Lesson 8

I.

Setting the Stage: What are your measurable objectives and assessment?
A. Curriculum Framework Standards: Which MA Curriculum Frameworks address
your topic content and objectives?
MA.W.3A. Demonstrate understanding of the concept of point of view by writing short
narratives, poems, essays, speeches, or reflections from ones own or a particular
characters point of view (e.g., the hero, anti-hero, a minor character).

B. Generative Topic: What is the focal concept or skill of the lesson?

Understanding point of view in Romeo and Juliet using social media
C. Measurable Objectives: What do you want students to know and be able to do?
Students will be able to:
Demonstrate understanding of the concept of point of view by composing a Fakebook
profile page and Instagram image from the perspective of a character from Romeo and
Juliet.
D. End of Lesson Assessment: How are you going to assess students understanding?
This lesson will be assessed using the social media compositions themselves. Students will be
provided with a rubric so that they are aware what the instructor is looking for. These social
media compositions together will be worth 15% of students overall unit grade.
II.

Content of the Lesson

E. Content and Skills: What do you know about what you are planning to teach?
Familiarity with full character list from Romeo and Juliet
Facebook functionality and conventions
o Profile picture
o About me
o Wall posts
o Status updates
o Likes
o Friends
Instagram functionality and conventions
o Photos
o Likes
o Followers
o Hashtags
o Comments
o Lenses
Characterization
o Round vs. flat
o Dynamic vs. static
o Archetypes

Multimodal composition
o Integration of images and alphabetic text

F. Rationale: Why teach the lesson?

Much of the rationale for this lesson relates to the rationale for the lesson on emoji composition.
Many organizations, from the National Council of Teachers of English to the Common Core
State Standards, have now recognized the need to include digital literacy as one of the
instructional domains of the 21st century English classroom. Social media platforms have
emerged as a significant digital genre in which students are composing outside of the classroom.
This leads to the next justification for choosing to pair emojis with Shakespeare the Sheltered
Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model highlights the need to connect content instruction
with ELL students background knowledge in any way possible (Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, 657). Using social media composition as a tool to understand character in Romeo and Juliet is
useful because writing for social media likely constitutes a form of communication and
expression with which most students, even ELL students, are familiar. Because the Fakebook and
Instagram templates make use of pictorial representation, it also works to render Shakespearean
drama as comprehensible input, offering ELLs an alternative form of demonstrating textual
comprehension and analysis besides the linguistic mode (101-2).
Finally, in their article Connecting Students with Shakespeare's Poetry: Digital Creations of
Close Reading, Joan Lange, Patrick Connolly, and Devin Lintzenich advocate for digital
composition as a natural instructional fit when students are reading Shakespeare, since writing
digitally forces students to slow down, thereby increasing deep comprehension. In fact, their
article suggested the idea of using a Facebook template to teach characterization in Romeo and
Juliet in the first place. This lesson applies that idea while adapting their proposed assignment to
an analog form, in order to address possible accessibility issues for low-income students as well
as the ethical concerns that are inevitably raised when students publish online.
III.

Knowledge of Students: Why does knowing your students matter?

The class is a 9th grade college preparatory English class at a large urban public high school. The
class is comprised of 25 students, most of whom are Hispanic, with some students then
identifying as black, white, and Asian, in that order. It is a mainstream classroom with four
designated ELL students who get pull-out ESL instruction during the day, but some of the
Hispanic students are FLEP and most of them hear and speak both Spanish and English outside
of school. The multilingual background of many of the students means that explicit vocabulary
instruction for Tier 2 and 3 words is often needed in several forms (e.g. definitional, contextual,
and morphological), and other scaffolding is provided as well, such as the use of multimodal
texts (visual, aural) and sentence frames during class discussion. There are 14 girls and 11 boys,
but this unit will equally meet the interests of students of both genders. One student is on an IEP
for dyslexia, while another is on a 504 plan for a sound disorder called misophonia, which
occasionally results in the student lashing out angrily at other students for making noises that
trigger him. Both students receive individual accommodations, especially during assessment. A
third student is currently being evaluated for an LD.
This lesson has been differentiated for these particular students in the following ways:

IV.

Limited amounts of alphabetic text in discrete sections useful for both student with
dyslexia and ELL students
Multimodal component of lesson (inclusion of images) appropriate for ELLs to
demonstrate comprehension in a mode outside of the linguistic
Visual component of lesson serves visual learners
Creative nature of lesson is appropriate for students with interest/skills in the arts
Digital platforms (Facebook, Instagram) have been translated to analog, multimodal
assignment in case low-income or other students have accessibility challenges

Preparation for the Procedures:

Materials: What materials, resources, and technology will you need?
Teacher materials:
Fakebook profile template (prepared in advance)
Instagram template (prepared in advance)
Markers and/or colored pencils
Projector
Student materials:
Notebook paper and writing implement or
Word processing device
V. Sequence of Teaching Procedures (90 minute lesson)
A. Beginning of the Lesson: How will you immediately engage all of your students in the
content?
Introduction (15 minutes):
Students take a few minutes to share from their double-entry reading journals.
The instructor explains that now that students have their character assignments, theyre going to
begin getting in character as preparation for their final scene performance. To do so, students
will individually compose a Fakebook (modeled on Facebook) profile page and an Instagram
image from the point of view of their character in their scene. She has already made sure that all
students in the class are familiar with Facebook and Instagram in a previous lesson.
She displays a model Fakebook profile that she has completed for a character from the text on
the board while students work, so that if they are uncertain about how to complete a particular
section they can ask for help or just view the model. She explains aloud that for now, she only
wants to students to complete the following sections: profile picture, About section (as it
applies), at least one friend, at least one like, and the earliest status update on the timeline (the
one at the bottom of the page). She specifies that students can use modern language and can feel
free to illustrate profile photos, emojis, and likes as they prefer.
B. Middle of Lesson: What are your students doing (e.g. speaking, writing, drawing,
performing, documenting, observing) to explore the content?
Writing individual Fakebook profiles (15 minutes):
Students work individually to complete the initial sections of their characters Fakebook profile.

Turn and talk (7 minutes):

After completing the first set of required sections on their characters profile, students turn and
talk to another member of their group whom their character interacts with. They show each other
their profiles and use their partners profile to generate the second status update/wall post (e.g.
one character may write on another characters wall or comment on their post).
Share out (25 minutes):
Next each student shares out about the profile that they designed using a projector to display
them to the class. The instructor may ask probing questions like, Why did you say that Juliet
was listening to the song Love Story by Taylor Swift? to elicit more information about why
students made the rhetorical choices they did and to assess students understanding of their
characters at this point in their reading.
Illustrating individual Instagram images (10 minutes):
Students work individually to illustrate an image that could be found on their characters
Instagram account.
Share out (10 minutes):
Some students volunteer to share out their Instagram illustrations, using a projector to display
them to the class. Again the instructor asks probing questions to elicit more information about
why students made the rhetorical choices they did and to assess students understanding of their
characters at this point in their reading.
C. Extension and Enrichment Activities during Class Time: How will you extend the
learning of students who finish tasks early?
If students finish early during the individual work, they can complete the optional sections of the
Fakebook profile page for their character, including cover photo, other friends, and other likes.
D. End of Lesson: How will you help all students process the experience?
Exit ticket (5 minutes):
Students briefly respond in writing to the question, What is one new thing you discovered about
your character by doing these activities?
Homework:
For homework students will:
Read Romeo and Juliet 4.4-4.5
Complete double-entry reading journal
VI. Reflection after Teaching: What did you learn from teaching the lesson?
A. Anticipated Challenges
It may be difficult for students to understand the use of the social media platforms of Facebook
and Instagram in a classroom setting; students may have trouble reconciling the two. One
possible strategy to mediate this resistance is for the instructor to provide the model Fakebook
profile for a character from Romeo and Juliet that she has created, thus setting the appropriate
tone for students to have fun while also taking the activity seriously.

Ms. Grandmont
CP English I

Name: _________________________________
Date: ___________________________
Ms. Grandmont
CP English I

Name: _________________________________
Date: ___________________________
Ms. Grandmont
CP English I

Ms. Grandmont
CP English I
Romeo and Juliet Character Social Media Rubric
Category

Inclusion of
Textual Details

Student
included an
exceptional
number of
excellent
details from
Romeo and
Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.
Student made an
exceptional
number of
excellent
creative
connections to
present day in
his/her social
media pages.
Student
demonstrate
d exceptional
engagement
with other
characters
from Romeo
and Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.
Student
completed all of
the required
tasks for his/her
social media
pages and
maybe some of

Student
included
adequate
details from
Romeo and
Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.

Student
included
minimal
details from
Romeo and
Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.

Student did
not include
any details
from Romeo
and Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.

Student made
adequate
creative
connections to
present day in
his/her social
media pages.

Student made
minimal creative
connections to
present day in
his/her social
media pages.

Student did not

make any
creative
connections to
present day in
his/her social
media pages.

Student
demonstrate
d adequate
engagement
with other
characters
from Romeo
and Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.
Student
completed most
of the required
tasks for his/her
social media
pages.

Student
demonstrate
d minimal
engagement
with other
characters
from Romeo
and Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.
Student did not
complete most
of the required
tasks for his/her
social media
pages.

Student did
not engage
with any
other
characters
from Romeo
and Juliet in
his/her social
media pages.

Creative
Connections

Engagement
with Other
Characters

Completeness
(Fakebook:
About, profile
picture, one
friend, one like,
one status
update/wall

Student did not

complete any of
the required
tasks for his/her
social media
pages.

post;
Instagram: one
image)

the optional
tasks as well.