Week 4-Assignment 2

Assignment#2 Create a simple ELA lesson plan addressing the following components (where to post this assignment: Blog)

Grade Level:  2nd grade

Common Core Standards and Learning Outcomes:
11. Respond to literature by employing knowledge of literary language, textual features, and forms to read and comprehend, reflect upon, and interpret literary texts from a variety of genres and a wide spectrum of American and world cultures. (pg. 16)
Students will learn how to use their literary skills to connect a message to themselves.
Students will learn how to use their literary skills to connect a message to their surroundings.

Instructional Activities:  In this lesson students will be learning how to interpret different forms of literary items particularly political comics. Students will get together in groups to play the game Daily Jumble. Class discussion following the completion of the game will go through the different outcomes of each game. This game will help students strengthen their language skills through working together in groups and communicating their proposed answers with their classmates. In addition, students will need to use their prior knowledge and deductive reasoning to formulate the unscrambled words. Furthermore, students will have to read and understand the comic in order to create a logical answer to the puzzle.

Assessment: Based upon the discussion after the game the teacher will be able to gather how many connections the students made between the comic and themselves and the world around them. Additionally, the teacher can quiz the students by taking some of the comics that were discussed and ask the students to write down the meaning of each one.

Debriefing: After playing this game students will learn that there are many different ways people can communicate a message. In reference to comics, a picture is worth a thousand words. To reinforce this concept students will be asked to find a picture online to depict a strong message that is going to be the front page of a magazine. Next the students will be expected to compose a short and powerful caption relating to the picture in a way that catches the reader's interest.  

Cognitive Skills:  The cognitive skills that this game cultivates are problem solving and reading comprehension. Students learn how to interpret meaning from messages other than words and how to convey a broad idea in a short message. In addition students learn how to apply prior knowledge to solve problems like unscrambling words. In order to succeed in this game students need to have some inkling of what the answer is through tapping into previous schemas of the information.

New Literacy Skills: With the new definition of new literacy being to equip our students with the proper tools to communicate, read write, and thrive in our current technological workforce, I would say that the game Daily Jumble does just that. Daily Jumble uses the same system that a website would use to have people sign in. The players need to select certain letters and put them in designated boxes which is the same process used in many areas at work. Furthermore, students will learn how to make sense of words that don't appear to have meaning at face value and will learn to think harder to decipher meaning. This idea is vital in life and communication skills.