Literature Terms Lesson Plan
Using Picture Books and Readers' Theater to Teach Literary Elements
A multi-day middle school lesson plan that lets students learn about various literary terms by creating their own readers' theater scripts.
Many students have no trouble memorizing literature terms for a quiz, but understanding them to the point of being able to use and discuss them can be more challenging.
Introduction/Objective
This activity gives students the chance to really use the terms they're learning and gets them engaged by allowing them to be creative. Working in cooperative groups gives students the chance to discuss the terms in a less threatening environment.
In this lesson, students will demonstrate their understanding of various literary terms by using them correctly in readers' theater scripts based on wordless picture books.
Procedure
- Assign or have students create their own groups of 3-4. Distribute a wordless picture book (see Resources for ideas) to each group. Allow them to browse and discuss their book for several minutes, then trade books and repeat. While students are chatting, take notes on some of their comments.
- Write some of students' discussion content on the overhead or chalkboard. Note that students discussed what was happening in the story without any words to guide them. Elicit the fact that the pictures provided clues for what was going on, but students used their understanding of story structure to piece together the plot.
- Explain that students will be doing a project with just one of the books. Continue trading until everyone has had a chance to see all of the books and to place them in order. Randomly select which group will choose first, second, etc., until all have a book to work with. Students might also decide to select their own book from home or the library, as long as it is wordless (or nearly so, such as Good Night, Gorilla--see Resources).
- Ahead of time, write various literary terms on small slips of paper. The terms will vary depending on the curriculum, but types of narrators (first person, second person, etc.), types of characters (round, flat, etc.), types of sensory imagery and literary devices (alliteration, simile, auditory image, onomotopoeia, etc.), all work well.
- Students randomly choose several of these to include in their scripts. It may be helpful to categorize them ahead of time--for example, to have one "hat" include the types of narrators--so each group gets a good sampling of the terms with which to work.
- Students write scripts for their books, incorporating the terms they've chosen. It may be helpful to present a teacher-created model at this point (or even earlier in the process) to help students understand what's expected. Sharing a rubric ahead of time will also lead to a more polished final product (see Assessment).
- Conference with the groups and have them share questions and ideas. Give students time to produce a final copy of their script,then provide them with one copy per student for practice and highlighting.
- Allow students to perform their scripts for the class, or to other audiences (see Extensions).
Assessment
- Students should be assessed on the quality of their final drafts, how accurately they use the terms, how well they worked cooperatively, and how polished their performances are.
- An assessment rubric allows students to understand how they'll be graded.
Extensions
- Have students perform their scripts using puppets, dioramas, and or/sound effects in order to integrate art and/or music.
- Have the audience take a "quiz" about which terms were incorporated (i. e.--what kind of narrator was this group supposed to use? How do you know?). This checks the performers' accuracy and gives the class additional practice with the terms.
- If technology allows, have students create audio recordings of the scripts to accompany the books.
- Have students perform their scripts for younger children in the school.
Resources
- Some well-loved wordless picture books include Good Night Gorilla [Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004] and the Good Dog, Carl [Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1996], the first book in a series by Alexandra Day.
- Others may be found on library book lists such as this one from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The copyright of the article Literature Terms Lesson Plan in Middle School Lesson Plans is owned by Jessica Brown. Permission to republish Literature Terms Lesson Plan must be granted by the author in writing.
