Pre-Lesson Preparation
The Get Learning section will include Marty as the Big Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing and blowing down houses.
The time for practice section will detail generic movements that can occur in several different stories. There are 11 short actons that might occur in story plots. The videos of these start on slide 4. The code for these actions is in the teacher guide but just the final version as it would take a long document to detail them all. You are welcome to use a physical Marty for this or to use the presentation.
Warm-Up
Share with learners the objectives and success criteria for the day's lesson, from slide 2 of the presentation in the resource section; perhaps display this before the lesson starts and keep it displayed until another slide is needed.
Tell learners that they are going to play a game where groups will each create scenes that will describe an event without words. The rest of the class, in their groups, will need to pay careful attention to what they see and share a creative description of the frozen scene, (tableau). Each group will have a chance to create a tableau and each group will have an opportunity to provide a description of what they see.
Click to expand for the procedure for the activity
- Each group needs to think of a place and an event or action that regularly occurs at this place:
- hairdressers - people sitting in chairs, with others standing and cutting their hair. Some sitting in chairs reading magazines, newspapers or looking at their phone.
- at the park, feeding birds, sitting on a bench, rubbing arms to stay warm, walking a dog or playing with a friend
- The group of mimes need to plan a picture of the scene that they can hold for a time.
- Other groups need to focus on the details of the scene and think about what could happen in this situation.
- Groups need to be creative in their descriptions of what they see rather than just, "There is a person standing and a person sitting. The person standing is moving their fingers close to the other person's head. The person sitting looks unhappy." Rather, aim for more creativity, "Jason hated getting his hair cut. The hairdressers smelled of feet and always cause him to feel a bit sick when he had to sit in the chair for so long. If only his hair didn't grow so quickly."
- Each group that is watching the scene will have an opportunity to describe what the actors could be depicting in a creative way.
- Mimes will have an opportunity at the end to share what they were trying to show but the goal is not to be closest to what the actors were showing but to describe a possibility as well as they can.
- Repeat so every group has a chance to mime, and each group has an opportunity to creatively describe a scene.
The goal is to have learners get used to describing what they see and creating a potential narrative around the scene.
Get Learning
Go to slide 3, where Marty will perform the role of the big, bad wolf from the story of the three little pigs. There is text to accompany this, written with only periods and commas and without a new paragraph when a different character begins to speak. If you are reading hte text, used a boring voice because there are no cues for you to speak with more energy. Also, if you choose to use a voice for the wolf, use the same voice for the pig.
Slide 4 shows the same video with the text organised and punctuated differently. Read this with more animation, or have a learner read this aloud to see if they can spot the clues as to how it should be read.
At the end of the text, the original text will appear with a mouse click. Take time to compare and contrast the text. Discuss readability as well as text excitement or other elements you may have taught in the past.
Have learners write in their workbook about the difference in the two ways of displaying the story.
Time for Practice
There are videos of Marty performing actions on slides 5 to 15 of the presentation. The first 3 video clips have two text examples describing the video. One is more active and the other is more boring. Additionally, there are occasions where characters speak. Discuss why having a new paragraph for a new person speaking is good for writing.
Use either the powerpoint for this or consult the teacher guide for the different programs. Additionally, there is a file with all the code as images, that could be shared with them should they want to code their own Martys.
Click here to see all the actions in a YouTube playlist.
Cool Down
Bring learners back together to discuss how feel they feel they did with the descriptions.
Suggested questions you might ask:
- What are the key pieces of punctuation needed to indicate when a person is speaking and when they stop speaking?
- What do writers do to let you know a different person is speaking?
- What punctuation do we use to emphasise what people say or when event are surprising or dramatic?
Carry out any end of lesson routines.
