Visual Materials
1.
|
Looking and understanding (I look at the image and say what I see holistically).
|
2.
|
Analyzing images
|
·
|
Focal Point: it is one central figure that attracts your eye first.
|
·
|
Figure-ground contrast: it emphasizes the difference between what is in the front and what is in the back (ground). The figure is often the focal point.
|
·
|
Grouping according to proximity and similarity is also an important element in visuals.
|
·
|
Color in visuals has a specific connotation and conveys meaning and feelings. It can focus our attention, create contrast, appeal to emotions and help communicate the message.
|
·
|
Lines can convey mood; they can create a sense of calm and equilibrium, uncertainty, or movement and stress. Soft lines may imply flow or change.
|
3.
|
Sharing time: sitting in a circle, teacher and students read aloud and discuss the various interpretations of an image.
|
4.
|
Comparing and contrasting the image with a specific piece of expository text or essay. Write in the essay format. Modification: first draw a T-chart and list all the essential elements, feelings, reactions, and/or interpretations of the visual and of the text. Secondly, draw connecting lines between the similarities, and then write about these similarities and differences.
|
Pre-reading
Quick Write activity:
Every day, I start my class with a five-minute writing activity, and I also want my students to come prepared with a quotation from the part of the text that they read as homework or in class the day before.
1.
|
Select one quote with a specific detail you want to comment on either for its insightfulness or its power to make you see something.
|
2.
|
Sharing Time: Teacher and students sit in a circle, read aloud, take brief notes, and discuss the various responses.
|
3.
|
Ask the students to review their notes, identify the most relevant ones and write them on a Post-It board.
|
4.
|
Ask the students to write whether their initial position has changed after our discussion or sharing time, and why.
|
Tea Party activity:
(I would not suggest modeling it because not knowing how to do it triggers more thinking.)
1.
|
Prepare fifteen or twenty index card with one phrase from the document they will be reading. Repeat those phrases two or three times in order to have one card per student.
|
2.
|
Distribute one card to each student and ask them to move from student to student, sharing their cards, listen to others as they read their cards, discuss what these cards might refer to, and suggest what these cards might mean.
|
3.
|
After ten minutes, divide the students into small groups and ask them to write their reflections.
|
4.
|
Sharing Time
|
5.
|
Read the text aloud.
|
6.
|
After reading the text, compare and contrast their predictions and the text.
|
Close Reading and Analytical Writing
1.
|
Read the passage/document.
|
2.
|
Underline interesting, important, and/or unusual/unexpected words, phrases, and language structures, and label them in the margin.
|
3.
|
Sharing Time
|
4.
|
Reread the passage/document.
|
5.
|
Determine connections and draw arrows from one part of the passage to another to mark those connections.
|
6.
|
Highlight the descriptions, the reflections, the details, or the purpose.
|
7.
|
What is the main idea or subject of the text? How do you know? How is it presented? Does the author introduce it immediately? Does the author express this main idea or do you have to infer it? How do you infer it? What clues support your theory?
|
8.
|
When did this situation occur? Why? How do you know or determine the time and place this situation occurred? Is it clearly stated? Do you infer it? How do you infer it? What clues confirm your theory?
|
9.
|
Who is the audience? How do you know? Is it clearly indicated? How? How do you infer it? What clues confirm your theory?
|
-
10.Who is the voice telling the story? Is it the author? How do you know? What assumptions can you make about this voice? Can you identify the age, education, social status of the speaker or hidden reasons for writing this document?
-
11.What is/are the purpose(s) of the document? What's the reason(s) behind the text? How do you know? What reaction(s) in the audience does the writer want to achieve? Why? How do you know? What techniques does the author use to achieve this purpose? How do you think the audience will feel? What is the effect the author wants to achieve?
-
12.What is the tone of this document? How do you know? What word(s) or phrase(s) determine this tone? Why? What details, sentence structures, or images convey this tone? Why?
-
13.What are the details that determine the setting? How does the setting contribute to the understanding of the character? How does it contribute to the understanding of the tone of the text?
-
14.What can you say about the diction used by the author? How does diction contribute to the understanding of the character/setting/theme?
-
15.Sharing Time: the students share their analysis, discuss and take notes in their journals.
Modification:
1.
|
Read the passage/document.
|
2.
|
Underline interesting, important, and/or unusual/unexpected words, phrases, and language structures.
|
3.
|
Reread the passage/document.
|
4.
|
Determine connections and draw arrows from one part of the passage to another to mark those connections.
|
5.
|
Write a "Wonder Why" question for each interesting, important, unusual, or unexpected word/phrase. Write your theory(ies) and support it (them) with clear references to the text.
|
6.
|
Sharing Time: students share, discuss their interpretations, and take notes on their peers' thoughts in their journals.
|
Final Paper
This synthesis essay responds to the following questions: What does the character/artist see? What does he/she notice? Is this love? Students have to support their thesis with at least two documents (written and visual texts) from this unit. A Works Cited page is required. The writing of this documented essay will follow various stages:
1.
|
Reread your journals/responses/notes and highlight the details, information you want to use to support your theory.
|
2.
|
Write a possible idea/theory, share, and discuss it with your peers.
|
3.
|
Write a discovery draft with a thesis statement and reasons.
|
4.
|
Write a first draft containing the thesis statement, the reasons, the support/references from the documents, and the analysis/discussion of why those references support your assertions. Peers' revision follows: in groups of two the students read and revise each other's work.
|
5.
|
Write a second draft including the suggestions from your peer's revision. Peers' editing follows: in groups of two the students read and edit each other's work.
|
6.
|
Write a third draft followed by a conference with the teacher.
|
7.
|
Write the annotated bibliography of the documents cited in the essay using MLA documentation style. (Students are provided a model of the MLA requirements.) Write a fifty words summary of each source.
|
8.
|
Final draft with Works Cited page.
|
Modification:
9.
|
Reread your journals/responses/notes and highlight the details, information you want to use to support your theory.
|
-
10.Write the thesis in response to the essential question and use one PowerPoint slide.
-
11.Determine and write the reasons for your theory/thesis and use one PowerPoint slide.
-
12.Find the evidences in the documents and write them in other slides.
-
13.Write a brief conclusion on a slide.
-
14.Sharing Time: each student presents and discusses his/her theory and the evidence for it with the class.