Focus: The focus of this lesson is to improve the use of voice by mentoring Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson for high school students with mild to moderate disabilities.
Mentor text: I chose the genre of contemporary fiction for Speak due to the wonderful voice that Laurie Halse Anderson gave Melinda Sordino the main character and the relevancy of this book to many of my students. Speak is about a freshman girl entering high school with no friends because she attended an end-of-summer party where she called the police. However, something happened at the party and Melinda struggles with the torment in her mind and others do not understand why she won't speak. Laurie Halse Anderson has won many awards for Speak and some of her other books. Halsey lives in northern New York with her husband, four children, and a dog.
Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is teach students to think and improve upon voice in their writing, and like Melinda must learn to speak out. Student voice in writing needs to vary to according to purpose and to show influence, authority, attitude, or stance toward something or someone.
Lesson: Before the writing lesson, the class will read and study the book Speak.
First, students will compare quotes read aloud by a peer or teacher from the following characters: Melinda, Heather, Nicole, The Marthas, Andy Evans, David Petrakis, Mr. Neck, Mr. Freeman, and Hairwoman. Students will develop adjectives to describe each voice while listening to the quotes read aloud.
Second, students will develop their own quotes modeled after the mentor text using correct or consistent with text punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. Students will read their quotes aloud to their partner or group to see if the voice has the same sounds, rhythms, or attitudes.
Third, students will use highlighters to mark the qualities that make the character's voice unique to that character such as sentence length or complexity, vocabulary, number of syllables in the majority of the words, or other discoveries. Students will write a learning log to discuss what they have learned about developing voice in writing.
Forth, students will create a short story with at least three characters. Students will use the strategies learned to give each character a different voice. Students will read quotes aloud to their partner or group to check for differences in voices. Students will edit for correct grammar and conventions.
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Processes: 7) Use a variety of sentence structures and lengths. 9) Use language, including precise language, action verbs, sensory details and colorful modifiers, and style as appropriate to audience and purpose, and use techniques to convey a personal style and voice. 13) Rearrange words, sentences and paragraphs and add transitional words and phrases to clarify meaning and maintain consistent style, tone and voice. 14) Use resources and reference materials to select effective and precise vocabulary that maintains consistent style, tone and voice.
Communications: Oral and Visual: 4) Identify how language choice and delivery styles contribute to meaning. 7) Vary language choices to appropriate to the context of the speech.
Writer Mentor Connections:
To read more about Laurie Halse Anderson visit her website at:
Also: www.teenread.com/authors/au-anderson-laurie.asp
Additional Teaching Resources:
For multigenre writing, please view Tom Romano's website where he features a student example using Speak:www.users.muohio.edu/romanots/mgrpapers.htm
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