Description
After listening to just the sounds from two YouTube videos, students will use a graphic organizer to create a mind movie. Inspired by the images that their minds created, they will then listen to Neil Diamond's "Beautiful Noise" and record the images that he describes in the song. Finally, they will choose their own beautiful noise and turn the images of those sounds into a poem. Teachers: Click here to see the entire lesson plan.
Website(s)
The Northern Nevada Writing Project: WritingFix
Six-Trait-Overview
The focus trait for this lesson is idea development; students' final poems will focus on showing what they hear in a particular setting. The support trait in this assignment is word choice; precise adjectives and nouns will help paint the picture in the reader's head.
Author
This lesson was created by Northern Nevada teacher Lisa Larson.
Materials
Lesson plan
"Mind Movie" graphic organizer
"Beautiful Noise" graphic organizer
students instructions page
Sheet of 6 Idea Development Post-It Notes
Sheet of 6 Word Choice Post-It Notes
Editing Post-it
Step one (sharing the song and other inspiring media)
Pass out this "Mind Movie" graphic organizer
to each student. Explain that they will be listening to 2 sound clips.
(I use two 90-second clips that I found on YouTube. The first is a
sword fight in which you can hear swords clanking against each, bodies
hitting the ground and heavy breathing. The second is a clip of three
children at the beach in which you can hear the water, the children
yelling at each other and the toys they are playing with.) Whatever
sound clips you choose to use, you should just play the sound, and not
use any visuals. The lesson also works better if your sound clips are
different enough from each other that students can make their own
interpretations of the sounds.
Ask
students to listen closely to the sounds they are about hear. Play the
first clip and allow time for students to write down what they heard.
Next, ask students to pay attention to the pictures that their mind
creates when the clip is played again. After the second play-through,
allow students enough time to write in the graphic organizer and
illustrate what they heard. Have them share with a partner and then
share as a whole group. Discuss different perspectives and insights.
Do the same thing with the second clip, allowing enough time to share with a partner and as a whole group.
Tell students they are now going to listen to a song that focuses on
what the author heard one day while sitting in his apartment in the
city. The song never mentions what he saw, but concentrates only on
sounds. While they listen to "Beautiful Noise" by Neil Diamond, they
should use the "Beautiful Noise" graphic organizer
(which is the second page of the "Mind Movie" g.o.) to record the items
that are heard in the song. Allow time for students to share their
interpretations and then pass out the lyrics to the song. Play the song
again and give students enough time to match their interpretations to
the lyrics. Ask students to discuss in small groups what they heard and
saw in the song.
Tell students they will be creating a poem that celebrates a noise they find beautiful.
Step two (introducing student models of writing)
In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson. The groups will certainly talk about the idea development since it's the focus of the lesson, but you might prompt your students to talk about each model's word choice as well.
Currently, there are no student models for this lesson.
Step three (thinking, talking and pre-writing)
Brainstorm a list as a class or use the interactive buttons on the students instructions page to choose a "beautiful noise" of their own.
Pass
out the brainstorm sheet to each student. After completion, your
students are now ready to begin their poem about their beautiful noise!
You might play the song again while they are composing, or point out
some idea development techniques or word choices on a printed copy of
the lyrics....to remind them of the two traits they should be focusing
on as they compose.
Step four (revising with specific trait language)
To
promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach
WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts.
Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5."
Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It
rankings. For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response
Post-Its, click here.
Step five (editing for conventions)
After students apply their
revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to
find an editor. If you've established a "Community of Editors" among
your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple
peers. With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and
highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it.
Extension of Lesson (publishing for the portfolio)
When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your
students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming
writer's workshop block. The writing might become a longer poem, a
multi-genre piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the
poem they started here. Students will probably enjoy creating an
illustration for this poem as they get ready to publish it for their
portfolios.
Content Provider
The Northern Nevada Writing Project: WritingFix
