Title: A certain person, a certain message

Lesson plan elaborated by: Katarzyna Maciejak

Topic:

Where does the rumor come from? We learn responsibility for the words.

Target group

5th‑grade students of an eight‑year elementary school.

Core curriculum

I. Literary and cultural education.

1. Reading literary works. Student:

7) discusses plot events, determines the order of events and understands their interdependence;

12) defines the theme and topic of the work;

14) names his/her feelings after reading the text;

16) defines the experiences of the literary characters and compares them with his/her own;

17) presents his/her own understanding of the work and justifies it;

19) expresses his/her own opinion about characters and events;

2. Reception of cultural texts. Student:

2) searches for information that is directly or indirectly expressed in the text;

3) defines the theme and the main thought of the text.

II. Language education.

2. Diversity of language Student:

8) distinguishes between synonyms, antonyms, understands their functions in the text and uses them in his/her own utterances.

III. Creation of utterances.

1.Elements of the rhetoric. Student:

1) participates in a conversation on a given topic (...).

2. Speaking and writing. Student:

5) discusses the text he/she has read.

IV. Self‑study. Student:

1) perfects reading quietly and aloud;

2) perfects various forms of recording the information acquired;

7) develops the skill of critical assessment of the information obtained;

8) develops the skill of critical thinking and opinion forming;

The general aim of education

The student learns how to select information and check the reliability of sources.

Key competences

• communication in the mother tongue;

• communication in foreign languages;

• learning to learn;

• social and civic competences.

Learning outcomes

Student:

• explains what a gossip is;

• arranges the information in the correct order;

• uses vocabulary to express certainty/uncertainty about the presented statements;

• searches for suitable synonyms;

• talks about emotions and feelings;

• justifies own opinion.

Methods/techniques

• problematic: talk;

• practical: working with text, tasks concerned;

• programmed: using the computer, using an e‑textbook.

Forms of work

• uniform individual activity;

• collective activity.

Lesson plan overview (Process)

Introduction

1. The teacher defines the aim of the lesson: the students will learn what a gossip is and how to check the reliability of the information.

2. The teacher encourages the students to play the Chinese whispers. The teacher asks the students to communicate two messages in this way, one in the form of a short single sentence and the other in the form of a compound sentence with descriptive words. Then the teacher asks the students which version of the message was more difficult to communicate and why.

Examples of sentences:

• Karolina went to the store.

• Goldilocks Karolina went to her favorite stationery store, which is located around the corner of her house.

Realization

1. The teacher and the students start the lesson “A certain person, a certain message”. The students read Hans Christian Andersen's text entitled “Some message” in the e‑workbook with attention to how false information spread.

2. Introduction to the reading of the tale of Hans Christian Andersen. The teacher asks:

• How do we call the unverified information on a particular subject?

• What places on the Internet are used to spread gossips? About whom there are gossips?

• May a gossip hurt someone?

• Why do people gossip?

Free discussion of students and teacher.

3. Reading a tale (e‑textbook). It is worth reading the text aloud. You can consider the division into roles. Brief description of the content of the read text, drawing attention to the order of events.

4. The students perform ex. 3 (they put the events in the right order to find out how the gossip has spread).

5. The lecturer draws the students' attention to the fact that even approved media sometimes pass on false information. Then he/she asks students how to check the truthfulness of information (eg. comparing sources, checking the quality of sources). Ex. 4 in the abstract.

6. The students individually perform ex. 5 in which they are asked to briefly justify the truthfulness of the statement: “He who gossips with you will gossip about you.”

7. The teacher asks the students what emotions a gossip can evoke in the person concerned. The students search for the names of feelings and emotions in the word search (they also repeat the vocabulary related to feelings and emotions).

8. An analysis of different ways of presenting events. The teacher chooses one event, preferably actual one, so that the students have a fresh picture of the situation, and brings to the lesson two texts (news) about it. In these two examples, together with the students, he discusses different ways of presenting the same event.

Summary

The teacher prompts the students to summarize by asking them the following questions:

• For what purpose do people distribute false information?

• How can you check the reliability of information?

Homework

The teacher prepares an example of two press releases regarding one event reported to the media in the near term. He asks students to compare the way the news is presented. The result of their work will be a note in which they will explain which sources of information they found reliable and why.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

A certain person, a certain message

Do you know the Chinese whispers game? Let's try to pass on two messages in this way:

• short simple sentence

• compound sentence with defining words

Which version was harder? Why? Is it easy to remember a long sentence and pass it on in the same form?

As you can see, there are various reasons for gossiping – someone can hear or understand something badly, but it can also spread false information deliberately to cause distress to another person. It is not worth uncritically believing in everything that we hear, especially if we can not check if it is reliable.

Let's think together how you can check if the message we have heard is reliable. Provide several possible ways.

You know that gossip can hurt someone a lot. What other feelings can it cause to a person who finds out that false information is being spread about him?