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Lesson Plan : Lemony Snicket Electronic Pals

Teacher Name:
 Ms. LaNasa
Grade:
 Grade 6
Subject:
 Literature Activities

Topic:
 The Bad Beginning
Content:
 Writing a Book Review: I. Provide a description of the book. II. Tell about the author. III. Provide a description of your own feelings on the book.
Goals:
 NCTE #11 Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, & critical members of a variety of literacy communities. ELA #3, 2. Speaking and Writing for critical analysis and evaluation requires presenting opinions & judgements on experiences, ideas, information, & issues clearly, logically, & persuasively with reference to specific criteria on which the opinion or judgement is based. NETS #4 Students use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, & interact with peers, experts, & other audiences.
Objectives:
 Given the book The Bad Beginning, an assigned Lemony Snicket electronic pal, and guidelines for writing a book review students will write a book review of the Bad Beginning and send it via e-mail to their Lemony Snicket e-pal including all three components of a book review.
Materials:
 www.harperchildrens.com/hch/features/lemonysnicket/ http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/75_daniel_handler.htm http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?userid=kr4DKt4B8i&cid=968086#bio http://www.lemonysnicket.internetbasedfamily.com/daniel_handler_biography.html Computer Stations
Introduction:
 The teacher will tell the class "We have an important job to do. Ms. Andreski's sixth grade class is going to begin a new book but they have not decided which book to read yet. As a class our job is going to be to convince Ms. Andreski's class to read the book we just read, The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. Each of you will be assigned an e-pal, which will be someone in Ms. Andreski's class. What you will do is send a book review to your e-pal that will tell them about the book, about the author, and in our case to accomplish our goal of convincing them to read The Bad Beginning next, why you liked the book."
Development:
 The teacher will tell the class "Okay so let's first begin by talking about what a book review is. There are three components to the book reveiws we are going to write. the first part is: Provide a brief description of the book. The second part is: Tell about the author. The third part is: Provide a description of your own feelings on the book. Int his case we are going to tell why we liked the book being that we are trying to convince Ms. Andreski's class to read this book. Okay, so, the first part is providing a description of the book. This is not going to be a summary, it is going to be a brief description of what the book is about. For example, here is a description I wrote about The Reptile Room, the book we read in the beginning of the year." The tecaher will hand out this written description : "The Reptile Room" is a book about the three orphaned Baudelaire children. In this story, Mr. Poe has entrusted their care to Dr. Montgomery. Montgomery, who is not only their late father's cousin's wife's brother but also a herpetologist of some repute (and the discoverer of the impressively misnamed Incredibly Deadly Viper). Dr. Montgomery gives the children the run of his home in general and the Reptile Room in particular, and plans to take them along on his expedition to Peru. The children are happy and gay, but such feelings do not last long in this series and before the end of the tale there is a deadly snake, a murder, a car accident, and the return of the worst of all possible persons. "So, as yu can see here I did not summarize the book I just gave a brief description. If we are trying to convince Ms. Andreski's class to read the book we do not want to provide too much information so we don't ruin the book for them. Okay, so let's move on to the next section of our book review. The next section is going to provide information about the author, which in this case is Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket. Daniel Handler is the author of both of these books, The Reptile Room, which is the book in this example I am giving you and the The Bad Beginning, which is the book you are going to write about. In this section you want to provide a small amount of information about the author, such as when and where he was born, how many books he has written, and if he has a family, a wife, children, etc. Let's take a look at what I wrote." The teacher will now hand out this example of this section: Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket, is the author of this book, The Reptile Room. He was born in 1970 in San Fransisco and that is where he lives today. He is married to illustrator, Lisa Brown and they have one child. "So, as you can see this section just provides a small amount of information about the author. You may want to include some more information in your own. Now, let's move on to our last section. This is the section where we provide a description of our own feelings on the book. Again, for our purposes we are going to tell why we liked the book. Let's take a look at my example for this section." The tecaher will hand out the example that reads: I absolutely loved this book! I was so excited to come to class everyday to read it. The Baudelaire orphans are so funny and the events in their life are always so suspenseful. This book has so many interesting twists I felt like a detective because i kept using the clues to make predictions abut what was going to happen next. I definitely suggest this book to any sixth grader! "Okay, so that is my review of the book. I said I liked the book and then I gave the reasons why. So, after you write the review what you are going to do is sogn on the computer and go to this website: www.harperchildrens.com/hch/features/lemonysnicket/ (while explaining the teacher will log onto the website and use the projector to show the class what she is doing). Now, each of you will receive your e-pal's email adress and you will fill in all the required spaces and write your book review in this section here (the tecaher will point to the enter a message section). Here are some websites to help you find information on Daniel Handler so you can write the second part of your book review. http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/75_daniel_handler.htm http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?userid=kr4DKt4B8i&cid=968086#bio http://www.lemonysnicket.internetbasedfamily.com/daniel_handler_biography.html Okay, so let's begin!"
Practice:
 "Okay, so we are going to start by brainstorming at our computer stations. I want you all to type in all that you can remember about the book, this will help you write your description. After that you will print it out. Then, you are going to begin brainstorming ideas about why you liked the book and what you can say to convince your e-pal to want to read this book. Then you will print that out. After that you will do research on the internet using the websites I provided to help you write information on the author. You can print out infomration if you need to."
Accommodations:
 Accommodations: Reading-the child would have already been provided audio of the book while reading and will provided it again if needed Writing-scribe Controlling behavior-proximity control and self monitoring Seeing-enlarged print based on font size recommended in the IEP Hearing-FM unit will be used
Checking For Understanding:
 I will check for understanding after reviewing the student's first draft of their book review. I will then make corrections and help student's on an individual basis. I will grade the assignment on the following: The book review must include all three of the components. The description must provide an overview of the book. Their must be a minimal amount of information provided about the author. The student must provide valid and reasonable reasons for liking the book.
Closure:
 "Okay, so you all did a great job convincing Ms. Andreski's class to read Bad Beginnings! Let's quickly review what is included in a book review. First is a brief description of the book, then information about the aouthor, and finally a description of your own feelings of the book."
Evaluation:
 
Teacher Reflections:
 

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