Lesson Plans

Title: Doorway Stories

Date: May 2016

By: Carol Amberg

City: Gouverneur

State: New York

ELA 10 - Mrs. Amberg

THE DOMICILES PROJECT                                                                             

Common Core Standards: Writing 9-10: Text Types and Purposes

2. Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

a. Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation, establishing one or multiple point(s) of view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events.

b. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

c. Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole.

d. Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.

e. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narrative.

6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically

EXPLORATORY PHASE

Students will read and respond to classic short stories focusing on point of view and characterization.

DISCOVERY PHASE

The Process (Students will be shown how the task has been scaffolded upon our experience with short stories.)

1. Students will be introduced to The Domiciles Project.

2. The Task:  Students will use the door art as inspiration for writing their own short short stories,

                       providing evidence of understanding narrative structure and synthesizing literary elements

                       (studied in the exploratory phase.)

• Students will view the doors displayed in our school by artist, Alan Tuttle.
• On the first day, they will observe their door, noting in journal possible characters, points of view, and plots.
• They will take these notes home and record narrative structure, protagonist, literary elements on a graphic organizer for plot structure.
• On the second day, they will go back to their door with their graphic organizer and imagine their story as planned while studying the door, revising as led.
• They will take the plans home and write the first draft of their short story.
• Stories will be handed in by deadline for scoring by rubric and feedback.
• Revised drafts will be scored for a second grade.
• Selected final drafts will be uploaded to The Domiciles website.