Classroom Activities
Activity One
Through this activity, students will understand the interrelationship between character traits and values. Give each student a post-it note. Say to the students, "Think about an animal. If you could match a personality trait with that animal, what would that trait be?" Give students the examples of a fox being sly and an owl as wise. Have students pair share ideas with each other. Students will write down an animal and the corresponding personality trait on the post-it and place it on a wall. Once students are done, give students approximately three minutes to walk around and look at what other students wrote down on the post-it notes. Lead a discussion with students asking them the following questions:
- Why did you associate that personality trait with your animal?
- What evidence or prior knowledge do you have that can help prove your example?
- Do we associate animals as being good or bad based on the personality traits given to them? Why?
Say to the class, "Think about the animal and its personality trait you gave at the beginning of class. If that animal were to answer the following three questions, what would its answers be? When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?" Have students write their answers down on a piece of paper or in writing journals. Ask students to share their answers and the reasons why they chose the answers.
Introduce the book, Three Questions by Jon J. Muth. Read the story, but stop just before the three animals give their answers to the three questions. Discuss with students the personality traits for each animal then ask students to guess what each animal's answers will be to the three questions. Continue reading the story to see if students' answers matched those of the story. Once the story is read, lead a class discussion by asking the following questions:
- Why was it important for Nikolai to find the answers himself?
- Did Nikolai's actions reflect the answers the turtle gave at the end of the book?
- What kind of character traits would you say Nikolai possesses?
- Nikolai's goal throughout the book was to find the answers to his three questions. How might you perceive him had he not helped the turtle with his garden or helped the panda find his mother?
- Would his character traits change?
- Would he have faced judgment from readers if he chose to forge ahead to find the answers without stopping to help his friends? What kind?
Activity Two
Journal prompts are posted on the whiteboard everyday. Students keep a writing journal where they are encouraged to write freely without hesitation about the topics presented. Students have the choice to share journal entries with myself and/or their peers, but are not graded on what or how much they write. When students enter the classroom, the following journal prompt will be on the whiteboard:
- What is jealousy? Is jealousy considered a negative or positive character trait? Why? Give an example of a time when you were jealous. Explain the situation, your feelings, and what happened as a result.
Once students are finished with the journal prompt, the class will join in a teacher-led discussion. Students may share their thoughts and/or experiences with the class.
The following explanation will be presented to the class: Jealousy is a normal feeling, but that feeling can take on negative effects when a person acts on his/her jealousy to hurt others. Consequently, others may judge this person harshly regardless of what the situation may be. Feelings like jealousy, anger, and hurt can cause people to react to situations without thinking. They make decisions that may end up hurting someone they care for or themselves.
At this time, the Ethical Decision-Making Model will be presented to students through discussion and use of examples. To reinforce this model, the book Fox by Margaret Wild will be used. The book will be read aloud to the class and the class will discuss the conflict and the characters involved in the conflict. Once this is done, students will use the ethical decision-making model to come up with alternative choices that can be made by any of the three main characters.
Activity Three
It will take approximately one month to read The Outsiders. Students will engage in activities and lessons for each chapter of the book that focus on vocabulary, development of main characters, setting, and the overall plot. Discussion questions surrounding the conflicts of the characters can be found in the "Strategies" portion of this unit.
Students will choose one main character as a focus. They will start by creating a character board for that character. On a piece of poster board, students will write the name of the character in the middle. Magazines will be brought into the classroom and students will cut out pictures and words that represent the character's personality traits, feelings, and emotions throughout the story. These words and pictures will be glued around the name of the character on the poster board, leaving a one-inch border around the edges. Within the one-inch border, students will write the actions of the character that resulted from an event, emotion, or feeling. These actions represent the decisions the character made throughout the story.
Once the poster boards are completed, students will look at the actions they chose and match them with a personality trait, emotion, or feeling that they represented on the poster board. Students will choose one major decision made by the character and complete an ethical decision-making chart where students will explain the problem, decide what type of ethical issue was raised, and what the outcome should have been for the character (see Appendix I).
When students complete the ethical decision-making chart, they will share and explain their findings to the class. Through this process of discussion, students will think of real life conflicts that their peers face both in and out of the school environment. Working in pairs, students pick a conflict relatable to their peers and complete an ethical decision-making chart. They must include authentic conflicts and provide solutions that are practical for students at the middle school level.
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