First lesson plan of the year

It's just a draft at this time, and I don't really have much time right now to wax philosophical about it, but here is a draft of a teaching demonstration lesson for my English 297 class, Teaching of Writing.  The lesson is about capitalization.  The basic plan is to start class working in pairs correcting the capitalization of an ee cummings poem.  From there, we will come back as a whole class to go through the various rules of capitalization with the use of skeletal notes to be filled in with examples offered up by the class as a whole.  To finish up, the class will form 5 groups of 4 and correct the capitalization in a Don Marquis poem, "The Coming of Archy".  As a sponge, there will also be a short passage of my own creation with as many capitalization errors as I can fit!

Please let me know what you think:

Topic:

Capitalization

Audience:

8^th grade language arts

Objective:

After this lesson student will be able to identify and correct instances of capitalization in a wide variety of texts and situations.

Outline:

1. Part I- Beginning of class
1. Hand out ee cummings poem, “maggie and milly and molly and may,”for students to work on together, ask them to correct the capitalization errors in pairs
2. Go over the correct capitalizations as a class briefly.
2. Part II- Instruction
1. Hand out skeletal notes on capitalization.

                                                               i.      Capitalize proper nouns and words derived from them, do not capitalize common nouns

1.      do not capitalize course subjects unless they are also a language.

                                                             ii.      Capitalize titles of persons when used as part of a proper name

                                                            iii.      Capitalize the first, last, and all major words in titles and subtitles of works such as books, articles, songs and online documents

1.      Also chapters and sections of books

                                                           iv.      Capitalize the first word of a sentence

1.      Line of poetry

                                                             v.      Capitalize the first word of a quoted sentence but not a quoted phrase

                                                           vi.      Capitalize abbreviations and call letters

2. Solicit examples of each section
2. Part III- Group Work
1. Have students count off by 4 (4 groups of 4, one of 3; or 5 groups of 4) and get into groups (kinesthetic)
2. Pass out, “The Coming of Archy” and have groups work through the poem.
3. (possible reward opportunity- group who finishes first with the most capitalization errors caught will get bonus points) Potential problem- how to keep the other groups motivated if someone finishes? If graduated bonus points are given, how does that make the students who work slower feel?
4. Sponge activity- if groups finish early, have them correct the sample passage on the back of Archy handout and make educated guesses as to punctuation in Archy (this could possibly be the source of bonus points?)

maggie and milly and molly and may       

by E. E. Cummings

              10

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it's always ourselves we find in the sea

the coming of archy

By Don Marquis, in "archy and mehitabel," 1927

expression is the need of my soul

i was once a vers libre bard

but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach

it has given me a new outlook upon life

i see things from the under side now

thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket

but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it

there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have

removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she

catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore

there is a rat here she should get without delay

most of these rats here are just rats

but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him

he used to be a poet himself

night after night i have written poetry for you

on your typewriter

and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet

comes out of his hole when it is done

and reads it and sniffs at it

he is jealous of my poetry

he used to make fun of it when we were both human

he was a punk poet himself

and after he has read it he sneers

and then he eats it

i wish you would have mehitabel kill that rat

or get a cat that is onto her job

and i will write you a series of poems showing how things look

to a cockroach

that rats name is freddy

the next time freddy dies i hope he wont be a rat

but something smaller i hope i will be a rat

in the next transmigration and freddy a cockroach

i will teach him to sneer at my poetry then

dont you ever eat any sandwiches in your office

i haven't had a crumb of bread for i dont know how long

or a piece of ham or anything but apple parings

and paste and leave a piece of paper in your machine

every night you can call me archy

DonMarquis.com