.Computer
2.Extra time
3.Extra one on one instruction
4.Peer instruction |
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F. Checking for understanding-
1. Student/teacher discussion
2. Student/ student Q&A
3. Student Product |
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G. Closure-
1. On day product is due, students will discuss strategies they
used that were modeled after O'Connor and what strategies they tried
out on their own.
2. Students who want to share their short story with the class may
do so. |
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7. Evaluation-
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1. Short stories will be graded based on the rubric and sent to
MLEC for scholarship consideration.
The primary focus for the student grade is character and plot development. |
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8. Teacher Reflection-
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| After grading their short stories, I really wish I had focused more
on dialogue and sentence structure. Students had difficulty with character
development because they had trouble shifting between characters during
conversation. Confusion in the stories can be eliminated by teaching
this process more clearly. |
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