SUBJECT:
English
GRADE: High School
TECHNOLOGY: Word Processor, Desktop Publisher
BY: Sophie Billekens
Tenth
Grade. In general, tenth grade
students are unwilling to do anything creative, for a variety of reasons: they are preoccupied with everything
but school, and coming up with something of their own can be very embarrassing
because they are afraid to make a
fool of themselves in front of their peers.
English/Creative
Writing.
Objectives
Students
will create their own story (or film script, poem, letter, etc.) using their
personal hero or favourite character from books, television, or even computer
games, and this hero’s unexpected confrontation with the student’s
personally most despised character.
Students
will illustrate the action of the story visually and colourfully using the WP
tools.
Students
will feel free to write what they want by knowing they will not be asked to
share the story in class and that they can use any slang or swear words they
wish, and by knowing that this story will be graded on a pass or fail basis.
Materials
A computer
laboratory in which all computers are equipped with Microsoft Word or an
equivalent WP instrument. The WP
must have draw tools, and the monitors should preferably have colour, so that
the illustrating can be done most effectively.
An idea or
rough draft for a story prepared by the student. They should have this on a disk. If there are not enough computers for each student to work
on individually, ideas and rough drafts will have been prepared by pairs or
little groups of students together.
Description
of Lesson
The
students will be given an example of what the teacher is looking for (see
attached file). They will find a
computer and set up the WP. They
will spend the lesson filling out their ideas or rough drafts using the draw
tools whenever they think appropriate.
Since this
lesson is very individualized, and each student will be doing their own thing,
the teacher should wander and give any help, technical or with the story,
whenever asked or whenever a student looks lost. The teacher will encourage the students to use colours,
different fonts, original or pre-created pictures, and anything else that is
possible with the draw tools.
It is
likely that the students will not finish their story in one lesson, so the
teacher may want to use several lessons for this project. Otherwise, the teacher may want to
reserve the computer lab at certain times after school for those students that
do not have computers or that WP at home.
The teacher should mention this at intervals during class time. The teacher also needs to tell the
students that they should hand in not only a print-out of their story, but also
the disk that it is on, so that the teacher can see the illustrations as the
students intended them, and not as the black-and-white printer did.
Evaluation
Procedure
Students
will be evaluated on the content of the story: it ought to be one about an
unexpected confrontation between a good character and a bad character, and how
they both deal with this. Students
will not be marked down for bad language (meaning slang or cursing).
The stories
will also be assessed on how much and where the draw tools were used and how
each shape or “WordArt” was altered to fit the need of the story or
the fancy of the student. The draw
tools should have at least been used a few times when the characters speak or
when loud noises or other sensory actions occur. Anything less than how the teacher used them in her example
will not be good enough for a passing grade.