Lesson Plan 1: Movie Treatments

UTL 640E

Kendall Shultz

Jeff Montgomery / Westlake High School

English IV / 12th
Date: 10/1/15
Teach(es) # 1 &
2
Class Period / Time: 4th (11:31 - 12:21) and 8th (3:15-4:05)

Lesson Objective(s):
In their project groups of [3-4], students will begin to compose modernized movie
treatments of the themes found in Beowulfcoming up with at least three possible ideas
complete with a proposed beginning, middle, and endin order to demonstrate
comprehension of the themes in Beowulf and their connection to modern day issues.

Resources/Materials:

A. TO DO before the day of the lesson:

If they do not have access to the rubric already, print out
guidelines for movie treatments for the class
B. For the lesson itself:
Get Movie Pitch engagement video up and ready
Get movie treatment example page loaded in a different tab

TEKS/SEs Addressed in the Lesson:

(2) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre. Students analyze, make
inferences and draw conclusions theme and genre in different cultural, historical, and
contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their
understanding. Students are expected to:
(B) compare and contrast the similarities and differences in classical plays with
their modern day novel, play, or film.
(8) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Culture and History. Students
analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the author's purpose in cultural,
historical, and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support
their understanding. Students are expected to analyze the consistency and clarity of
the expression of the controlling idea and the ways in which the organizational and
rhetorical patterns of text support or confound the author's meaning or purpose.
(26) Listening and Speaking/Teamwork. Students work productively with others in
teams. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity.
Students are expected to participate productively in teams, offering ideas or
judgments that are purposeful in moving the team towards goals, asking relevant and

insightful questions, tolerating a range of positions and ambiguity in decision-making,

and evaluating the work of the group based on agreed-upon criteria.

Steps in Lesson:
ENGAGEMENT (5 Minutes)

3 Minutes - Show Whitest Kids U Know - Movie Pitch video on YouTube

to start the lesson. The video is a little over three minutes in length.
2 Minutes - Introduce the concept of a movie treatment to them, and link it to the
video by explaining that a treatment is essentially a movie pitch in written narrative
form.
STATED OBJECTIVE (1 Minute)

1 Minute - Today we are going to learn more about what a movie treatment is, and then
you are going to work in your groups to begin coming up with ideas for what you might
want to do for your own modernized movie treatments that will be based on the themes in
Beowulf.
ACTIVE LEARNING (~35 Minutes)

1 Minute Well briefly look at an example of an actual movie treatment to get an

idea of how one might look. (Sample movie treatment from
www.movieoutline.com)
Explain - 2-3 Minutes - Before discussing the example movie treatment, go over
the essential components of movie treatments and what is expected to be included in
their own treatments.
Title
Includes characters, goals, obstacles/conflict, and outcome/resolution
5 Ws: Who, What, When, Why, Where
Clear beginning, middle, and end (Three-act structure)
Approximately 3 pages
Present tense
Explain - 7 Minutes - Discuss where the components of movie treatments are
seen in the sample treatment.
Explain - 2 Minutes - Go over the themes of Beowulf that they should consider
incorporating into their own treatments. Have the students tell me what the themes
are.
Apply - 20 - 25 Minutes - Ask the students to break up into their groups and
begin brainstorming ideas for possible treatments they might pursue.

By the end of the class, they should have at least three potential ideas for
treatments.
o Each proposed idea will need to have an accompanying description of the
beginning, middle, and end of the treatment content in order to ensure that
they are concrete possibilities.
o They dont have to necessarily go with any of these if they think of better
ones, but they should at least have something to start with by the time they
leave.
While in groups, I will have one student get out a sheet of paper and write down
their top three (or more, though they will need to narrow them down pretty
quickly) ideas for their treatment.
o They can also take notes on their iPads, but they need to turn in the sheet
of paper with the ideas by the end of the period.
Evaluate - 5 minutes Each group will share out one of their ideas with the class
to give their classmates an idea of what their peers are thinking about.

CLOSURE (5 - 10 Minutes)

5 Minutes short oral discussion asking students to a) define a movie

treatment and b) tell me the essential components of a movie
treatment.

Modifications/Differentiation Strategies:
Following the IEPs.

Students will be in groups, so the

Evaluation Strategies:

The group sharing will serve as one informal evaluation strategy.

Eventually, the full treatment they create will be graded, and this will
serve as the formal evaluation for this project.

Notes/Recommendations for next time:

I find it highly unlikely that I will ever be teaching this lesson

again, but if I do, I should spend a bit more time explaining what
exactly a movie treatment is and what it looks like.