Creating Lives: An Introduction to Biography

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 10.03.10

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction / Overview
  2. Rationale
  3. Background Information
  4. Historical Background Information — Barack Obama
  5. Classroom Strategies
  6. Interactive Student Notebook
  7. Classroom Activities
  8. Resources
  9. Appendix A
  10. Endnotes

Barack Obama: A Nonfiction Approach to Reading in the "Reel" World through Documentary, Political Images, and Speech

Stacia D. Parker

Published September 2010

Tools for this Unit:

Classroom Strategies

SOAPStone

This strategy asks students to analyze the significant elements of a text individually by using the acronym SOAPStone that refers to the Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. This strategy can also be used as a prewriting strategy, in which students have to consider their purpose, audience, and tone before they begin writing. This strategy also works with students who don't have much of a background on analyzing documentaries or nonfiction texts. The diagram below poses some questions to guide students through the text.


Subject
How can you paraphrase the text in a sentence or two?

Occasion
What are the larger historical issues that inform this piece as well as the
immediate need to speak at this time?

Audience
To who is the piece directed? How do you know?

Purpose
What is the point or message of this piece?

Speaker
Who is the speaker? What can you say about the speaker's situation, social
class, age, etc.

Tone
What is the attitude of the speaker to the subject? What words and phrases
reveal this?

Analysis:
Choose one or more of the elements above and explain them with supporting
examples and/or contrast them with another text or similar subject.

Comments:

Elie Fabs Fabss

March 5, 2016 at 1:42 am

PDF

Informative comments . I was enlightened by the facts - Does anyone know where my business could obtain a blank Scholastic Plot Diagram copy to work with ?

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