Pre-student Teaching Lesson

            I taught a lesson on hero and creation myths for the class that I observed at.  It was the two freshman English classes of Mrs. Burnstein at Plymouth/Salem High School.  The myths were part of a cross curricular project that the students were working on in all of their core classes.  This included social studies, English, math, and history.  They were in groups of five and were given a specific river valley from around the world to work with.  They learned about economic factors, geography, climate, government, and religion.  They were to relate the given geography and climate to a government, economy and religion that they would make up for a prehistoric community living n their river valley.  The story was to include a plot, characters, and setting relating to their river valley.  They had to be either the story of the creation of their river valley, or a hero tale set in their river valley.   

            The actual teaching of the lesson went very well.  I had a handout that explained what each type of story was and the things included in each.  I included a chart on the bottom so the students could make sure they were including the requisite information.  Looking back, I should have stressed using the chart more as it helped the students write what the assignment called for.  I told the students about an Ojibwa legend from my own youth to show how the setting affects the story.  One of the stories that they had read was pretty much the same story except the names and animals were changed to fit the region that the legend came from.  That was a good example to show how the students could incorporate their river valleys into their stories.  I let one of the boys call out an answer without raising his hand.  I realized what I had done and reminded him to raise his hand next time.  This was a kid who would talk all the time if you let him, it was nice to get his input on the topic but too much could have gotten out of control.  I gave them class time to complete the form and start on a rough copy.  The rough copy was due the following day. 

            Mrs. Burnstein and I discussed the assignment and came up with a grading scheme.  We decided that we wanted to stress the writing process.  We wanted the students to fill out the form in the handout that I made up.  This was supposed to organized their story so that it included the required information.  I gave one point for even having the form attached to their story.  The students could earn another four points depending on to what degree they filled out the form.  The actual story was worth up to fifteen points.  I gave five points for just an outline.  Ten points for a real rough copy or unfinished story.  Fifteen points for a completed story.  I did not take off for spelling and grammar as this was just a rough copy, except for one case where it was so bad I could not understand what was being said.  The rough copy was worth twenty points total.  The final copy was worth forty points so there was more emphasis on the final draft. 

I graded the rough copies over the weekend and brought them in on Monday so the students could finish the final copy by that Friday.  It was hard reading that many papers, but on the most part they were very amusing and creative.  I wrote individual comments on all the papers but there were some things that were recurrent through many papers.  I saw a lot of run-on sentences.  They have a big problem with proofreading their papers.  Possessive versus plurals presented a problem.  Some stories were not related all that well to their river valley.  Specific nouns needed to be capitalized and numbers spelled out.  I explained to the students the trends that I saw and how to correct them.  I then asked for specific questions and answered the few that came up.  We required that they go to the writing center at least once to get help on their papers.  One reason for this was the obvious reason that it would help their reports.  The other reason, which is probably more important, was to let the students have an experience with the writing center.  This would introduce them to the process and show them where they can get help for future papers.  We required that all the papers be typed in the format we had learned the previous week.  This was also a good exercise to get them used to writing in the format that they will use throughout high school and college.

            The final papers were very well done.  They were very creative and fit the assignment.  The kids did a good job of revising their mistakes.  Some of the kids really loved this assignment.  I got some 9 pages stories from what was supposed to be a two page assignment.  Many of the outstanding stories were from kids who otherwise were not the best students.  It was nice to bring in their talents.  I looked over the final drafts but let Mrs. Burnstein do the grading on them.  I feel that the lesson went very well and the result was even better than I hoped.  There were a few things that I would change, but they are minor, and I can learn from them for next time.