Elie Wiesel's Night: Out of the Darkness - College of Education

Spring 2011
� Complete own prewriting activity/ assign homework (remainder of class)
NCTE/NCATE 4.7, 4.8, 4.10
o Students complete one of the prewriting activities for their own personal
narratives.
o Go over what students are expected to turn in for homework grades in the next
class.
Assessment: (APS 3)
� Generate responses to literature. (E1-1.6)
o Reading Group Response Guide
� Organize thoughts to begin the writing process. (E1-4.1)
o Prewriting activity
English I Course Standards Addressed: (APS 2, 4, 7)
E1-1.6 Create responses to literary texts through a variety of methods (for example,
written works, oral and auditory presentations, discussions, media productions,
and the visual and performing arts).
E1-4.1 Organize written works using prewriting techniques, discussions, graphic
organizers, models, and outlines.
Follow-up Lessons/ Activities: (APS 7)
Students will continue working on their own personal narratives over the course of the
next few weeks. The themes and ideas addressed in the reading groups will come up again when
the students read slave ballads as well as continue with their reading of Night.
Lesson Reflection: I was incredibly pleased with this lesson and the reaction of the class. The
students were incredibly engaged in the reading group activity because they were allowed to
work socially and because they were given control over the reading and the answering of the
questions rather than doing either or both as a class. The readings were also appropriate for the
students in terms of a challenge; they were not simple reads but were understandable enough for
them to read without my help. I really feel like the students are beginning to take a great interest
in the theme of the unit and in discovering information about various human rights violations.
The prewriting activity also went very well. I think that the strongest element of this part
of the unit was allowing the class to complete examples of each type of prewriting strategy
together. The students were obviously in a flow with prewriting as was evident by their energy
and enthusiasm for giving examples and adding detail to the class example. They were given an
appropriate challenge in creating the prewriting activity for themselves, competence and control
over their choice of topic, allowed to interact with one another, and given feedback as to how
this would help them in writing their personal narratives. I am very excited to see their own
prewriting activities in the next class as well as the process of creating the personal narratives.
The students also met the objectives for the lesson by responding to the slave narratives
via the discussion questions, as well as using the prewriting strategies discussed in class to
complete their own prewriting for their personal narratives.
24 Spring 2011