Subject: LANGUAGE- Reading
Appreciation Grade: 5 Primary
Duration: 30 minutes
General Aim: Acquisition of Skill (Appreciation)
Specific Aims: To lead children to an evaluation of a passage from Meindert DeJong's "The House of Sixty Fathers".
Basic Method: Appreciation
Preparation: Teacher: Has prepared copies of pages 62 & 63 for each student.
Step
1: Author: Meindert DeJong "Cat That Walked a Week", "Along
Came a Dog" etc. Plots deal with animals. Preparation for
Experience Through teacher questioning and
board sketches, other stories by the same author are
recalled by children. Step
2: The soldiers were looking up.They
twisted their necks and looked up into the sky, and the air
over the river was so clear and bright, it looked almost as
if they were staring at Tien Pao on top of the cliff. Tien
Pao, too, twisted his neck and looked up into the sky behind
him.There in the morning a speck appeared. It was like the
speck a hawk makes when he sails over the yard of a farmer
where chickens are pecking the straw. But it wasn't a high
speck any more. It was a swift, high aeroplane. And now it
fell screaming out of the sky toward the trucks and the
horses. Down below the trucks were not
riding packed together any more - they were strung out along
the road.Horsemen had tumbled off their horses and lay along
the road. All in one screaming moment the
aeroplane was above the road and along the road.Low now -
big and snarling. It came with a horrible stuttering screech
of bullets. Some of the trucks stopped, some of
the drivers threw themselves into the rice paddies along the
road.Some of the trucks rolled on into the hail of bullets
and explosions. A truck turned over, its wheels thrashing
the air like the many feet of a great, clumsy
bug. The
Experience As children follow copies, the
teacher reads the extract aloud. Step
3: Children's comments. Setting: A mountain
valley Characters: Plane,
convoy,Tien Pao Content plan: 1.Attention attracted
to sky. 2.Speck becomes plane. 3.Panic in convoy. 4.The
attack and destruction. Mood: Interest captured,
peaceful setting.Forewarning of danger to come.Urgency,
fear, futility. Style: Use of imagery: plane
"a speck", like hawk searching for its prey, the truck
like"a clumsy bug". Use of vocab to sustain image
e.g. "swift high.. fell screaming ..low now.. big and
snarling.. horrible screech." Trucks and soldiers are like
chickens - aimless panic, helplessness, "not packed
together.. strung out.. Use of contrast Trucks
together .. then strung out. Plane high, then above and
along the road. Some trucks stopped, some rolled on
etc. Discuss effect of changing centre
of interest e.g. the sky, action on ground, back to the
plane. Discussion Following a short period for
reflection, children comment freely on the passage, quoting
sections deemed effective or interesting. Through teacher's questioning,
literary aspects of the passage are discussed. Board
sketching and impromptu dramatisation may be employed in
clarification and extension of observations. Step
4: The passage Renewed
Experience Selected students and teacher read
the extract aloud. Teacher commends individuals for
contribution to discussions.
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