Developing a Lesson Plan
By Despina Kakoudaki
One of the basic misconceptions of new teachers is that "Discussion" is a plan. It is as if the teacher thinks "I read the book, they read the book, now we sit together and talk." In the case of instructors who find themselves leading Discussion Sections after a professor has already lectured on the course materials, it is easy to see why people assume that all you do is arrive in the classroom, throw a few questions out to the class, and sit back. After all, the information has been imparted at the lecture, what more could there be for you to do?
This impression that classroom interaction revolves around the exchange of information is false. Students can get information (and often better explanations) in a good textbook. Brains are not containers, with liquids (knowledge, information) flowing from one (the Teacher's) to the others (the Students'). Changing this antiquated model of thinking about learning is especially necessary now, with our increasingly complex technologies of accessing information.
Why is the teacher there, then, if not to impart superior knowledge? The answer is simple: the teacher does not impart knowledge per se, but modes of arriving at knowledge. A teacher's expertise in a topic allows the students to see what kind of thinking they have to understand and perform. Solutions are only the aftereffect of selecting an appropriate course of thinking/action.
In a math class for example, the teacher does not arrive to proclaim "The answer to this question is 42!" What use would that be? Instead, students have to be given the chance to observe how the formulas, axioms, tables and equations they have learned interact to produce this answer. Selecting which ones are useful and why is a matter of expertise, practice and experience, and these are skills that teachers have.
How does this relate to your Reading and Composition class or Discussion Section? First of all, you have to understand that students learn by observing your thinking process. Making this process clear, and allowing students to find out its component parts, is one of your basic tools. Your expertise allows you to imagine why the solution matters, or how it relates to larger themes. Your students' ideas may be creative, inspired and imaginative, but often they arrive without an overall concept of where to go and why.
Creating a Lesson Plan allows you to break down your thinking process into steps that your students can follow. Instead of lecturing on your interpretation of a passage in a novel, for example, you can create a lesson plan that uses your interpretation as a guiding force, but allows the process to be the issue. Students can then be guided by the steps of the plan, they can accumulate information and evidence, and can start organizing their ideas into larger structures. A written lesson plan also allows you to evaluate your teaching expectations (how much time things take, for example), and your students' performance.
Using Lesson Plans in your first years of teaching is a great way to improve your teaching style. As you gain more experience you will see that in your teaching performance you have internalized your experience with lesson plans. You know by then how to break down a task into specific steps. You can tell if one step is more difficult than another. You can imagine what problems your students will have with a text or task. Experienced teachers also use lesson plans: maybe they just don't write them out any more, except when experimenting with a new technique or issue.
Start by writing our an outline of what your whole session will be like. Give time estimates about each part of the session. This can be your overall plan for the day. Then, more specifically, create a detailed Lesson Plan for the task or exercise you are planning to do that day. At the end of the class, revisit your notes. Did you allow enough time? Did students take longer to settle into the task than you expected? Were your instructions confusing? Along with having a Teacher's Journal, these notes on your specific plans will be a terrific help in the future.
Writing out each step of a Plan ensures that you can evaluate your expectations later. This process needs practice and persistence, but it really really works!
A Lesson Plan should have the following elements:
clear objectives
time estimate for every part of the plan
specific passages or references for students to focus on
specific steps for undestanding a particular issue
student tasks
anticipated dangers, questions or misreadings
conclusion possibilities or directions for wrap up
suggestions for further thinking
connections with paper topics
follow-up assignment Example of a (shortened) Lesson Plan:
Background: Students often try to write a paper on very general themes, such as society or evil. They do not use close readings and feel insecure about how to do research in a novel. In this session I will set up gradual tasks guiding them on how to do research and close reading. Then they have to repeat this set of skills in writing their papers. This session is planned for a couple of weeks before their first paper. I will repeat this research Lesson Plan two or three times in the course of the semester, each time two weeks before a paper is due.
Objective: To arrive at Paper Topics for the students' 5-7 page paper.
General plan for the Session: Paper Topics Lesson Plan:
Teacher Preparation: 4 passages from the novel, list of possible themes for research, sample questions, 3 paper topics already prepared for discussion. Group work: Students in groups of 4. Each group gets one passage from the novel. Two groups for each passage, so that when they create their paper topics we can think about how the same passage can have very different analytical treatments.
Research Topics: Teacher writes list of words on the board. Groups have to select one word or theme from the list and research it in their passage. Example: punctuation, clouds, clothes, eyes, the words "but" or "meanwhile." The elements could be strange and open-ended, because the objective is to stimulate discussion. Setting up tasks, about 5 minutes. Discussion: Groups discuss. Teacher goes from group to group either to listen in or to help if they have questions. Visit every group for a few minutes.
Next Step: After about 15 minutes Teacher interrupts with: Discussion: Groups discuss second passage, 15 minutes.
Paper Topics: Teacher says: Class Discussion: Teacher recalls groups to the class and asks each group to present their findings, their general research idea, and their paper topic proposal. 30 minutes. Each group receives some feedback from the class and the teacher. Do not ask "Is this a good topic?" Ask "What is interesting about this group's approach? What do you think are the dangers of this topic? What difficulties should this group anticipate?" Students can then make constructive comments: the topic is too general, too difficult, it seems very binary etc.
Follow-up: Each student has to go home and write a 1 page outline, based on their paper topic. They can choose the one discussed in their group, or create a new one. Insist that even if the starting point is the same (clouds) there is no danger that they will write the same paper. Continue the discussion next time.
[For a Reading and Composition Class, that lasts 1 hour and 30 minutes. About 30 students in the class.]
10 minutes general questions and discussion about the novel.
Then go to Paper Topics Lesson Plan, total 45 minutes.
30 minutes of questions.
Teacher says:
"Think about how this word or theme functions in the passage. Take notes. What other words does it connect to? Does it change as you read on?"
"You now should have a set of ideas about how your theme works in this passage. Now I want you to find one more passage in the novel that you think is connected. Figure out why they are connected. Does the second passage change what you thought about the first?"
"Now you have to combine the research on the two passages and imagine a paper topic. Write it out as a statement. You are trying to answer the question: What is important about {clouds, eyes etc} in these passages?"
Groups create a paper topic. 10 minutes. Anticipate questions about what kind of statement it should be, what is a paper topic etc.