Story 2.Rapunzel

Students must read the classic short story about Rapunzel through the following link.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Rapu.shtml


PRE-TEACHING ACTIVITIES.

Show the students a short video of Rapunzel's story before going on an in-depth analysis just to get familiarized with the main character. Then discuss some of the main points of the story.

ACTUAL-TEACHING.

Act 1. Regular and irregular VERBS.

Since the story is crammed with past tense structures, the students will be asked to gather all the words that appear in the text and then classify them into the type of verb tense they belong, either regular or irregular.  For this, they will be urged to use the following website: www.wordle.com and create two word collages of each type.

Here are some examples of few words, but they need to scan the text in search for every single word it appears.



               Regular verbs                                                                                                                            Irregular verbs

Doing this the students will be practising the irregular verbs and learinng which have the ending -ed and which others don't.

POST-TEACHING

Act1. Characterizaton technique. 

The task will consist in dividing the class into groups of 5, each of them will be assigned a character at random. The story has 5 only characters, the father and the mother, the wicked witch called Dame Gothel, the king's son and Rapunzel. Each group will have simulate a speaking virtual avatar for each character using the online program www.voki.com in which  they can choose from a wide array of features, background, customs and voices in order to get an accurate appearance for each of them. They will have to create a suitable speech for each character using the regular and irregular verbs. This speech will show each character's role in first person narrator as if they were real persons.

The speech will last 3 or 4 minutes and the content should be like a character self-introduction, each character will describe the situation from its point view, telling what has happened to them and how they managed to get through problems (if they did so). Additionally, the customizing of the character should be precise, since the voki program provides a highly flexible characterization and allows adding personal images from your PC as backgrounds ,the more the character depicts its role, the higher mark the group will get.

Here are some samples of my own avatars for each character, choosing personal landscapes as backgrounds according to each role.

                  Wicked Witch                                 Rapunzel                                           Prince

                                  Rapunzel's Dad                                           Rapunzel's Mum





Act.2 Comparision discussion

Ask your students if they have ever seen the Disney movie Tangled, if not, then have a try! it just lasts an hour and a half and its really enjoying and adventurous. You can dedicate two lessons to watch this movie in the english class and then afterwards go on comparing the two stories by asking them questions about differencies between classic Rapunzel and Disney's production.

Possible questions:

¿ Do Rapunzel parents agreed with the old witch to

 give her full custody of the newborn in Tangled?

Was, also, a rampion what Rapunzel's mother needed not to die in Tangled?
or a magic flower? What sort of medical properties did it have?

Did Rapunzel in the classic story have the chance of
craving adventure with the Prince for a day?

Why was the witch in Tangled so fond of Rapunzel's
long blondie mane?

Did Rapunzel get  frightened out when the prince
first burst into the tower in both versions of the story?

Who really cut Rapunzel's lovely golden braids in Tangled, actually?
Did it turn into a darker color in Classic Rapunzel as well?

Story 1. Hansel y Gretel

                                                                          HANSEL & GRETEL

(Brothers Grimm)

     

    Here is the story our students are urged to read. The following link will address you to the e-text of the    story. 

          

    http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/HanGre.shtml

Once the students have done the reading, the first acitivity they will have to do is about vocabulary, in order to make sure they read the text and unserstand it. Students will need to find the suitable words in the text that fit into the number of blanks given. 

PRE-TEACHING 

Act 1. Brainstorming

Escasez: d_ _ _ _ _                                                               Rama:  b_ _ _ h  

Madrastra  _t_ _ m_ _ _ _ _                                                 Mordisquear: _ _ bb_ _ 

Encorbarse:  s_ _ _ p                                                            Moverse lento: _ _ e _

Abandonar: f_ _ _ _ _ e                                                        Mejillas rojizas: r _ _ y   c_ _ _ k

Barra de pan: l_ _ _                                                              Bruja: w _ _ _ h 

Trozo:  m_ _ _ _ l                                                                 Masa: d_ _ _h

Migas: c _ _ _ b _                                                                 Empujar: t_ _ _ s _

desmigar: c_ _ _ _ b_ d                                                        Ganso: g _ _ _ e

Matorral:  _ _ u _ h _ o o _                                                   Perlas blancas: w _ _ _ e _ _ bb_ _ _

After doing this, it will be suitable to show them a video of the cartoon making pauses each time the previous words appears on the screen, in order to contruct a general idea of the situaton. 

ACTUAL-TEACHING 

Act1. Comic

Since the tale is divided into 5 chapters, the class will be set up in 5 groups. Each group will be assigned one chapter with which they will construct an interactive comic using the online program www.storybird.com. 

The required task will be based in bring each chapter to life, adding the dialogues and a suitable scene that may match with the story. ( note: if the dearth of themes happens, do not pay up for extra features, start working with the most suitable one.)

Through this activity, students will be practising the writing, although they are copying text, they are shaping up a story and so they get get familiar with the contructions, etc. 

Act2. Password

Each gruoup are given a paper sheet containing 5 or 6 questions about the story. Each group will read out loud one question  to the left 4 groups and the first who answers correctly will earn a white pebble (a stone). The group that more pebbles earns with get an extra credit to their final mark. 

POST-TEACHING

Act 1.Discussion

The students are shown different pictures extracted from the comics they have don in the previous activities and asked questions about the situation. It is an ideal activity for them to express their own opinions. 

Samples of discussion.

Why do you think Hansel decided  to crumble his tiny
piece of bread instead of using pebbles as in the
first time?
Can you think of a different strategy?

Do you really think Gretel had enough strength
to thrust the wicked witch into the fire place?

Can you give reasons why the house was specifically
decorated with sweets?; What is the real meaning
for the children to have found it in the story? 

Stations

Roald Dahl's short story.

MRS BIXBY AND THE COLONEL’S COAT

  “LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER” 

The 3 stations presented here will focus on different techniches of mere discussion about two short strouies written by the famous writer, Roald Dhal. The tasks consist in labelling the different activities as pre-teacning, actual-teaching and post-teaching, depending on the process it presents. 

Station 1

 Comparing.

In this section we deal with comparing activities about the two main characters in both stories. The student will be required to log in the group-closed network Edmodo and give their own opinions on the matter.

Depending on the theme in which we urge them to do the activity, this taks will be characterized as a pre, actual or post-teaching assessment. so, in this case,using edmodo will be included in the post-teaching tasks since they are requiered to have undergone a process of familiarizing and then retrieving each female's personality in order to complete the activity.

Ironic symbols.

The teacher's task of presentin two pics about ironic symbols will be used as a further in-depth analysis  for students. They would go beyond the simple plot of the story. This might be used as an actual teaching activiy since it is about adding up information.

A delicious murdering weapon.

A furry and greedy neckpiece. 

Voice recorder. 

To record your own voice and simulate a post event, beyond the story itself, like an interview of Mrs. Malony's murder, may be used as a post teaching activity. Why? because I consider this activity to be a sum up activity, out of the storyline. So, this would suit into a post-teaching activity viewed as modelling up of the whole information acquired. It all depends on the content of the voice message, if the students are urged to record or perform a dialogue about a part of the story would be included in the actual-teaching teaching activities.

                                             Station 2

Major enviromental disaster end of human race. 

Here we have a very compelling and critical activity for our students. You give them a dreadfull situation of a world's end coming soon and gift them to be the ones to choose 7 people among 11 that you list in a document. This chart will present 11 persons, using some characters of our stories and others unknown, but all of them provided with full personal descriptions of actoins and personality. They need to give reasons about their choices, supporting them with some details about their descriptions.  Once they choose the elected ones, then you as a teacher will elaborate a glogter presentation in oder to show them an idea of what the would life of these 7 people be like in the paradise island.

The teacher's glogster will be used as a pre-teaching activity because you are giving them warming-up samples of what they are going to be required to do afterwards. This glogster activity would be usefull if you are dealing with conditonals uses since it is all about hypothetical situations, they might work out their constructions talking about possible and hypothetical situations.

Smart card

The smart card can help them to improve their vocabulary knowledge and also stimulating their imagination.

World's hunger.

Students will use this simulatoin activity to focus in the prejudices they found, levaving the human rights left apart. When students start arguing who they save and who stays behind, they will show some previous ideas which are influenced by their prejudices, no matter if they are religious, sexual or race prejudices. This activity will also teach the students how important the personal values and principals. 

                                                     Station 3    

PRE-TEACHING

Here are the answers the group made for the topic on the Station 3: Let's think as teachers

d) Discussion:

This is a warming-up activity because we want our students to activate their previous knowledge of the topic, the author, etc.

f) Think pair-share:

Students have to predict the plot of a story taking into account headlines/titles. They also have to make comments on their reflections with the rest of the class.

ACTUAL TEACHING

c) Analysis:

It is a reading comprehension activity. Students have to find out and justify if the information in the statements is true or false.

POST-TEACHING

a) Writing:

After reading the short story, students have to carry on writing a different ending for the story: in the end, Mrs. Bixby's coat is still in the pawnshop and she is planning a strategy to get it back.

b) Discussion:

Students discuss the real ending of the story and what will happen next.

e) Role play:

Students work in pairs and they have to perform Mr and Mrs Bixby's conversation by the end of the story.

             

    Comic

    The representation of a scene of the story could be a useful tool to foster writing among                             

          students write and also to stimulate their imagination.

     
            http://goanimate.com/videos/0I5g-Pp7MF8U?utm_source=linkshare


           Word cloud
           Another possible task for them to foster writing would be to elaborate a suitable ending of the story
           using words that you provide them witht the program word-cloud.

          Here is a example of a possible word-coud for the students to start writing the story ending.
                        

EXPERIENCE OF THE TASKS. 

I really believe this type of station activity gives us the chance to see things from a teacher's point of view.It is easy to be a student, receiving orders and tryin to fulfull the task in time and do it well is the only one worry they have, but, being a teacher is not as easy as it may be seen from a student's point of view. Our task is not just to teach student stuff in order to get the learning goals pre-determined and then that's it, no, I think is better to widen the teaching beyond the limits of a simple activity, giving extra topics on the matter to make them think and also stimulating their imagination capacity by doing recreational activities, using technology, for example.