Classroom Activities
During week one, the students will create their own story boards about their memories of Gaston and they will interview family or community members to gather eye witness accounts regarding Gaston. Further, they will discuss the idea of citizenship and will brainstorm adjectives to describe the responsibilities and privileges of a citizen. They will also use a Double Bubble Map to compare the two cities. This will serve as a pre-teaching strategy. Students will also be paired with a student from New Orleans and will begin their pen pal exchange.
During weeks two and three, students would be introduced to Billie Holiday's song, Strange Fruit. Students will listen to the emotion conveyed in the song and will discuss the implications of the lyrics as they relate to public policy decisions facing America's neediest citizens. They will read in cooperative learning groups, Waiting for Godot, and will present and explain rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. They will also identify the theme, setting, and they will explore the relationship that exists between the main characters. They will also discuss the importance of the tree to both Strange Fruit and Godot and will be asked to visualize that they are stranded in the ninth ward on a roof top after the levees broke and they are waiting to be rescued by an unknown person. Through using a Venn diagram, they will also explore the relationship among Pozzo and Lucky and will compare and contrast this relationship to the relationship among the residents of the Lower 9 th Ward to the Federal Government.
During weeks four and five, the teacher will review Godot and we will begin the lesson by reading A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge and they will complete a comparative analysis of the texts and musical selection that we have discussed to date. Next, they will complete a pre-assessment using a K-W-L chart to determine what knowledge they possess about the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina. We will also begin to create a classroom timeline of the events surrounding Katrina and after completing the pre-assessment, the students will participate in a whole class discussion about the topic. The teacher objective for week one is to lead a review of setting, character development, internal conflict, climax, and theme. Students would be introduced to Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke", a documentary about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. This video should be viewed over the course of four days, in 60 minute increments. Selected lessons from "Teaching the Levees" 1 1will be used to assess the students understanding of the film. During the first 15 minutes of each class period, a review activity will take place discussing the previous days viewing of the film, and during the final 15 minutes of each class period, students will complete exit slips regarding how they felt about the days viewing of the film. Students would be assessed on their participation in the daily discussions. Students will discuss how race and socioeconomic conditions potentially affected the response by the Bush administration in the response to the Katrina crisis. Students will also discuss the importance of oral tradition and its role in the film and will discuss the impact of personal testimonies on the viewer's ability to empathize with the characters in the film. Further, they will discuss Lee's assessment of the lack of urgency in the federal government's response to the Katrina disaster. Assessment questions are located in Appendix B.
During week six, the teacher objective is to present and explain narrative and expository text features to assist students in making predictions about text organization and content of a nonfiction stories. The learner objectives are to describe setting, character relationships, and the internal and external conflicts in a Zeitoun. Throughout the week, students will read Zeitoun, a non-fiction novel about a Muslim American family living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Throughout the reading, students will be given comprehension questions to complete by chapter and will use various diagrams to compare/contrast the events in Zeitoun with those that they watched in "When the Levees Broke". Additionally, students will complete a story map highlighting the main idea, key points, and summary for each chapter in the novel .They would discuss the relationship between Zeitoun and his wife Kathy and the external conflicts that surround them. Assessment will be taken from Appendix C.
The teacher objective for week eight is to review external and internal conflict as discussed in Zeitoun. The learner objective is to understand and describe external conflicts and to understand and describe the internal conflict that the characters experience in Zeitoun and A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. Using the classroom blog, will journal and discuss the emotions that they may experience if this natural disaster was to occur in their own lives, and they will discuss how Beckett's Godot relates both Zeitoun and "When the Levees Broke." They will also discuss the role of FEMA and the responsibility of the government to take action in the event of a natural or man made disaster.
Week seven will serve as an assessment and review week. The teacher objective is to assess the students' understanding of the unit goals and to engage them in meaningful discourse about the material. The learner objective is to understand the interrelationship of setting, character development, plot, conflict, and themes shared throughout the unit and to identify the differences between political and humanitarian responses. Further, the student must produce a PowerPoint game, podcast, blog, brochure, song, or work of art demonstrating their understanding of the unit goals. Students will work on this assignment in class throughout the week. On day five, students will present their projects to the class in the form of a product, written and oral presentation.
During week eight, they will play Jeopardy on the SmartBoard to assess their understanding of the elements of nonfiction and of the play and they would complete Spider Webs and Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting the story elements of theme and conflict from A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. and Zeitoun. Assignments would be differentiated based on the identified need for remediation and ability level. On the final day of week four, students will be given a project in which they will have to create a character an artistic impression of a scene or character from "When the Levees Broke", A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge., or Zeitoun. Students will be tasked with writing a one-page scene where they create a description of a character. This character can be a based upon real person or a character they have created. Their description should include both direct and indirect descriptions and the final product should be accompanied by a T-chart that outlines what they understand to be their examples of direct and indirect descriptions. Students should follow all of the steps of the writing process and they will be taken to the computer lab to complete this assignment.
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