Title: In the boxes below list your predictions for each of the following characters from In the Skin of a Lion
Author: Lesley Nagle
Company: CITES ICS

Nagle

TITLE
Character Continuation: How we can use characterization and analysis to help us predict the outcome for characters over two different novels

TIME
One class period that is 50 minutes long.

SETTING
Standard Academic Literature Class for 10th Grade

The class consists of twenty-four students, ten girls and fourteen boys. This high school is
located in a rural town, middle socioeconomic status. There are three students who receive free or reduced lunch. Most students are on track for their grade level reading, however two students read at above average and five students read two years below grade level. Twenty of the students are Caucasian and speak English. Three students are African American and speak in the African American English Vernacular. One student is fluent in Spanish but has limited English proficiency. He has difficulty writing in English but is working on it. One student has an emotional behavior disorder that makes it difficult for him to stay on task and concentrate in class. One student is diagnosed as legally blind, however still has the ability to read large print text.

The district is composed of 97.6% white students, 0.6% Black students, 0% Hispanic students, 1% Asian students, and 0.4% Native American students. 7.1% of the school population is low income, the attendance rate is 94% and the high school graduation rate is 91.5%. The average ACT composite score is 21.0. The average size of a high school class is 16.6.

THEORY INTO PRACTICE BACKGROUND
The rationale behind this lesson plan comes from Jim Burke’s novel, The English Teacher’s Companion. In the lesson plan we will be reading aloud as a class through the “popcorn reading” method of in-class reading. Burke explains that reading aloud “helps many students learn to read better. This is particularly the case for ESL, special education, and struggling readers who often don’t know what a text is supposed to sound like” (101-2). This will be a very helpful skill for many of the students in my class because some of them are struggling readers. Burke also says that when a student “who can read very well ‘performs’ the text, giving careful attention to the need for emphasis and mood, students understand it better because they hear what the author wanted them to hear” (102). I hope to have a few adventurous students who will read with such inflection, making the reading even more meaningful for students.

OBJECTIVES
•	Students will be read an additional text by the same author of In the Skin of the Lion.
•	Students will make predictions about characters’ lives after the closing of the novel based on textual evidence and support that students properly cite.
•	Students will be able to see whether their predictions were accurate and why or why not further helping students develop their critical thinking skills.

MATERIALS
•	Excerpts from Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient 

PREPARATION
In order to prepare for this lesson plan, the previous class period’s lesson was on prediction and how it ties into characterization of characters and can serve as a valuable tool to help students analyze the text. In the last class prior to today I gave students the attached handout called “Character Continuation”. We explained the worksheet to them and asked students to come to class today with the left side column already filled out. I gave students a little bit of time to start this assignment in class yesterday. I told students that it was very important that they have the left side completed before class today because we would be doing an activity with the right column, which required that the left side already be completed.
I also needed to find significant excerpts of text of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient that would be helpful in showing the outcome of characters who first appeared in Ondaatje’s novel, In the Skin of a Lion. I needed to have 24 copies each of these excerpts copied and ready for class today.

PROCEDURE
Opening
I will stand at the door as students are entering the classroom and ask that as students are taking their seats that they take out their “Character Continuation” handout. Once the bell has rung I will circulate the room stopping at each student to make sure that all students have completed the left column of the handout. If a student does not have the left side fully completed I will write “Late” at the top of their paper so that I know to take points off when I collect the handouts at a later date and grade them. After I have surveyed each student’s work thus far, I will explain to students that Michael Ondaatje has a philosophy where he believes that characters always continue to live after he has completed a novel. This is the reason that he leaves the endings of his novel open and does not fully tie up events or characters in his novels. This becomes apparent in Ondaatje’s novel, The English Patient, which incorporates the later lives of four characters from In the Skin of a Lion. I will next tell students that we will be reading excerpts from The English Patient, to see whether or not the predictions that they made about the characters happen to be right or wrong. (13 minutes)

Body
I will pass out the excerpts of text of The English Patient to students. I will tell students that as we read aloud in class they should be following along on their “Character Continuation” handouts in order to fill out the right column of the paper. I will also tell students that we will be pausing periodically throughout the text when we find out what happens to a character so that students can mark their responses. Students will be popcorn reading, which is where one student starts reading and after they have read a paragraph or so, they will call on the next student to begin reading. Students cannot call on the same person twice unless the whole class has read already. (35 minutes)

Closing
We will most likely not be able to finish reading the excerpts in class today so a few minutes before the bell is about to ring I will tell students that we will finishing up whatever reading that we did not get to in class tomorrow. I will inform students to bring their readings and their “Character Continuation” handout to class tomorrow. (2 minutes)

DISCUSSION IDEAS
Leading questions for during the lesson:
•	What are your thoughts on Michael Ondaatje’s theory about his novels and characters? Do you believe that characters should have a life after the close of their novel? Why or why not?
•	Why do you think Ondaatje did not make a sequel to In the Skin of a Lion and instead just utilized some of the same characters?
•	How do you think the characters will change from In the Skin of a Lion to The English Patient?

Concluding questions for after the lesson:
•	How did reading the excerpts from The English Patient change your view of the characters from In the Skin of a Lion?
•	What are some of the similarities and differences between the author’s writing styles in each of the two novels? How do they have an effect on the novels?
•	Why do you think some of your predictions turned out correct and some of them turned out wrong?

LANGUAGE/S ACCOMMODATIONS
In order to accommodate for the three students whose first language is African American English I will provide them with the same excerpts as all other students so that they can become more accustomed to reading standard English. They can read at whatever pace that they feel comfortable.

In order to accommodate for the student whose first language is Spanish I will have the excerpts translated into Spanish for him and prepared in advance for him to have before he comes to class. This is important so that the student can be exposed to the text before we read it in class and so that he will have a better understanding of the text when we are reading it in class in standard English. I will suggest that he have the two texts side by side when we are reading aloud in class. If he is called on to read I will allow him to pass if he does not feel comfortable reading the upper level standard English.

SPECIAL EDUCATION ACCOMMODATIONS
In order to accommodate for the student who is legally blind I will make sure that I have made enlarged copies of the excerpts from The English Patient in size 48 so that the student is able to follow along during the class reading.

In order to accommodate for the student with the emotional behavior disorder I will inform the student at the beginning of class that we will be reading in the “popcorn reading” format. The student is already familiar with how this format works but I just like to make sure that the student remembers and specifically remembers that they may be called on at anytime to read and to just make sure that the student try their hardest to be following along. I will inform the student that if the student’s name gets called to read, the student can ask me to confirm where we are in the reading. Or I will tell the student so the student does not feel embarrassed asking me in front of the class. 

ASSESSMENT
In order to assess students’ performance for this lesson, first I will come around to each student’s desk to see that they have completed the first column of the “Character Continuation” worksheet, which I had assigned for homework. I will mark “Late” at the top of a student’s page if they do not have it completed so I know to take off points when I grade the completed assignment later. Although we will not finish reading the excerpts in this class period I plan to collect students’ worksheets once we have finished reading The English Patient texts and grade them according to the attached point breakdown. While we are reading the texts in class I will be monitoring the classroom making sure that students are actively listening and following along with the text as students in the class read. Because we will be doing “popcorn reading”, I will also be able to know when a student is not paying attention if they are called on and they do not know where to begin reading.

EXTENSION IDEAS
•	If extra time allowed in the class period I would close the class period with a large group discussion. I would ask students to share some of their predictions and the support that they included as to why they thought they would be successful. I would also ask students’ reactions to finding out what happened to the characters and whether or not this changed their representation of them after reading In the Skin of a Lion.
•	Another extension idea would be for students to write about what happens to other characters from In the Skin of a Lion that do not appear in The English Patient. Students would make predictions similar to the ones they made in the handout for characters such as Gianetta, Hazen Lewis, and Commissioner Harris. Students would need to support their predictions with evidence from the text.
•	Because The English Patient has been made into a film, we could watch clips from the movie that correlate with the text excerpts that we read from the novel. Students would have to take notes on the characters in the film and explain whether or not the film representations were similar or different from the representations that students made about the characters in their minds while reading. We would then have a discussion about these observations.

SOURCE OF ACTIVITY
I created this lesson plan because I think that Michael Ondaatje has a very interesting philosophy for his novels. Usually when a novel ends the characters end with the novel or we end up wondering what happened to the characters and become upset when there is no sequel. I think it is also important for students to see that although Ondaatje does not write a sequel to In the Skin of a Lion, he still utilizes characters from this novel to construct another novel. This shows students that the next book you read does not always have to be a sequel and that sometimes if you do some extra digging you can find the same characters in a whole new context.
I have also read many reviews on The English Patient and it tends to get a lot more publicity compared to In the Skin of a Lion. The English Patient was also turned into a film so if students were really interested in finding out the rest of what happens to the characters they could always watch the movie.

I have seen and been a part of “popcorn reading” in many of my high school English classes, so I thank my high school English teachers for this reading strategy. I believe that this is a successful way for teachers to go about in-class reading because it ensures that all students get a chance in class to read. Also it makes sure that students are on task and paying attention because students do not want a peer to call on them and then not know where the class is in the reading. Also there is not a strict amount of text that each student is required to read. For the struggling readers they can opt to read just a small paragraph while those who excel at reading might want to continue on further. Using struggling readers will not read at all so this is a way for them to begin to get comfortable reading in front of the classroom. 

RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
Burke, Jim. The English Teacher's Companion: A Complete Guide to Classroom, Curriculum,	and the Profession. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2008. Print.
 “Illinois Learning Standards.” Illinois State Board of Education. Web. 2 Oct 2012.
<http://www.isbe.state.il.us>.
Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.
Ondaatje, Michael. In the Skin of a Lion. New York: Vintage International, 1997. Print.
 “The Standards.” Common Core State Standards Initiative. Web. 2 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.corestandards.org>.

ILLINOIS STATE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS GOALS 
Standard 6 – Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication
Knowledge Indicators—The competent teacher:
6F) recognizes the relationships among reading, writing, and oral communication and understands how to integrate these components to increase content learning;

I am able to meet this indicator in my lesson plan because I incorporate components of reading, when we read the excerpts in class, writing when the students make their predictions on the handouts, and oral communication when we talk about the predictions that students made.

Standard 5 – Instructional Delivery
Performance Indicators—The competent teacher:

5K) varies his or her role in the instructional process as instructor, facilitator, coach, or audience in relation to the content and purposes of instruction and the needs of students;

I am able to meet this indicator in my lesson plan because in this particular lesson plan I first introduce the lesson and what we will be doing in class today. I perform the role as the classroom instructor by informing students of what needs to be completed and how we will go about the day’s lesson. I also begin as the facilitator of my lesson by asking for a volunteer to begin reading. At this point I become a part of the audience because we are doing “popcorn reading”, therefore students are in charge of facilitating the reading by calling on their peers to continue reading. This is useful to the needs of the students because it ensures that each student has a chance to read and allows them to read only as much as they feel comfortable with. By varying my role in the instruction process I successfully meet this standard. 

COMMON CORE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

I am able to meet this Common Core Standard because in my lesson plan students are asked to make inferences about the text in relation to what they think happens to the characters at the end of the novel. In order to make valid inferences students need to provide examples from the text to back up their predictions. Therefore students are citing textual evidence in order to support their analysis of the text in a meaningful way that supports their greater learning. 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

I am able to meet this Common Core Standard because in my lesson plan students will have to analyze the main characters of In the Skin of a Lion in order to predict what will happen to them after the end of the novel. They will have to go back and see how characters have been developing over the text and also include their observations on how the characters interacted with others in order to provide support for students’ predictions.

Character Continuation:
Experimenting with Prediction in The Skin of a Lion & The English Patient

In the boxes below list your predictions for each of the following characters from In the Skin of a Lion. For each character include 2 predictions each with a moment from the text to support your prediction. | As we read excerpts from The English Patient record whether or not your predictions were correct. If your prediction was incorrect record what actually happened to this character.

PATRICK

Prediction 1:

Support:

Prediction 2:

Support:

Correct prediction? (yes or no)

If no, what actually happened?

Is this believable for the character, why or why not?

HANA

Prediction 1:

Support:

Prediction 2:

Support:

Correct prediction? (yes or no)

If no, what actually happened?

Is this believable for the character, why or why not?

CARAVAGGIO

Prediction 1:

Support:

Prediction 2:

Support:

Correct prediction? (yes or no)

If no, what actually happened?

Is this believable for the character, why or why not?

CLARA

Prediction 1:

Support:

Prediction 2:

Support:

Correct prediction? (yes or no)

If no, what actually happened?

Is this believable for the character, why or why not?

Point breakdown for grading “Character Continuation” worksheet

•	Each box on the chart will be worth a total of 4 points each
•	The entire assignment is worth a total of 32 points.
•	For the students who have “Late” marked at the top of their paper, they will automatically receive minus 5 points from their final total score.
•	For the boxes on the left side of the handout students can receive up to 1 point for each of the following:
o	1 point for completing Prediction 1
o	1 point for completing Support (1)
o	1 point for completing Prediction 2
o	1 point for completing Support (2)
•	For the boxes on the right side of the handout students can receive points by the following breakdown:
o	1 point for circling “yes” or “no”
o	1 point for explaining the answer to “no” (if students circled “yes” I will double check to see that their prediction actually was correct. If it was students will receive 1 additional point)
o	2 points for explaining why or why not it is believable for the character