The Literacy Based Lesson Plan: Cause/Effect Essay

Students: High-intermediate ELLs in a college setting

Objective: The students will be able to interact with “The End of Something” (by E. Hemingway) text both in writing and orally and then write their own Cause/Effect Essay on broken relationships.

Pre-Essay writing tasks

Vocabulary: lumbering town, mill, schooners, hoisted, revolving, circular saw, hull-deep, canvas, bunk houses, sawdust, limestone, rowed, trolling, channel-bank, night lines, trout, ruin, striking, oar, bait, minnows, perch, skinned, ventral fin, leader, overboard, slab, driftwood, ran taut, click on the reel, glinted on, gone to hell, clearing and scene (Note: I probably wouldn’t explicitly teach all of these vocabulary words, but this is a list of words that could possibly be unfamiliar to the students).

Warm-up/pre-reading questions: Have you ever been in a relationship? What types of things did you enjoy doing with your girlfriend/boyfriend or husband/wife? Have you ever had to breakup with someone? How did you breakup with them?

Pre-reading/writing from personal experience: The students should write about a previous relationship where they had to breakup with someone or someone broke-up with them or something they enjoy doing now and would enjoy doing even more with someone else or write about something they enjoy doing with their girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse. The teacher should make these options clear to the students by writing the options on the board. The students should only write about a paragraph or two.

Reading: The students should read the story called, “The End of Something” by E. Hemingway and annotate the text. The teacher can demonstrate different styles of note taking while reading if needed.

Post-reading/writing: The students should write at least one paragraph about the text – this can include anything from their personal feelings to difficulties in reading.

Summary: The students should summarize the text in only a few sentences or a paragraph.

Discussion: The teacher should facilitate a student discussion regarding the text. Discussion questions might include: What are the different scenes in the text? Do they relate in anyway to the relationship? Do both Nick and Marjorie enjoy fishing? What do you imagine Nick and Marjorie to look like? Why was Nick in a bad mood? Why did Nick breakup with Marjorie? Did Marjorie expect Nick to breakup with her? Why or why not? Do you feel sorry for Marjorie or Nick? etc… The questions could certainly go on and on depending on the students’ responses. These are just a few that can be used to facilitate discussion.

Essay Writing Task – Cause/Effect Essay

Brainstorming outline: Split the students up into groups of two and have them brainstorm using the Cause and Effect Essay Diagram. The topic should be “Broken Relationships.”

Cause and Effect Essay Diagram

Topic:______________________________________________

Causes and Effects

Thesis statement:_____________________________________

____________________________________________________

The students should write the topic in the center of the diagram and then list the causes on the left and the effects on the right of the center circle.

Peer review of the outline: The students should be split up into different groups of two to review each other’s outlines and offer feedback. The teacher may provide a peer review worksheet.

Essay writing: The thesis statement should contain at least three causes OR three effects of a broken relationship and these should then be used as the topics for each body paragraph. The teacher may provide a body paragraph outline as well.

Peer review of essay: The students should be split up into different groups of two in order to review each other’s essay. The teacher may provide a peer review worksheet.

Language/terms: These are some of the terms that may be associated with a cause and effect essay. For an essay focused on causes – because, causes, caused by, the reason, since and therefore are all very common terms and for an essay focused on effects – as a consequence of, as a result (of), consequently, then and resulting in are all very common terms.

CBI Lesson Plan

Lesson: The Great Depression
Grade: 10th grade (I believe 10th grade is when the students study the Great Depression here in MN)
English Level: Intermediate

Materials: Stock Market Madness with all of its pieces, different magazines, poster board, glue, scissors, markers, chalk/whiteboard markers, novels/story books about the Great Depression, mainstream text section on the Great Depression, and simplified text section on the Great Depression.(Before doing a lesson or activity that contains a lot of numbers it’s best to do a little warm-up game. I call this Number Writing Races!)

Number Writing Races!

Objective: This activity is to be used as a number listening exercise primarily for listening to dates (2007, 1919, 1929, etc…) and monetary values ($1, $20.75, $11.12, etc…) before talking about numbers in class or having the students do an activity that involves different number values.Materials: paper, pens or pencils, writing board (white board or blackboard), markers or chalk (depending upon the board), two chairs and students!Warm-up: Give every student a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. The teacher dictates ten different numbers including both dates and monetary numbers to the students. The students write the number the teacher has stated onto the piece of paper.Activity: 1. The teacher divides the class into two teams and calls one student from each team to the board to participate in the writing race. Do not allow the students to hold the marker or the chalk. 2. The teacher says a number and the first student to pick up their writing utensil, write the number correctly on the board, place their writing utensil back down on the writing board shelf with cap on (if it’s a marker), sit down in the chair and raise their hand wins.

3. Each pair of students should get three opportunities to write different numbers each time they go to the board. Which ever student wins two out of three writing races earns one point for their team.

4. Continue the above sequence until every student has had a chance to write at least once. If the teacher feels that it is necessary to continue to play the game he or she may do so.

Stock Market Activity – Stock Market Madness!

Objective: To teach the basic workings of the stock market and key terms that relate to the Great Depression.Materials: white board/blackboard, writing utensils (pens and pencils for the students, chalk or markers for the writing board), Risen and Fallen spinner, Great Depression spinner, play money, money amount deck of cards, share cards, loan application forms, default cards, foreclosure cards, two calculators and individual stock market scripts.Object: The object of the game is to make more money than everyone else by playing the stock market.Set-up: Across the top of the writing board write down the names of five potential stock companies (ex. Coke Cola, Walmart, Sony, McDonald’s, and Blockbuster) and set up a small table (label the table STOCK MARKET) next to the writing board with both spinners on it. On one side of the room set up a table (label the table BANK) with play money, default cards, foreclosure cards, one calculator, and loan application forms and on the opposite side of the room set up a table (label the table BROKER) with play money, a calculator, money amount deck of cards, and stock share cards.One student needs to work at the BANK table, one student needs to work at the STOCK MARKET table and one student needs to work at the BROKER table.The rest of the students start with no money!

In the beginning all stocks cost $2.

ROUND 1

1. The students must take their script, go to the bank, fill-out a loan application form and say, “I would like to take out a loan for _________ dollars please.” The bank gives the students the money and may allow the students to borrow as much money as they want, but the student must pay it back every 5th round. The banker must keep track of how much money each student owes.

2. The students must take their script, go to the broker and say, “I would like to purchase____ shares of ______ please.” The students are allowed to purchase as many stocks as they have money to purchase and the broker must give each student a share card for each stock share purchased.

3. The stock market spins the Risen and Fallen spinner and reads where the arrow has landed (ex. Risen) and calls out, “The stock market has risen!”

4. The broker draws a card from the money amount deck and calls out each company with the corresponding amount card (ex. The broker draws the first card and says, “The Coke Cola stock has risen 1 dollar.” The broker draws the second card and says, “The Walmart stock has risen 3 dollars.” Etc….). While the broker is calling out the stock amounts the stock market is writing the total amount of the stocks on the board (ex. Coke Cola started at 2 dollars and has risen 1 dollar, so the stock market draws an up arrow – to indicate that the stock has risen – and writes 3 dollars under the Coke Cola stock on the board).

5. The students now have the option of selling their shares back to the broker for a profit or a loss depending on how their stock did. If the students chose to sell their shares, they must pay back as much money to the bank as they can and say, “I would like to put ________ dollars towards my loan.” The banker should adjust the student’s loan application as necessary (ex. After Jim’s stocks drop he sells the shares back to the broker and then pays the banker, but since the stocks dropped and Jim only has 15 dollars instead of 20 dollars the banker then writes on Jim’s loan application that he only owes 5 dollars).

6. After the students finish selling their shares back to the broker and paying back the bank round 1 is completed.

ROUND 2, ROUND 3 and ROUND 4 – repeat ROUND 1

ROUND 5

1. Same as previous rounds.

2. Same as previous rounds.

3. The stock market spins the Great Depression spinner, which indicates whether the stock market has risen, fallen or crashed. The stock market then calls out the corresponding situation.

4. If the stock market has either risen or fallen, repeat steps 4 through 6 from round one, but everyone must pay back the bank. If the stock market has crashed all the students must give all of their shares back to the broker and proceed to settle accounts with the bank.

5. The students must pay back the bank any money that they have. If the students are unable to pay off their loan they say, “I am not able to pay, I do not have any money,” then the banker says, “Your loan is in default, the bank must foreclose on your house.” The banker then gives the student a default card and a foreclosure card. The bank must continue to keep track of how much money the students still owe.

6. The student with the most money wins! If all students default, all students loose.

Continue playing as time permits and/or students are having fun.

Poster Activity: Divide the students up into pairs and have them look through magazines to try to find pictures that might reflect the time period of the Great Depression. The students are to glue the pictures they find onto the poster board and when they are finished explain their poster to the class.

Storybook: Read a storybook that deals with the Great Depression or something specific related to the Great Depression in order for the students to receive less formal input that they can remember later.

Simplified/Mainstream Text: The students should read the simplified text with the teacher and specific vocabulary from the text should be taught. If the students are able, the mainstream text should be read by the students with the teacher’s assistants (if needed), all homework or exercises from the text should be completed with the help of the teachers (if needed).

The first two activites (Number writing races and Stock Market Madness) should fit into about a 1-2 hour time frame (of course I’ve never actually played Stock Market Madness)and then the other activities would be implemented. Depending on the needs of the students and the teacher, I think that the activities regarding the poster and books could be very short or very long – it just depends on a lot of things.

Note: there are a lot of materials that go with Stock Market Madness! If anyone is at least interested in seeing the supplemental materials I can certainly email them to you or even post them on this blog (with the exception of the money and spinners).

Persuasive Essay Lesson Plan

Students: 15-20 Advanced ELLs in a college writing class. The class is approx. 100 min. long and contains students from all over the world with a variety of native languages and backgrounds. The class also includes both undergraduates just starting their education, students who have graduated once already and are working on a second BS or BA and graduate students. The primary focus of the class is on academic writing.

Topic: Progressive writing

Time Frame: About 100 minutes.

Materials: Persuasive writing outlines, chalkboard, chalk, persuasive articles from the newspaper.

National TESOL Goals and Standards:

Goal 2: To use English to achieve academically in all content areas

Standard 1: use English to interact in the classroom
Standard 2: use English to obtain, process, construct, and provide subject matter information in spoken and written form
Standard 3: use appropriate learning strategies to construct and apply academic knowledge

Minnesota English Language Proficiency Standards for English Language Learners

Standard 3.2: the student will understand written English to participate in formal (academic contexts).
Standard 4.2: the student will produce written English to appropriately participate in formal (academic) contexts.

Objective: The student will be able to brainstorm and create a general outline with a thesis statement for a persuasive essay.

Procedures:

Step One Warm-up/Review

Review brainstorming techniques by dividing the students up into groups of 3 to 4 (make sure that the groups are made up of students from different countries, so that they must use English for their interaction). Assign each group a writing style (narrative, process, compare/contrast, cause/effect or definition). The groups are then to come up with a topic and use a brainstorming technique studied in class (writing web, outlines, etc…)(5 min.).
When the groups are finished they must come to the board to present their topic and technique (20 min.).

Step Two Present Persuasive Essay outline

The teacher should write the persuasive essay outline on the board and ask the students for a topic. The teacher should then ask the students to assist in filling in the outline (10 min.)

Topic:_____________________________________________________________

Pro Con

1._________________________ 1.________________________

2._________________________ 2.________________________

3._________________________ 3.________________________

4._________________________ 4.________________________

5._________________________ 5.________________________

Step Three Thesis statement

Using the outline the teacher should ask students to assist in creating a thesis statement for the Pros and a thesis statement of the Cons. The teacher should write the thesis statement on the board (the thesis statement should contain language familiar to the persuasive essay with words like must, must not, should, should not, is, is not, etc…) (5 min.).

Step Four Persuasive writing activity:

Divide the students into groups of two or three (again, make sure that students within each group are from different countries, so that they must use English to interact) and assign each group a topic. The topics may include:
- Working while in college
- Men and women training together in the military
- Allowing controversial organizations to advertise in campus publications
- Requiring students to study a foreign language in high school
- Drinking age of 18 years old
- Legally designating English as the official language of the U.S.
- Allowing single adults to adopt children
- Allowing prayer in public schools
- A one world government
Allow the students to choose their topic, but each group must have a different topic and the teacher should briefly explain each topic to the students (10 min.).

Step Five Persuasive writing activity continued

In their groups the students should fill out the persuasive writing outline in its entirety and present it to the rest of the class using an overhead or document cam. The presentations should be brief (no more than 5 min. per group) and only explain the points on the outline (approx. 50 min.).
Topic:_____________________________________________________________

Pro Con

1._________________________1.__________________________

2._________________________2.__________________________

3._________________________3.__________________________

4._________________________4.__________________________

5._________________________ 5.__________________________

Topic Sentence:________________________________________

_____________________________________________________

Thesis Sentence/Essay Map:________________________________

_____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________

Body Paragraph 1 Topic Sentence:___________________________

___________________________________________________

Body Paragraph 2 Topic Sentence:__________________________

_________________________________________________

Body Paragraph 3 Topic Sentence:_________________________

____________________________________________
Extra time/Persuasive articles: Divide the students up into groups of 2 or 3 and let them choose a persuasive article to read and summarize. After the students are finished reading and summarizing the article they should read their summary to the rest of the class and explain what the author is trying to persuade them to do, think, buy, etc… They should also state whether they agree with the author or not and why (this activity could be started one day and then continued the next day).

Assessment:

1. The presentation that students give in the writing activity could show the students’ understanding about Persuasive Writing. It helps the teacher have an idea if the objective of the class is achieved or not.

2. By comparing the persuasive articles the students read, the students should be able to find out if they really understand this kind of writing and what they still need to know about it.