Literacy Techniques and Strategies
Lesson Plan: Plot Diagramming
Goals:
- Assess whether students are able to identify and comprehend the important events of the text.
- Teach students how to draw and fill in a plot diagram.
- Have students interact with someone new or whom they rarely work with.
- Assess if students have been keeping up with the reading.
- Teach students how to identify important plot points in a text.
- Cover the basic important events of the novel so far.
Materials Needed:
- Chalk or whiteboard
- Student journals
- The novel, Freak the Mighty
- Computer lab (or access to 9 computers)
Activities:
Opening
- (10 minutes) I will ask the students to tell me what the main events in the novel have been so far while I write them on the board. I will ask them to take notes on this in the plot section of their journals.
Body
- (2 minutes) I will then draw an outline of a plot diagram on the board without the labels of the different parts.
- (5 minutes) I will ask students to volunteer to tell me what the different parts of a plot diagram are and where they belong. We will talk about what each part means (or "does").
- (3 minutes) Once we establish where the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution belong, I will ask students to get into groups 8 groups of 3 and 1 group of 4. I will ask them to be in groups with people they don't always work with.
- (3 minutes) The students will take their journals and gather around a computer with their group.
- (20 minutes) I will direct them to the ReadWriteThink website where they will follow the directions to make an electronic plot diagram using their list of events.
- (3 minutes) Students will print off their diagram to put in their journals.
Closing
- (3 minutes) I will restate why we look for important events while reading.
- (1 minute) I will remind students to read chapters 15 and 16 and keep adding to their journals.
Formative Analysis:
- Assess whether students are able to identify and comprehend important events in the text by listening to their contributions to the class list.
- Assess their ability to draw and fill in a plot diagram by looking over their electronic diagrams as they make them.
- Assess students' interactions with new group members by observing their abilities to work together in groups.
- Assess students' abilities to distinguish between important and less important plot points by listening to their contributions to the class list.
- Assess the complete coverage of the events in the novel so far by making sure that no important plot points are left out while making the class list.