Lesson Plans

Novels and Technology: Modern and Classic Lit

Objectives:

·      Students will understand the main themes of Maze Runner and Animal Farm.

·      Students will be able to clearly identify similarities between the two books.

·      Students will be able to clearly identify differences between the two books.

·      Students will think deeply about their readings.

Summary of Tasks:

·      Students must read Animal Farm or Maze Runner

·      They should create a twitter account to be used for literature discussions only

·      The teacher should provide students with a class hashtag to use on their posts.

·      As students read each chapter, they should provide two tweets. One tweet should be a main theme they noticed in the chapter or a main point they noticed, and one should be a question. Each tweet should have the class hashtag somewhere within it for easy reference.

·      Students must also reply to two other student’s tweets each week. One related to each book.

Materials/Equipment:

·      Maze Runner

·      Animal Farm

·      Computer with internet access

Assessment:

            Students will be assessed throughout the process based on timeliness of their posts, relevance of the questions, and thoughtfulness of responses. 

Novels and Traditional Discussions: Modern and Classic Lit

Objectives:

·      Students will understand the main themes of Maze Runner and Animal Farm.

·      Students will be able to clearly identify similarities between the two books.

·      Students will be able to clearly identify differences between the two books.

·      Students will think deeply about their readings.

Summary of Tasks:

·      Students must read Maze Runner or Animal Farm

·      As students read they should come up with discussion questions, or just questions they had while reading the text.

·      The questions should be written down and placed in a container in class. (The teacher should include some questions as well to make sure questions are thought provoking.)

·      Questions from both books can be placed in the same container to help facilitate the point that the two books are similar but different.

·      Once students have finished a quarter of the book, there should be a discussion based on the questions in the jar.

·      The teachers job is to facilitate the discussion and keep it moving in a positive trajectory.

·      At the end of the discussion, students will write a journal entry based on the discussion.

·      This discussion should occur for the next three quarters of the books as well.

Materials/Equipment:

·      Maze Runner

·      Animal Farm

·      Small Pieces of paper

·      Small container to hold paper

Take Home Tasks:

·      Students should spend their home time reading their selected book.

Assessment:

·      After the discussions have concluded, students will write a short journal entry that will be turned in at the end of the completed lesson. 

Questions to Spark the Brain

1. What are the political connections to the book?
2. In what way is this book similar to real life?
3. What connections can be drawn between the two novels?
4. How are the two novels different?
5. If you were in the maze or on the farm what would you do the same/differently?
6. How does writing like this benefit society?
7. Is our society on its way to ending up like one or both of these books?