Sample Lesson Plan
This lesson was taken from a unit on Devised Scene work, the prompt being a poem from Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse:
Skills and Knowledge:
Students will know...
Enduring Understanding:
Hook:
Sensory walk through: mill and seethe through the room, stop, change direction etc. Then tell students that they walking through the following as you describe it:
Soft, green grass,
Brown crunchy grass
Spiky grass that cuts like razor blades
Walking on dust
Wading through ankle high dust
Fighting through knee high dust blowing in your face, getting in your mouth and eyes and ears, you can feel it as it hits your face.
Freeze
Body:
Ask students to gather around a series of pictures that we will lay on the floor and to name observations and feelings they have from looking at them. Afterwards sum up the following information and relay it to them.
The Dust Bowl was an ecological and human disaster that affected parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. "Dust Bowl" was a term born in the hard times from the people who lived in the drought-stricken region during the great depression. The "Dust Bowl Days" also known as the "Dirty Thirties" took their toll on the people of this region of the country with the many extremes of weather: blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms.
Hand out one the following facts and have them create a tableau for each fact:
Watch 10 min clip about the Dust Bowl, from 12:00 to 18:17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i768Fbtw9Y
Read the poem Dust and Rain out to class from Out of the Dust:
Bringing a red dust
Like prairie fire,
Hot and peppery,
Searing the inside of my nose,
The white of my eyes.
Roaring dust.
Turning the day from sunlight to midnight.
The wind screamed
The blowing dirt ran so thick
I couldn’t see the brim of my hat
As we plunged from the truck,
Fleeing
The dust swarmed
Like it had never swarmed before.
My father groped for my hand
Pulled me away from the truck
We ran
A blind pitching toward the shelter of a small house
Almost invisible
Our hands tight together
Running toward the ghostly door
Pounding on it with desperation
Put each of student in a corner of the room, turn off the lights and play the sandstorm clip, have them act out what it would be like to fight through a sandstorm and find each other and play 2:45 to about 3:30 of the sounds of a sandstorm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcgC9Y0e00w
Have students sit on the floor and have them think of a moment in their lives that they were scared for themselves or family, have students share.
Using the rest of the period create a silent scene or movement piece, need to see what happened before, during and after Dust and Rain.
Cool Down: What’s one word to sum up your feelings about what we did in class today?
Assessment: Based on the scene students created today, they will create a character bio (name, age, most treasured procession, greatest fear, life dream and diary entry of the day and storm and will be evaluated on their incorporation of elements learned in class.
Skills and Knowledge:
Students will know...
- What the ecological factors were that caused the dustbowl
- The major events in the Dust bowl
- The effects of the dustbowl on people, environment, history
Enduring Understanding:
- Students will recognize the human turmoil caused by the events of the dustbowl and the resilience required of the people involved, as well as the enduring love and humanity that sustained them.
Hook:
Sensory walk through: mill and seethe through the room, stop, change direction etc. Then tell students that they walking through the following as you describe it:
Soft, green grass,
Brown crunchy grass
Spiky grass that cuts like razor blades
Walking on dust
Wading through ankle high dust
Fighting through knee high dust blowing in your face, getting in your mouth and eyes and ears, you can feel it as it hits your face.
Freeze
Body:
Ask students to gather around a series of pictures that we will lay on the floor and to name observations and feelings they have from looking at them. Afterwards sum up the following information and relay it to them.
The Dust Bowl was an ecological and human disaster that affected parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. "Dust Bowl" was a term born in the hard times from the people who lived in the drought-stricken region during the great depression. The "Dust Bowl Days" also known as the "Dirty Thirties" took their toll on the people of this region of the country with the many extremes of weather: blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms.
Hand out one the following facts and have them create a tableau for each fact:
- The simplest acts of life — breathing, eating a meal, taking a walk — were no longer simple.
- Children wore dust masks to and from school
- Women hung wet sheets over windows in an attempt to stop the dirt.
- Farmers watched helplessly as their crops blew away.
- The blowing soil of the Dust Bowl caused dust pneumonia; doctors began to see the elderly, children and infants with coughing spasms, shortness of breath and body aches.
Watch 10 min clip about the Dust Bowl, from 12:00 to 18:17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i768Fbtw9Y
Read the poem Dust and Rain out to class from Out of the Dust:
Bringing a red dust
Like prairie fire,
Hot and peppery,
Searing the inside of my nose,
The white of my eyes.
Roaring dust.
Turning the day from sunlight to midnight.
The wind screamed
The blowing dirt ran so thick
I couldn’t see the brim of my hat
As we plunged from the truck,
Fleeing
The dust swarmed
Like it had never swarmed before.
My father groped for my hand
Pulled me away from the truck
We ran
A blind pitching toward the shelter of a small house
Almost invisible
Our hands tight together
Running toward the ghostly door
Pounding on it with desperation
Put each of student in a corner of the room, turn off the lights and play the sandstorm clip, have them act out what it would be like to fight through a sandstorm and find each other and play 2:45 to about 3:30 of the sounds of a sandstorm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcgC9Y0e00w
Have students sit on the floor and have them think of a moment in their lives that they were scared for themselves or family, have students share.
Using the rest of the period create a silent scene or movement piece, need to see what happened before, during and after Dust and Rain.
Cool Down: What’s one word to sum up your feelings about what we did in class today?
Assessment: Based on the scene students created today, they will create a character bio (name, age, most treasured procession, greatest fear, life dream and diary entry of the day and storm and will be evaluated on their incorporation of elements learned in class.