“I think that ballads are always something where I can really become one with the audience,” Namie Amuro, Japanese musician and actress.
This lesson plan primarily focuses on increasing ninth to eleventh
grade students’ understanding of medieval ballads. In the original lesson plan,
it was a whole unit that spanned on for at least a week and incorporated modern
interpretations of ballads, as well, but I decided the first half, centered on
specifically medieval ballads, was cohesive enough to stand on its own, yet had
just enough holes for me to modify with my own additions of technology, taken
from my interactivity three group list. I think the end result is very
interesting and something I would love to try in my own class. Surprisingly,
some of the best technologies were subtle rather than bombastic and worked
really well, despite that.
Row One (Access): Much of
the introduction to this lesson requires direct teaching, lecturing, a general
class discussion and individual work. I use SmartBoard, its overhead projector
and/or PowerPoint to ameliorate my lecture, so there is visual, oral and
auditory reinforcement for students. I can also write notes on my chalkboard to
satisfy this same purpose. I open the discussion up by asking students what
nursery rhymes they remember from their childhood and activate their prior
knowledge. They are given examples of ballads through employment of the
internet and/or use their physical anthology. Students start to compile a
checklist of ballad characteristics that I use to informally, formatively
assess them. They are required to find textual evidence as per the NJCCCS standard
to select common characteristics. Technology is used in abundance, effectively
and productively, throughout this section, in accordance with the NETS-S.
Row Two (Analyze): This
section opens up with a quick review, for which the non-digital technology, the
ballad checklist, is used. This helps students dissect and analyze facets of a
ballad, like complexity of characters, connecting back to the NJCCCS reading
standard listed. Students are then asked to scaffold off of the aforementioned
section and research ballads on their own on a computer. They use websites like
Early Child Ballad and No Fear Shakespeare to understand what ballads entail,
as well as gleaning basic understanding from Wikipedia, all the while taking
notes on Notetaker software. This meets the NETS-S requirement of using
technology to locate and collect information from various sources. The NJCCCS
speaking/listening are satisfied after research, whereupon students are placed
into small groups and asked to collaborate and pick a ballad to create a skit
out of. This will be their homework. Meanwhile, I assess them based on the
notes they took in Notetaker.
Row Three (Communicate): The
night before this class, students collaborate online with Class Jump, a
web-based discussion board for classrooms, which works to reinforce a positive
view of technology that can be used for education and collaboration, as the
NETS-S standard desires. I can check their logs there for another assessment. Together,
they write a script, perhaps using Microsoft Word to minimize surface errors,
that imagines a detailed scenario to go along with their chosen ballads. They
can refer back to their checklist for support. I collect these scripts and
grade them; if all goes well, students will have satisfied the NJCCCS writing
standard in this row.
Row Four and Five (Evaluate and
Produce): I merged rows four and five because I felt they went hand in
hand, with the students’ evaluation being a direct result of their production.
In this part, students actually perform the skits they created. The whole class
is given a group assessment sheet to gauge how this production occurs and
students will know to revise their writing, according to the NJCCCS writing standard,
based on the reaction. Their skits will also be recorded and played back on
software like iMovie, so they can see for themselves how their presentation
looks, through more objective eyes. If their organization in the script is cohesive
enough to meet the NJCCCS writing standard in the produce part, they will
likely perform perfectly fine. In regards to the speaking/listening NJCCCS
standard in produce, seeing themselves perform ‘makes strategic use of digital
media’ in order to self-assess. The class, meanwhile, uses the
speaking/listening NJCSS standard in the evaluate section to see if they can
adequately critique the performers’ use of rhetoric, strength argument and
validity of evidence. A TV or computer monitor is used to replay the recorded
skits for further assessment. A grade is assigned based on the final result, as well as participation prior.
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