Students and Classroom:

At Rocky Mountain High School (RMHS) I am specifically working with 9 th grade

students in the Voyager English Language Arts Program. This Voyager class is a Tier
II Intervention classroom that specializes in Read 180 and employs the co-teaching
method. These 9th grade students vary in skill but are generally low-level readers
and writers; 5 of 25 students are ELLs, 1 is on an IEP and 1 is on a 504. This class
focuses on reading and writing instruction and breaks down every step of the
process. Through Read 180 students practice basic grammar, punctuation and
spelling daily through interactive games. Mrs. Rickett creates a welcoming,
respectful classroom environment in which students feel as though they can freely
express themselves and discuss their personal lives with her and with Andrew and I
as well. Mrs. Rickett respects her students and allows them to have little freedoms
in her classroom, but, at the end of the day makes sure that all the students get
their work done and that they walk away from her lesson knowing something they
didnt know before. Physically this classroom is fairly spread out; instead of
traditional rows of desks there are rows of tables of two instead, and lining most of
the walls are bookshelves full of books, there is a Smartboard at the front of the
classroom and Mrs. Ricketts desk sits in the left hand corner of the room (if you are
facing the front), and there are some spare desktop computers scattered about on
the sides and in the back of the room. Every day Mrs. Rickett starts her lessons by
having students complete their independent journals on Blackboard, then she
moves into 20-25 minutes of Read 180 before launching into either some type of
activity or read-aloud. Through her daily activities, Mrs. Rickett creates an
environment that relies heavily on independent student instruction and wholeclass/small-group discussion and analysis. This 9 th grade class has a total of 25
students: there are 9 girls and 16 boys, and about 70% of them are Caucasian and
the remaining 30% are minorities.

Topic and Rationale:

The topic of this lesson is to help students identify foreshadowing and irony as they
appear within a novel or short story. For this lesson students will be reading and
analyzing Edgar Allen Poes The Cask of Amontillado. As a pre-reading activity
students will take a google forms quiz which will review the basic parts of a story
and have students attempt to identify what they think foreshadowing and irony are.
Then, students will complete a pre-reading worksheet on Poes short story to help
them get into context. And then, once students have completed the story they will
complete their post-reading worksheet and they will re-take their pre-assessment
google form. In this way we can check to see exactly how much the students
learned from this lesson by looking at their pre and post assessment scores and
students will be able to easily see what it is I expect them to learn from the lesson
and participate in the activities that will enhance that learning. The reason this
lesson fits in with the overall unit is because students have been working all
semester on identifying important story elements and being able to use them in
their own writing. Students recently turned in personal narratives and this lesson
will be an extension of their learning from that. They will discuss the ideas of

revenge and friendship and will analyze the ways in which foreshadowing and irony
can help to shape a story.