Lesson Objective
Students will be able to answer the essential question: How does a traumatic injury
to the frontal lobe of a person's brain affect their subsequent brain processes? The
primary literacy objective is for the students to be able to read a complex text and
apply their Critical Reading Skills (i.e. Deep Reading Strategies, Marking the
Text, Charting the Text, & What the author is DOING) to the text. A second
literacy objective is for the students to be able to write a rhetorical précis which
identifies the author's claims in the text and support those claims with evidence
from the text (and identify and explain author's purpose and intended audience, as
well).
Lesson Plan
1) I will start out with a short powerpoint presentation of the injuries suffered to Phineas
Gage in the mid-1800's where a mining explosion blew a steel rod out the top of his skull
severely damaging the front lobe of his brain (and obliterating his left eye).
2) the students are presented with a one-page complex text reading on the Story of
Phineas Gage.
3) First Reading of text: Students will number the paragragphs of the text and mark the
text with a pencil while reading the text for the first time. During this reading the
students will circle all the phrases explaining the injuries Gage sustained from explosion.
4) Second Reading of text: Students will underline all passages in the text that indicate
the changes to Gage's personality that occurred following the accident.
5) Third Reading of text: Students will box in all passages in the text the author claims
were the medical reasons for Gage's personality changes.
6) Students, in groups of 4, create a T-Chart, identifying the sustantive facts in three
areas: "Gage's Injuries", "Gage Personality Change Post-Accident" and
6) Doing vs. Saying; The students in pairs will describe what the author is DOING in
paragraphs 1, 5 7 and 9 of the reading. (Answers would include: "In paragraph 7, the
author is providing a series of medical explanations for the profound changes Phineas
Gage's personality underwent following his traumatic brain injury.)
7) Four A's Protocol: Students in their same groups of four answer these questions among
themselves: (1) What did they ARGEE with in the article; (2) What did they ARGUE
with in the article? (3) What did the author ASSUME in the article; and (4) What did the
article make you ASPIRE to? Individuals from the group then get a chance to share out
their views with the rest of the class. Students are encouraged to disagree or voice
opposite points of view.
7) Rhetorical Precis: The students will write a rhetorical precis describing the author's
claims and the evidence he uses to support those claims in the article, along with author's
purpose and intended audience. A list of academic verbs will be provided for
scaffolding. The Rhetorical Precis is due the next day.
8) Lyrical Replacement Summary: Using the song "God Bless America", individual
students will then use the relevant facts in Phineas Gage story to rewrite the lyrics of this
famous song using three main events in Gage's Life (i.e. Injury, Personality Change, &
Medical Science Behind the Brain injury). The students will bring their lyric sheets to
class the next day, and I will pick a few for the students to sing (I'll play the guitar).
9) Assessment: 30 Second Expert. The students will review the text and their rhetorical
precis and become an "expert" in one aspect of Phineas Gage's life. The students will
then line up in two rows and pair off with an "expert" of a different aspect of Gage's
life. The first expert will get 30 seconds to tell the other student everything he or she
knows about that subject. When the "expert' is done, the other student must ask at least
one probing question for the expert to answer, then they switch roles. The students then
switch partners and go through the process again.
10) Students will then be given iPads upon which a a class we will do a virtual dissection
of the human brain identifying the parts of the brain and which bodily funtion it controls
(and what happens to the body it that part of the brain is injured...e.g: the sight center or
the hearing center of the brain).