Author: Jarrett Bernhardt

I feel like I did end up achieving pretty much the goals that I was striving for the most part. I was trying to allow the students the space for them to be able to see and understand how symbolism appears in text, video, and other sorts of medium. My goal was to be able to give students a practical model/example of how they can discover, work, and find symbolism in a variety of objects, ideas, actions, or such that show up in their media of choice. I also wanted it to be a more engaging and accessible way for students to be able to find, engage, and work with symbolism, which as will be seen in my what went well section, was something that was accomplished. I guess what didn’t go exactly to plan was having students work specifically with the Lion King. Not everyone had seen the Lion King or knew enough about it in order to properly and most deeply engage in the practice. Overall, I felt like it was successful in reaching the levels of achievement the lesson/activity was meant to.

There are quite a bit of different elements and things that went well as part of the carrying out of this lesson plan. The first thing that went well was that the model, the specific 3-sentence structure I had for the students to be able to follow to bring out the examples of symbolism was effective and as instruction it gave a great example for students to build on. A second aspect that was good was that there was a video and it gave the fact that there was an illustration and the fact that it indirectly gave an example of what was being done in class. On that similar topic, it was received well that I had the class talk about what symbolism is as a class before showing the video that told the students exactly what symbolism is. The final good thing that stood out was that the way the lesson was set up, planned, and carried out allowed taking a topic that was out of reach, especially with middle school, and made it more approachable and applicable to the student’s life and applying it to previous life.

Something that I could work on and improve on myself and which I learned was to be clearer and more specific on the instructions, especially due to the fact that this lesson wasn’t given as much time as properly needed to completely needed. I could have helped by saying the 3 sentences where they copied the same 3 sentences above, filling in the symbolism term, didn’t have to be the exact same structure. Instead, I could have highlighted how it could have varied slightly in word structure or arrangement of words to better fit the term and it’s part of speech, tense, or etc. What would be important to point out is that the main structure and idea of the sentence would need to be the same.

In terms of my timing, delivery, and workflow, I feel like it all went pretty smoothly and there didn’t exist any major hiccups or of that sort. I was able to get right into the lesson and start the discussion about symbolism. There was a little pause and disruption when I had to exit out of the powerpoint to play the video. Next time, as from experience this is the second time that this has happened, I should open the browser before I start and have the video up and ready to play. Other than that, I was able to transition right into the example and into student’s work time while walking around to help them. The sharing of their examples went way better because I had the email address more clearly shown.

This lesson is one in a continued unit that focuses on the finding and use of literary devices in both texts and other forms of media such as videos, music, and etc. This is meant for an 8th grade humanities classroom. The students will have just finished watching the Lion King in class.

In this lesson, we will be studying and examining the meaning of symbolism and how it shows up and is found in text and different forms of media. In particular, we will be working with the animated film version of Lion King. When the students watched the film, they will have been observing and accumulated an awareness of different objects, events, or ideas that may have a deeper meaning/symbolism. Students will be introduced to a short clip expanding on what symbolism is. The students will then take this understanding and context from the film to point out an example of symbol from the film.

To start off the lesson, the students will be introduced out loud to a definition of symbolism. Their will be a time for any starting questions or such about symbolism. Next, the teacher will play a short video clip that expands on what symbolism is. After the video, the teacher will ask once again if student’s have any clarifying questions or concerns. From this point, the teacher will ask the students to get out their laptops and open up to create a new google slides/PowerPoint/Keynote. The students will then choose an object, idea, activity, or event from the film that they believe is a symbol and find pictures of the object, idea, activity, or event and put a picture on the slide. For the slide/picture, the student will write three sentences that describe how that idea, activity, or event is represented in the story. Once these initial 3 sentences are written, the student will go back and insert a word in which they believe summarizes the symbol of that object, idea, activity, or even. The student will test it by plugging that word into the same three sentences for the photo/slide that they created. If that word makes sense and fits in the sentences, then most likely they have discovered what that object, idea, activity, or event may represent in the film the Lion King. There is also a PowerPoint attached with these instructions and an example.

Resources

https://edmethods.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Methods-lesson-2.pdf

In some aspects I feel like I completed parts of my goals in this lesson on consumerism in the 1920’s. Going into the lesson, I wanted the students to be able to recognize how the common features and such of advertising that we still see and notice today started in the 1920’s after the first war. I wanted students to recognize how specific elements that commercials had that allowed us to remember them, such as the targeted audience, aspect of focus, and the overall message, still carry over today. I especially wanted them to also notice how the advertising game changed with the inclusion of both TV and radio. I felt like the students in the lesson were able to see that as they were able to connect to commercials from their childhoods that appealed because of these same characteristics. 

         I also feel like the goals weren’t met at the same time because I wasn’t able to be as focused on the specific aspects of consumerism and the specific examples of the characteristics. I also needed to be more organized and give proper preparation time and instructions to be able to get to everything in the lesson and to fully touch the important parts. This is the aspects that didn’t go as well. 

         What I learned that I could do is to be more specific and detailed on what I want to touch in order to better get to the main takeaway and message that I want to convey based on my lesson title. So, in the case of consumerism, my commercial example and what I asked the students to produce didn’t touch directly on specifically consumerism in the 1920’s. As a result, I can pick two or three themes from the era that you wanted to teach about later, maybe the role of women, the culture of youth, how the automobile was transforming America, and show, use, and teach/explain using these examples. I can also have given students the task of bringing in their videos of their commercials so we can be able to get the most out of that aspect of the lesson and to be able to get to the rest of the lesson to ensure its best effect. 

         In terms of my timing, it was kind of off and on, with parts being more on track than other parts. I feel like during the intro discussion of their commercials and their experiences, I was able to foster good discussion and the flow and timing was on track. The timing got a little off when I asked them to send in their own videos to my email, when I wasn’t prepared to do it and it showed when I scrambled to get my email and organize the gathering, opening, and playing of the videos. I feel like the timing and flow and delivery was awkward during the sharing and discussion of the videos. The timing and flow returned during showing the video on the 1920’s and having the discussion afterwards. Overall, even with the timing off, the workflow seemed pretty decent as student’s were on track and we got to the next thing. It just wasn’t great because we didn’t get to the last aspect of the lesson plan. 

This lesson is a beginning lesson done at the beginning of the unit to introduce the students to advertising and period of consumerism that started to grow in the 1920’s. It is intended for an 8th grade social studies class.

In the lesson, we will be studying and covering actual examples of advertisements that came from the 1920’s and subsequent time periods. They will explore the archives of adds provided as a resource by Duke University. When looking at advertisements and commercialism in this period, there are a couple of key comprehension questions they will be exploring. These questions include: 1.) How they were sold, literally and figuratively, to the American public.  2.) Whom the advertisements targeted, and 3.) What attributes advertisers deemed most valuable: access to information, to entertainment, or to status? Students will also be exploring a short video that goes into further detail about the 1920’s and this period of consumerism.

To start off the lesson, the students will be asked to open a new, blank word document. The teacher will bring up and show the powerpoint, first bringing up the warm-up questions. The students will take five minutes or so to answer the warm up question in the document. We will then take a couple of minutes to share out loud. Next students will watch the short video clip on consumerism in the 1920’s that the teacher will play on the projector. After the video, the class will discuss quickly any observations from the video. Next, the teacher will share their example of the in class practice/product/example the students will be completing to demonstrate their understanding. After sharing the example, the students will then follow the link pasted below here under resources to the Duke archives resources for advertisements. Students will find and choose an advertisement. Once students have chosen an advertisement, they will follow the example provided by the teacher and answer the following three questions about the ad: 1.) How they were sold, literally and figuratively, to the American public.  2.) Whom the advertisements targeted, and 3.) What attributes advertisers deemed most valuable: access to information, to entertainment, or to status? After about 10 minutes, time permitting, students will show their examples. At the end of class, students will email their completed word document they filled out in class to my email: bernharj22@up.edu

Resources:

https://repository.duke.edu/dc/adaccess

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r41834q9p (My Ad Example)