Ryan Griffin

CI 401

Mark Dressman

April 1, 2010

Lesson Plan: Writing and Editing Responses to Bronx Masquerade

Standards

3.A.3 Write compositions that contain complete sentences and effective paragraphs using English conventions.

3.B.3b Edit and revise for word choice, organization, consistent point of view and transitions among paragraphs using contemporary technology and formats suitable for submission and/or publication.

Methods

This lesson is intended to hone in on students’ ability to analyze text from an objective perspective in order to enhance their personal abilities in regards to clear, coherent, and correct writing skills. It will involve a great deal of peer-editing and promote a dialogue of constructive criticism in order to help students become better readers and writers. The significant prerequisite to this lesson is that each student has already drafted their own response to Bronx Masquerade. This lesson will be held on the day that they turn in their rough drafts, and we will use the editing and writing skills to dramatically develop the rough drafts into impressive final drafts.

20 Minutes: As a full class, we will pick apart dummy essays which are full of grammatical and syntactical mistakes. I will introduce the assignment and explain what the purpose of our activity will be: to learn to recognize good and bad writing skills while editing texts. We will spend the time reading the text aloud and analyzing it in terms of both form and content. Having read Bronx Masquerade, we will be able to understand exactly what these dummy essays are intending to say, and we will be able to rework the passages in order to state it more clearly and eloquently. I will expect students to comment on mistakes, and I will call upon them for suggestions as to how to fix the mistakes. I will, however, model my own editing strategy so that they will be able to take our demo and use it in the consequent activity during peer review.

Essay #1

Many people view themselves in a different way. In this book Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes, body image and self-esteem are expressed differently. Everyone is different, but when it comes to having confidence many students in this book seem to hide their inner self with a mask and body image and self-esteem are one of the most important themes expressed in this book. Different characters all have different feelings. Especially Janell. “God I wish people could see me in the inside,” (p.48) is a quote from one student Janell Battle. This means that Janell is not comfortable with her appearance and she worries

about what people think of her. When other make fun of her she tends to loose poise in which she is and what she is trying to accomplish. For example, in the book Janell says, “When I first got up to read, I was my usual self. I sucked in my stomach, walking slowly to make sure nothing jiggled, and tucked down my shirt like I could really hide my extra pounds down there,” (p.141), which alludes to her being overweight. This quote exposes that because she fears about what others say and think about her she doesn’t have high self-esteem and confidence about her body image.

Essay #2

“Don't judge a book by its cover," is a quote to express her situation because people assume since she's tall she should be in the WNBA. but that girl sounds like she wants to change her race,"(p. The diversion of a group of children in this book was different but yet alike because everyone considered each other equal in the end. I noticed that at the last Open Mike Friday" (p. Many people believe that since she's tall she should be into basketball. Tanisha in conclusion urbanized wisdom of satisfaction and consequently becomes content with herself as Tyrone notes, "She's proud of her African self, and I am down with that" (p. Ward's class sure look at me differently these days. I noticed that at the last Open Mike Friday. 75) so that she could blend in with the people around her. It is vital that all the characters in the story overcome their inner and outer conflicts because at that time period the Bronx was mounting rapidly and diversity was being altered. This is so because of her beautiful hair and light complexion. People just looked at her as if she was crazy.

30 Minutes: Next we will break out of full-class discussion and I will assign each student a peer’s rough draft. The significant element, however, will be that I will pair them up together so that they are reading one another’s responses. The assignment will be to read them aloud to one another. This can be so highly influential. They will take turns reading each other’s drafts aloud, and the writer of the draft will have an opportunity to understand how their passages sound when read from an objective perspective. Each individual student will imitate the editing/re-writing process that I modeled in the full-class discussion, and they will use one another’s recommendations and criticism in order to formulate their final drafts. Throughout this exercise, I will be monitoring each pair by walking between them all and checking in with them frequently.

Evaluations

3.A.3 Reading the texts aloud will provide the writer with an opportunity to re-write and fix any mistakes that they had written during their first composition. The final draft will be an evaluation of whether or not this was a successful lesson.

3.B.3b The entire lesson revolves around the importance of editing and re-writing as a skill set. I will be walking around checking progress, and I will ask students how they are doing along the way. Again, the difference between the writing in the rough draft and the writing in the final draft will be the deciding factor as to how well I modeled the editing process in front of the class and how well they picked up on the skill set.