Lesson Plan for RCF: 2/7/14

Lesson Plan for Riverside, 2/7/31

I. Sasha:
Welcome! We’ve brought two more students with us…
we want to introduce them. Some of you may be new, too,
and we want to learn your names.

--everyone have a name tag?
--anyone need a copy of The Glass Castle?

Take a moment to find one sentence in The Glass Castle that stood out to you.
Go around, say your name, and read that sentence. Don’t comment on it,

or explain why you picked it—we’re just getting ourselves settled in here,
and to getting the novel into the room w/ us.

We’ll start discussing it after we’ve done that….

II. Hayley:
read quote from the middle of p. 73:
“Mom’s students really liked her. She had the same philosophy about educating children that she had about rearing them. She thought rules and discipline held people back and felt that the best way to let children fulfill their potential was by providing freedom. She didn’t care if her students were late or didn’t do their homework. If they wanted to act out, that was fine with her, as long as they didn’t hurt anyone else. Mom was all the time hugging her students and letting them know how wonderful and special she thought they were….Students who were considered problem kids or mentally slow started doing well. Some followed Mom around like stray dogs.”

What did you think about Mom’s philosophy?
Why does she think this?
What does the author of this story, her daughter Jeanette,
think about what her mother thinks?
What do you think about what they think?
Do you agree or disagree with the mom’s position?
Why or why not? What kinds of evidence from the text,
and from other sources (including your life!),
make you see this the way you do?

For ten minutes: talk with a partner about these questions,
and write a response together. Give a reason/example/story
to “back up” what you are saying—we want details!
This is a skill: learning to develop an argument and use evidence to support it.

Come back into large group to read out loud what you wrote, and discuss….

III. Jody:
In a little bit, we will give you some homework to
build on this writing you just started…
but first: who would like to share what you wrote this week?

We had asked you to write a story about being @ home and being homeless--
and to think about point of view when you did so:
how different does the story look, from different perspectives?
Can you write the story from two different points-of-view?

After these are read:
What are we hearing?
What do know/what are we saying
about what we need, to feel @ home?
About being homeless?

IV. Sara:
In pairs or alone, think of one comparison/connection/contrast

between what you wrote about home and what Walls write in The Glass Castle.

This is another writing skill: moving from your own experience to a text,
from a personal story to a more general claim.
Once you’ve talked this through with a partner, write down what you think.

Come back to large group and share some of our thoughts and writing.
Emphasize the skill of generalizing from particularities to larger claims.

IV. Anne:
* Reminder that there will be a certificate,
if you attend @ least 8 classes, and do
all the reading and writing for those 8 sessions.

So: please always put your name on your writing--
that way, we can keep a record that you’re doing the work;
if you want us to type it up and distribute it without your name,
just indicate that when you hand it in.

* Distribute last week’s stories:
what we wrote about our mothers (and ourselves).
Again, we’re deciphering your handwriting,
and there are bound to be mistakes--
if you notice errors, please correct them and give it back to us;
if you do that right now, we can give you a clean copy next week.
If you want to take it with you, read it over more carefully,
and mark the passages you want to change/correct, you can give it
to us next week; then we’ll return it to you, corrected, the week after.

* Homework:
Read to p. 202 of The Glass Castle.

Our writing assignment steps off from our discussion about how Mom’s philosophy of schooling is like her philosophy of mothering: in both areas, she thought kids flourished best if they had no rules, no discipline, and lots of freedom….

We want you to think about the relationship between what you learned in school and what you learned outside of it. In giving you this assignment, we’re drawing on a book by Wendy Luttrell called Schoolsmart and Motherwise: Working-Class Women’s Identity and Schooling.  It describes the difference between “book learning” and “commonsense knowledge,” and says that  "real intelligence" can be attained outside school, from life experience.

Write 3 pp. describing the kind of education you got outside of school.
Remember the 3 writing skills we’ve talked about so far:
* think about point of view—who is talking and what does she see/hear/feel/think?
* remember to back up your points—give lots of concrete details and examples
* try to generalize from particularities to make larger claims.