Liz Walker
MSET 635
Fall 2014
Audience
6th grade language arts students in Allendale, NJ
Objectives
Students will be able to create a narrative that shows what is happening
internally as well as externally.
Students will be able to use a variety of dialogue strategies to show
tension in a narrative.
Students will be able to develop a setting in a narrative by using precise
language, sensory details and imagery.
CCSS
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3.A:Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and introducing
a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3.B: Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to
develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.3.D: Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and
sensory language to convey experiences and events.
These lessons will take place during our historical fiction
writing unit. Prior to this unit, students had read novels
that took place in Medieval Europe and they studied this
time period in history class.
Using what they know about Medieval Europe, students
craft an historical fictional short story. The videos they
will watch will supplement the writing instruction.
Students will watch them either at home the night before
a lesson (flip the classroom) or during class to help them
better understand how to apply different writing
strategies.
Historical Fiction Writing Playlist
Before students begin writing, they plan using a timeline. The timeline is not just a
timeline of events—it also documents the “inside story,” or what is going on in a
character’s head. What is going on in a character’s mind is just as important as what
is happening in the story because readers need to understand what motivates a
character, why a character makes decisions, and how and why a character reacts the
way he or she does.
For this video, students will see a silent clip from the movie Pocahontas.
During the scene, students will see thought bubbles above the characters’
heads. Students will pause the video to write down what they think is
going on in the characters’ minds. At the end of the video, students will
share what they wrote down for the thought bubbles as well as why they
wrote those thoughts.
An effective way to describe a setting is to have the character
interact with the setting. This means that a description of the
setting is woven throughout a character’s actions. While
students will see example of this from texts, they will also be
able to visualize it by viewing a clip from the film Pocahontas.
This is a scene in which Pocahontas is paddling down a river. There isn’t any
dialogue—just the character in a canoe. There are tons of setting details during the
clip, and the character is constantly interacting with the setting. For the first half of
the video, students will see captions describing how the character interacts with the
setting. For the second half of the video, students will pause the clip and record their
own descriptions as they watch.
The lesson for the final video is that in order to show tension in a story, one
strategy is to use a variety of techniques during dialogue. These techniques
include: dialogue tags, character actions during a conversation, having the main
character observe the other character, and describing what a character is
thinking during dialogue.
For this video, two teachers act out a scene from a short story. They only say the
dialogue and act out everything else that the author as written (including the
tone of certain lines of dialogue and character actions). It will be students’ job
during the video to write down what else is happening and to transcribe the
video, adding in dialogue tags, actions, etc. At the end of the video, students will
see what the author actually wrote.
Multiple Intelligences
 Intrapersonal: These videos will appeal to the intrapersonal learner
because they will allow students to be introspective and reflect on
writing strategies that they can apply to their work.
 Visual/ Spatial: For some students, writing can be difficult. It can be
challenging to understand a writing strategy without seeing it in a
different way. Viewing videos that mimic writing styles I want the
students to learn will be an effective way for visual/spatial learned to
better understand these writing strategies.
Mind Styles
 Concrete sequential: The videos break down the different writing
strategies in steps that are easy to follow.
 Concrete random: These students can take risks when filling in the
speech bubbles and setting details shown in the videos. They can also
try a few different options when interacting with the videos.
 Abstract sequential: The beginning of the videos allow students to
analyze the situation before using logic to fill in the missing thoughts or
setting details.
• Temporal Lobes (Sound, music, object recognition): These lobes are used
when students are listening to the sounds and hearing my direct
instruction through the video clips.
• Occipital Lobes (visual processing): Students have to visually process the
images they see in each of the videos to help them understand how to
implement the writing strategies being taught.
• Thalamus (incoming sensory information comes in and is directed to
other parts of the brain): The thalamus takes in sensory information
(what students see and hear in the videos) and sends that information to
other parts of the brain so that students can process it and apply it to their
writing.
"Anthony Gregorc." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Nov. 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Gregorc>.
"English Language Arts Standards » Writing » Grade 6." Home. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/6/>.
"Free World History Clip Art by Phillip Martin." Free World History Clip Art by Phillip
Martin. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://worldhistory.phillipmartin.info/>.
"Gardner's Multiple Intelligences." Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html>.
"Obama Unveils Bold Plan to Map the Human Brain." Mashable. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.
<http://mashable.com/2013/04/02/obama-brain/>.
"Pocahontas "I'm John Smith" Clip." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 5 Dec. 2014.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-VyCmeO65M>.
"Pocahontas "Just Around the River Bend" Clip." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 5 Dec. 2014.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gjY5n_sNiQ>.