Lesson Activity Plan #1: Getting to Know You
Students Begin “Dating” to Preview Essential Questions
For the very first day of the unit, students engaged with a “speed dating” activity that asked them to accomplish two goals: first, get to know each other a little bit to build classroom community and second, begin to tackle the unit’s essential questions through previewing.
As part of my Philosophy Statement, I note that I believe that students need to be willing to take academic and creative risks. Here, students were risking a new format that caused some discomfort at first but that resulted in a couple days of deep conversation on the big ideas. Students also got to know each other a bit better, helping later in the unit when we began our memoirs.
Students enjoyed the whimsy of the activity; I enjoyed seeing effective pair work. The biggest takeaway? If students didn’t have a good conversation with the first “date,” then they had four or five more to try out (much like real speed dating, of course!). With that, students had myriad opportunities to converse about the themes of You Don’t Know Me.
Lesson Activity Plan #2: Stop! I Gotta See That!
A couple days during the unit were more reading heavy, as I wanted to do close readings in class of key scenes. In addition to close reading checks and conversation, I also tried out an activity called “Stop! I Gotta See That!” where 4-5 students sit in the center of the classroom and can be called on during reading to act out a passage just read as a group.
I was a bit disappointed with the overall lack of participation in these lessons, and so I adapted to allow students to try out different formats for close reading days. Some of these can be seen in the Philosophy & Growth section, where we tried out Hot Seat much more successfully.
Lesson Activity Plan #3: On the Hot Seat
Speaking of Hot Seat, here is that activity! See the link in the previous paragraph for a video of this.
Additionally, see the Video and Commentary section of this tab for the round video from that class.
Lesson Activity Plan #4: Book Club
I wanted to vary reading activities greatly in the unit, since this was the longest book that almost all of my students had ever read. So, one day we tried out book club where students got into trios or quads to read the book aloud and discuss.
Students had different roles: two people had to read, one had to facilitate the discussion questions, and one had to take notes. Participation was superb and students liked the change of pace. As a bonus, this also allowed me to assess their reading based on group notes and to see who was actively participating.
Lesson Activity Plan #5: Finishing You Don’t Know Me
The biggest surprise of the unit was student’s wanting to read the last three chapters in class on one day, instead of waiting for the next day to finish together. Students, overall, really loved You Don’t Know Me and were able to “dig into” the book for meaning. On a day when we were scheduled to read chapter 24, students also pushed to read chapter 25 and the epilogue. I ended up adapting the lesson plan so that we had our conversation the following day!
