Lesson+Plans

The purpose of Day 1 is to introduce students to the elements of genre, and relate genre to narrative patterns in stories. Overt Instruction should begin with introducing students to the idea and definition of genre. The teacher should focus on how genre organizes media. The teacher should engage students at this point, asking them to provide examples of genres or elements of genre. It is important for students to understand that genre transcends each individual piece of art. Students should also understand that genre governs artist’s available designs. The teacher should then give students examples of different genre types and ask them what they think are the available designs are for those types. The teacher should then begin to explain the different elements of genre. Students may have touched on some of these during the brief discussion. Teachers should be sure to bring up characters, setting, narrative, iconography, style, and stars. The teacher should be sure to explain iconography and narrative. The list of elements should be written on the board. The teacher should then introduce the looney toons cartoon that the class will be working with. This will give the students an opportunity to think about some of the genre elements. The students should be placed in groups and given a few minutes to think about the genre elements for looney toons. They will then share their lists with the class. They should try to have an example of each element of genre. The teacher will have group members share the elements they wrote down. As the students fill in the elements, the teacher should take time to explain how the Looney Toons genre follows Todorov’s Model of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. The students should be familiar with this type of narrative pattern. The teacher should just review the different stages found in the model and tell students how Looney Toons fits that pattern. The teacher will then show the selected cartoon. The teacher should explain the title of the film, //Plop Goes the Weasel,// and explain how the genre of Looney Toons usually has titles that play on words. The teacher should also have a few examples of other titles (//Of Rice and Hen, The Early Worm Gets the Bird, A Tale of Two Kitties, Bars and Stripes for Ever//). The teacher should also explain the name of the main character, Foghorn Leghorn. The teacher should let students know that a Leghorn is a type of chicken. So essentially, Foghorn Leghorn means loud chicken. The teacher should then give other popular examples of how Looney Toons characters fit this mold. The students will then view the cartoon, //Plop Goes the Weasel//. As they view, students will note the different elements of the genre. The teacher will also periodically pause the cartoon and note the different elements of the narrative pattern. After the cartoon is finished, the students will share their findings concerning the different genre elements of the film. The class will discuss how the creators used the different elements available to them to create the cartoon and how choosing those elements affected the cartoon’s meaning. Critical Framing will not play a large part in Day 1’s lesson. Students will be given an opportunity to show their knowledge of genre on the second and third days of the lesson. The first day is more of an introduction to the subject matter. The student’s responses during both situated practices will be formatively assessed. The teacher should be aware of student’s responses during the group work and the discussion after the film. The teacher should make sure that students show an understanding of the elements of genre and how they can be applied to Looney Toons. media type="youtube" key="tQ5uHbGiZE4" height="385" width="480"
 * __ Day 1 Overt Instruction __**
 * __Situated Practice__**
 * __ Overt Instruction __**
 * __Situated Practice__**
 * __ Critical Framing __**
 * __ Assessment __**

Content Objectives: students will understand and analyze how media present information, organize ideas, disseminate values, create and reinforce expectations, and provide models for behaviors. Language Objectives: students will be able to articulate their thinking with appropriate vocabulary, complete sentences and sentence transitions. __**Overt Instruction**__: At the beginning of the Day 2 class, students will reflect back on what they have learned in Day 1. Reflection: Content Objectives: students can confidently apply their knowledge about the narrative patterns in stories and elements of genre when analyzing a short animation. Language Objectives: students can use the terminologies, such as: equilibrium, disequilibrium, characters, setting, narrative, iconography, style and stars in their speech. A teacher will ask students to reflect back on what terminologies what they have learned in Day 1 and students need to use their own language to define these terms. **Teacher will write down some key terms on the board.** __**Situated Practice:**__ Students will watch a short animation named "Of Rice and Hen", and then three or four students will be in a group discussing the narrative patterns by using Todorov's Model of equilibrium and disequilibrium. The teacher can use **reciprocal teaching strategy** here. Each group will have a hard copy of the transcript of "Of Rice and Hen", so one student in the group can read the story to the group, and another student will be responsible for answering group members' questions. The third student may take notes and the last person will summarize the story or be the presenter for the group. Each student in a group will have a clear individual responsibility for the final presentation. After that, students will have a brief discussion on elements of narrative in stories. The teacher will direct students' attention to how media present information, organize ideas, disseminate values, create and reinforce behaviors, and provide models of behaviors (Cotes, 2005). First, media present information. There are a lot of information that media try to convey but these information has been filtered or edited to serve the author's purposes or to attract the targeted audience. Therefore, students need recognize the information disseminated by the mass media, identify the ways that how media present the information, and hypothesize the kinds of learning that may occur through interacting with to these information. The teacher will ask students to think of one or two pieces of information from "Of Rice and Hen" and how the information is presented. Second, media organize ideas. Media use similar narrative structures and headlines to organize idea. Some of the ideas are to reinforce status quo or assert the normality of social hierarchy. Students have learned how to use Todorov's Model analyzing the narrative structures, so here, the teacher need to help students think about the potential of the narrative structures on influencing the way students process and interpret future media. For example, what do students think girls should do to impress their significant other? Third, media disseminate values. The teacher can ask students to think of what family values, values about friendship and values about women and men that they can find out by watching "Of Rice and Hen" or other TV shows they have watched. Forth, media create and reinforce expectations. In our society, we have expectations for different groups of people. For example, students are expected to study hard and eat appropriately, Friends are expected to be honest and helpful to each other. Therefore, the plots or the information in mass media try to reinforce these expectations. However, sometimes, media intend to create expectations for the viewers. The teachers will ask students to think of their experience interacting with media and how media shaped their expectations. Fifth, media provide models for behaviors. For example, in //Gossip Girls//, the main actors often say:" XOXO, gossip girls." or:" BFF" which means best friends forever. The media have a great impact on people's verbal models of behaviors. Moreover, the teacher can ask student to think more examples about models of behaviors. For example, when people are telling a lie, what do they usually do in the media? when the detectives find a homicide, what will they do to solve the case. After that, the teacher will ask student to think of the impact of the media behaviors on the behaviors outside the media or on students' daily life and why they say there is a linkage between media behaviors and their behaviors. **Here, the teachers can show students some pictures or a few seconds of the dramas, so every students will have equal opportunity to analyze the models for behaviors. media type="youtube" key="bIyB9n4ziAA" height="385" width="480"** __**Situated Practice**__: The teacher will show "Of Rice and Hen" again to students. In this situated practice, three or four students will be in one group. Each group has a different topic. The first group work on what information that "Of Rice and Hen" has presented and what students learn from the information. The second group will focus on how the title and narrative structures help the producers organize ideas and how these ideas influence students' interpretation of future media. The third group will pay attention on the values and expectations in "Of Rice and Hen". What values does "Of Rice and Hen" disseminate, about women, men, friends, romance? What does "Of Rice and Hen" shape your expectations about friends, women's role in the society, and women's role in a relationship? The last group will work on models for behaviors? What does Prissy do when she heard other hens' comments about her? what does she do to impress Foghorn? __**Critical Framing:**__ Students will work together and discuss about the values presented in "Of Rice and Hen". The teacher will ask students to think which values will be difficult for students from other cultures to understand? and why? If the teachers have ELLs in their classroom, they will be a valuable resource for a comparison study. ELLs may come from different cultures and the values that portrayed in their native country may be different from the values disseminated in U.S dramas. Therefore, their input about values can become the topics for discussions. The teacher should encourage students to explore the different values in different cultures. If the teacher does not have ELLs, he or she can prepare another video that values independent women who do not have child. Students's work will be assessed by their worksheets, engagement level in discussions, and oral production of their thinking. ELLs are allowed to draw pictures or write in their first language. Their contribution will be highly appreciated when they share their cultural experience in critical framing. ELLs are allowed to talk with friends who may understand their first language and their friends can present ELLs' ideas to the class. Both ELLs and the presenters will be counted for their presentation.
 * __Day 2 Lesson Plan__**
 * __Overt Instruction:__**
 * __Assessment:__

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Kaleb- Critical Framing

Lesson 3 of the Looney Tunes lesson should be about transformed practice. The first day of these lessons introduced the students to the genre of Looney Tunes and the idea behind narrative. Day 2 the students learn about social issues and characterization in Looney Tunes. In Lesson Three the students will be replicating the guided practice done in Lesson 2 on a brand new cartoon.

__Transformed Practice__: The students on day 3 have moved past the situated practice stage and need to try to break down the Looney Tune genre by themselves. In order to accomplish this, students will use Todorov’s theory of equilibrium and disequilibrium to discuss the following cartoon.

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The teacher should play the cartoon a total of three times. The first time, teachers should advise students to not take any notes and just watch for plot. The second time, students should take notes on narrative and characterization. The final time, students should be looking for more in depth criticism of social values and behavior modeling in the cartoon.

On a separate sheet of paper students will asked to look at all aspects discussed on Day 2. Students will be looking at many different parts: 1. How is the title related to the story? 2. What is the narrative structure of the cartoon? 3. What characters are shown in this cartoon? 4. What behaviors are these character's portraying to its viewers? 5. What social values are the environment and characters portraying in this cartoon?

__Assessment:__ LA.1112.5.2.1 - demonstrate effective listening skills and behaviors for a variety of purposes, and demonstrate understanding by critically evaluating and analyzing oral presentations; LA.910.6.3.1-The student will distinguish between propaganda and ethical reasoning strategies in print and nonprint media;

Students will be assessed based on their ability to critically analyze the cartoon. The specific parts the teacher should be looking for are students’ understanding of the narrative structure, their description of the characters, social values, and the models of behavior disseminated by the cartoon.