Lesson Plan

Context:
Date: November 13th and 14th
Grade: English
Length of lesson: 80 Minutes

This lesson will be taught at Monticello High School. Monticello is a suburban public school
with a population of about 1,200 students. This lesson will be taught in an Honors English 10
class where students are being prepared for 1th Grade AP English. The class is approximately 60
percent female and 40 percent male. We are currently in a unit called Dehumanization and have
been discussing what things make us human and how our perspective informs our perception of
humanity. Students in each class are reading either In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez or
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. They have been placed in literary circle groups and have
created websites onto which all of their group work assignments are being posted.

Standards:
SOLs:

10.1 The student will participate in, collaborate in, and report on small-group learning activities.
f) Collaborate with others to exch4ange ideas, develop new understandings, make
decisions, and solve problems.
i) Use a variety of strategies to listen actively.

10.8 The student will collect, evaluate, organize, and present information to create a research
product.
b) Develop the central idea or focus.
c) Verify the accuracy, validity, and usefulness of information.
d) Make sense of information gathered from diverse sources by identifying
misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, point of view or
bias.

Objectives:
1. Students will value each others perspectives through discussion, regarding all of the
literary terms, ideas, and themes we have discussed throughout the unit.
2. Students will understand the purpose of an annotated bibliography
3. Students will know how to structure and annotated bibliography and what sorts of
annotations to include.
4. Students will be able to create their own annotated bibliographies with their research
question in mind.
Instructional Steps:
[40 min] Musical Chairs and TodaysMeet.com
[5 min] Hashtags Takeaway
[15 min] Mini Lesson on Annotated Bibliographies
[20 min] Individual Work Time

1. [45 min] Musical Chairs and TodaysMeet.com

Hell everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Unless you did not finish your
novel and your dialectical journals, you did not have any homework. That said, today, we
are going to jump right into our activity today. We are not going do SSR, but you will
have a chance to read at the end of class. The purpose of our discussion today is to wrap
up our novels, as well as to think about all the topics and themes we have thought about
thus far in relation to our novels. So, this is what is going to happen.

Most of you have already noticed that the room is divided into two circles. On the outside
there are desks, on the inside there are chairs. We are going to be doing discussion with
musical chairs. There will be 15 chairs to start off with. We will all be standing up and
talking about the first essential question and how it pertains to your novel. You can
choose to talk to anyone from any group, but you have to be talking to someone. I will be
walking around and listening so if you are not talking about the text, I will know. Because
this is musical chairs, there will be a song playing [I will comprise a list of songs from
Nigeria and the Dominican Republic]. Once the song stops, you must end your
conversation and sit down. If you do not grab a seat on time, you then get to have a seat
on top of your desk and will be engaging in discussion with your group members through
an online chat. We will keep playing musical chairs until the last person is out. If I see
that you are not talking and are just waiting around for the music to stop, I will make you
sit down. Every time we start over again, you should be talking to a new person. It does
not matter if they dont have your novel, that gives you a chance to share a little bit about
your novel with them. So to recap:

1. We are playing musical chairs and there are 15 chairs in the middle to start with.
2. You must be talking to someone about your novel or else you will sit down
3. When you are out and have to sit down, you will join the chat group assigned to your
novel. In the chat, you will continue the conversation, but will be responding to each
other online.

What questions are there about the format and structure of the discussion we are about to
have?
 Many of you all might be thinking, well what are we supposed to talk about? I have a list
of discussion question on the PPT that will change as we start to loose people from the
musical chairs. The topic of discussion will be up on the board.

Discussion Questions:
1. What makes us human? Use your novel when answering this question.
2. How does perspective inform our perception of humanity?
3. Why is it important to remember that we have cultural biases when reading
postcolonial literature? Provide examples from your reading experience.
4. Discuss the most dynamic and round character in your novel. How did the author
achieve this? Why are they important?
5. Think of a conflict that arose in your novel. What sort of conflict was it, and why was
it significant within the narrative?
6. Assess the author. Are they a credible voice in telling this story? Why or why not?

Online Chat:
Things Fall Apart: https://todaysmeet.com/TFG
In the Time of Butterflies: https://todaysmeet.com/ITTOB

2. [5 min] Hashtags Takeaway

I am really happy with the discussion I heard today. Before we move on to our next thing,
I am going to pass out a hashtag sticky note. If you were going to write a tweet or a
Facebook post about your novel, what would your hashtag be? Then, I want you to write
some takeaways that you have about the novel and this unit. What have you learned, and
what do you still have questions about? When you have finished your response, let me
know and I will collect it. Please make sure your name is on it. Once I have done that,
take out your writing journals and get ready to work on your research projects.

3. [10 min] Mini Lesson on Annotated Bibliographies

Alright everyone, I hope I have all of your hashtags in my hand. Now, we are going to
shift gears a little bit. Last class I introduced you research projects. One of the things
many of you were stressing out about was the annotated bibliography that you have to
do. Some of you know what it is and others of you are a little nervous about it. Before we
get started, I want you to take a few minutes at your tables to talk about what would
happen to the world if no one could conduct research. In your groups, I want you to think
about who in society does research and what you think the research process looks like for
them.

[As students are thinking about this question, I will be walking around the room to get
some ideas of what they are discussing. After students have discussed, I will ask for
students to share their responses with the class.]
 Alright, so as many of you noted, research is how people gain a lot of knowledge and
how people make advancements in their field. So today we are going to start the research
process.

Today, we will learn how to compile your research in an organized way. Think of a
doctor researching new facts about a particular study or scientific procedure. that doctor
is most likely going to read many articles and books about their topic. However, is every
article they read important? As a matter of fact, they may not use most of what they read.
What then should that doctor do as they continue in the research process? [Find a way to
organize the sources they find.]

Say I am that doctor and I plan on spending the next 6 months researching. Should I just
keep a list of citations to go back to? What if I read 5 articles every day and I like 1 of
those articles each day and I add 7 articles to my list of citations? When I go back in a 3
month to begin writing, what would be the problem?

[The problem is you would have to reread your sources to remember what it was about
and what key thing you retained from it.]

After gathering several resources, its easy to feel overwhelmed. Where do you start?
Writing an annotated bibliography accomplishes several functions: it helps you prepare
a works cited page, helps you organize your evaluation of your sources, and gives you
the opportunity to summarize the main points of each source.

I am giving you a half sheet of paper of what an annotated bibliography should look like
and what it has on it (Appendix A).

In an annotated bibliography, each citation is followed by a brief explanation of the

sources as well as an evaluation. It is to inform the reader the value of the source.

An annotated bibliography is descriptive and analytical. They examine the authors

perspective intelligibly, credibility, and the suitability of the materials within that source.

In google classroom, the assignment has been posted. Attached to the assignment is a
guide to how you should complete an annotated bibliography (Appendix B). I want to see
one paragraph for each source.

4. [19 min] Individual Work Time

Now that you all know what is expected of you for your annotated bibliography. I want
you to start work with your groups on finalizing your research question. If you have
already done that, you can create a thesis. If your group has already done that, then you
can start working on your annotated bibliography.
5. [1 min] Close
Alright guys, good work today! I really enjoyed our discussion as well as hearing the
direction some of you were taking for your research papers. Next class you will have time
to work on your annotated bibliographies, but if you did not start today, I would suggest
coming up with at least one source and annotating it before you come to class.
 Annotated Bibliographies
1. MLA format; correct heading, double spaced, size 12 font, times new roman, sources in
alphabetical order.
2. Each source is annotated giving a summary and evaluation of how useful the source is.

Annotated Bibliographies
1. MLA format; correct heading, double spaced, size 12 font, times new roman, sources in
alphabetical order.
2. Each source is annotated giving a summary and evaluation of how useful the source is.
Name
Ms. Ndandula and Mr. Warren
English 10 Honors
Date
Annotated Bibliography

Research Question: ____________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________
Thesis Statement: ______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Source 1
Full citation:
Annotation:
1. Summarize the source using formal language.
2. Evaluate the credibility of the source
3. Discuss how this source applies to your topic/thesis
Source 2
Full citation:
Annotation:
1. Summarize the source using formal language.
2. Evaluate the credibility of the source
3. Discuss how this source applies to your topic/thesis

Source 3
Full citation:
Annotation:
1. Summarize the source using formal language.
2. Evaluate the credibility of the source
3. Discuss how this source applies to your topic/thesis
Name________________________________________________

What makes us human?

Use your novel when
answering this question.

How does perspective

inform our perception of
humanity?

Why is it important to
remember that we have
cultural biases when
reading postcolonial
literature? Provide
examples from your
reading experience.

Discuss the most

dynamic and round
character in your novel.
How did the author
achieve this? Why are
they important?

Think of a conflict that

arose in your novel.
What sort of conflict was
it, and why was it
significant within the
narrative?

Assess the author. Are

they a credible voice in
telling this story? Why or
why not?