Concept Teaching Model Lesson Plan

Teacher: Jared Ganley Subject: English Level: Secondary

Topic: Dramatic Monologue Skills: Classification and Recognition

Objective(s): Students will be able to identify the critical attributes of the Dramatic
monologue as it has traditionally been defined. Once the students are able to identify
these attributes they will be able to recognize and categorize any creative work with
which they are familiar.

Materials needed: Students (5), teacher (1), Chalk, Blackboard, Example Poems:
Milton’s “Lycidas”, Bukowski’s “Eulogy…”, Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and
“Porphyria’s Lover”

Phase 1: Introduction: Clarify goals and establish set.

We’re gunna start today by giving some advice for struggling writers. I know a guy who
is a failure as a playwright, but who really loves to write. What do you do when you
have an incredible ability to capture the speech of character, but struggle to incorporate
that strength into an entire play? What do you do if you’re constantly writing things that
would be great moments in theater, but not entire plays? (Wait for answers)

So far in our unit we’ve discussed Narratives- story poems where the narrator is but the
storyteller, never from the first person, Apostrophes- rhetorical devices of speaking to a
person who is absent or dead, Soliloquies- speaker addresses no one in the poem, not any
specific audience or the readers, the speaker muses aloud and is overheard by the reader,
all of which are great ways to go about eliciting emotional responses from an audience,
but What about the writer for whom none of the preceding approaches is effective?
Robert Browning, regarded by many as one of the pillars of poetry in all of literature, but
he never knew any success as a playwright. After several years of continually writing
plays that no one seemed to like Robert Browning found an answer that you might want
to kept in mind if you ore someone you know is ever struggling with their own writing.
Robert Browning, the man who could create moments that sang and plays that clunked,
simple kept the moments and ditched the clunk- in so doing he became the master of the
genera that in my eyes has come to define modern poetry: Dramatic Monologue- where
a single speaker utters the entire poem in a specific situation of interaction with one other
person who does not speak.

Today we’re going to take a good look and the critical and defining attributes of the
Dramatic monologue, and later you’ll have a chance to try your own hand.

Phase 2: Provide examples and non-example pairs:

EX: My Last Duchess, Porphyria’s Lover
NON EX: Lycidas, Eulogy…
Explain to class why each movie provides either an example or a non-example according
to the fundamental criteria of Dramatic Monologues.

Phase 3: Check student attainment of concept:

Students will now me checked by asking them to first categorize the following ideas for
poems:

Tom Waits writes a song about a girl waiting by a drugstore (narrative)

Dr. Evil presents his dastardly plan to a bound and gagged Austin Powers (mono)
Travis Bickle talks to himself in the mirror. (soli)
Sandburg writes a lengthy public letter bashing Billy Sunday (mono)
Vincent and Jules discus the differences between Europe and American cultures (dialog)
Hamlet stares into the abyss and contemplates the morality of murdering his father-in-law
(sol)
The reader sees the letters of one person in a correspondence, but none of the replies
(mono)
Renton tells the story of how he abandoned his loser friends in favor of a new life (narr)
William holds an imaginary conversation with a long dead Emily Dickinson (apost)
MacMurphy goes off on a rant that leaves his fellow characters dumbfounded and unable
to respond (mono)

Phase 4: Analyze student thinking processes:

Once the students have been asked to categorize the ideas we will work together as a
class to provide justification for placement. As the lesson is wrapped up remind
students to keep this concept in mind if they ever find themselves struggling to write.
 Presentation Model Lesson Plan

Teacher: Jared Ganley Subject: English Level: Sophomore

Topic: Meter Advance Organizer: Outline

Objective(s): Students will be able to appreciate how knowledge of meter is applicable

to colloquial speech, as well as list, define, and apply the classical rhythm forms of
poetry.

Materials needed: Outline Handout/Name Handout, and Application Worksheet

Phase 1: Introduction: Clarify aims and establish set: Written on Board:

1) “You stupid jerk! I hate you! Go to Heck!”
2) “I will kick your mother fishing bass”
3) “Piss Off!”

Have students volunteer to read each sentence, once interest is stimulated explain how
each of these sentences is an example of classical meter that appears in everyday speech.
1) Iambic
2) Trochee
3) Spondee

While there are some poems out there that are written with metric precision, that to the
students might seem as dry, lifeless, and sterile as a solved algebra equation, these are
only examples of bad poetry, not of good meter. Today we are going to discuss the
elements of meter, by the end of today’s lesson everyone inhere will be able to hear the
music and rhythm of their own speech and be able to express themselves in perfect (but
still exciting) meter.

Phase 2: Present advance organizer: This first handout contains a list of the most
commonly used meters in poetry. The organizer provides space for students to make
additional notes about the presentation as well as practical examples in the form of
individual names.

Phase 3: Present learning materials (outline of content): With each example I will
illustrate the appropriate markings for that rhythm on the board- ex: iambic- u/u/u… The
teacher will work through the handout explaining how stressed and unstressed syllables
create the rhythm of language.

Phase 4: Application: (Check for understanding/strengthen student thinking): Now

the teacher will begin by saying the names of each of the students, writing the name on
the board, and will work with the class to write out the proper inflection for each name.
Once all students have had a chance to see the rhythmic inflection of their individual
name, the teacher will then progress to the second handout which will ask each student to
identify the different rhythm forms employed in each passage. If time allows the teacher
will then ask the students to create their own sentences, which the class will mark
inflectionally, if the examples provided by the class are deviant from classical meter the
teacher will work with the class to rephrase the sentence into a metrical form.

Once the students have mastered the various rhythms of metered forms for homework
each student will be asked to write 10 lines of poetry in the form of their choice.
By any other Name?

Examples of the natural meter in our speech are all around us. Each of the following
names is an example of a kind of meter. Try to think of other examples for the meters
that follow.

Iamb- Lenore-- le NORE

Trochee- Becky-- BE cky

Anapest- Nicolette—nic o LETTE

Dactyl- Marilyn-- MAR i lyn

Spondee- JO ANN

Now find the meter for the following sentences:

1) I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night

2) My love is as a fever, longing still…

3) Tiger! Tyger! Burning bright,

In the forests of the night

4) Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear

5) Heartburn, penknife, ad hoc

 Mini Language Exercise

Building a Paragraph

What is the prewriting stage?

The prewriting stage is when you think carefully and organize your ideas for your
paragraph before you begin writing.

Six Prewriting Steps:

1. Think carefully about what you are going to write. Ask yourself: What question am
I going to answer in this paragraph or essay? How can I best answer this question? What
is the most important part of my answer? How can I make an introductory sentence (or
thesis statement) from the most important part of my answer? What facts or ideas can I
use to support my introductory sentence? How can I make this paragraph or essay
interesting? Do I need more facts on this topic? Where can I find more facts on this
topic?

2. Open your notebook. Write out your answers to the above questions. You do not need
to spend a lot of time doing this; just write enough to help you remember why and how
you are going to write your paragraph or essay.

3. Collect facts related to your paragraph or essay topic. Look for and write down
facts that will help you to answer your question. Timesaving hint: make sure the facts you
are writing are related to the exact question you are going to answer in your paragraph or
essay.

4. Write down your own ideas. Ask yourself: What else do I want to say about this
topic? Why should people be interested in this topic? Why is this topic important?

5. Find the main idea of your paragraph or essay. Choose the most important point
you are going to present. If you cannot decide which point is the most important, just
choose one point and stick to it throughout your paragraph or essay.

6. Organize your facts and ideas in a way that develops your main idea. Once you
have chosen the most important point of your paragraph or essay, you must find the best
way to tell your reader about it. Look at the facts you have written. Look at your own
ideas on the topic. Decide which facts and ideas will best support the main idea of your
paragraph. Once you have chosen the facts and ideas you plan to use, ask yourself which
order to put them in the paragraph. Write down your own note set that you can use to
guide yourself as you write your paragraph or essay.

What is the writing stage?

The writing stage is when you turn your ideas into sentences.
Five Writing Steps:

1. Open your notebook and word processor.

2. Write the topic sentence, supporting sentences, and closing sentence.
3. Write clear and simple sentences to express your meaning.
4. Focus on the main idea of your paragraph.
5. Use the dictionary to help you find additional words to express your ideas.

What is the topic sentence?

The topic sentence is the first sentence in a paragraph.

What does it do?

It introduces the main idea of the paragraph.

How do I write one?

Summarize the main idea of your paragraph. Indicate to the reader what your paragraph
will be about.