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“What is Southern Ohio?”: Interacting with Reading by Making a Poster

Introduction to Basic Reading Skills for the IELTS
Introduction to Complex Sentences and Relative Clauses

Date: 9/28/2021
Teacher: Noah McGeorge
Class: Advanced English for All
Class Size: 3
Class time: 6:00pm—7:20pm
Class Description
English for All offers training in American English, as well as test preparation, to adults in
Athens, OH for a low fee. This class is composed of a mix of students taking the IELTS, the
TOEFL, as well as no test. All students have graduated from an undergraduate college and
those without a master’s degree are planning to pursue a master’s in the future. The first
languages in the classroom include Latin American Spanish, Nepali, and Vietnamese. The
sweeping goals for the course are to increase student vocabulary, refine pronunciation, use
language in socially complex situations, and prepare for their respective assessments.

Terminal Objectives
Students will be able to
● listen for and write requested details from a listening exercise.
● infer the non-explicit context from an authentic text.
● develop a cultural schema of the local area that is not monolithic.
● using relative clauses, successfully:
o choose an appropriate relative pronoun.
o match verb tense to tense to that established in the independent clause.
o match verb number to subject in independent clause.
Assessment
Students will have
● correcting mistakes made last class, written the requested information for a National
Arts Center attraction that best matches the description of a fictional character’s
interests, schedule, and budget.
● verbally expanded on the genre and purpose of a piece of writing after scanning it.
● defended their choice of photographs and details to include in the “What is
Appalachia?” poster.
● written relative clauses to summarize details onto the “What is Appalachia?” poster.
Materials.
● Pickerwheel.com with IELTS Speaking Prompts.
● Student responses to last class’s listening exercise (teacher provides).
● IELTS “National Arts Center” Audio File (sample test questions, n.d.)
● Wander Vision “Appalachian English” Video @ 1:00 (The Language and Life Project,
2008).
● “Living Memory” (Leckrone, 2019).
● Appalachian People, Places, and Things Pictures
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● Glue, Sharpies, poster paper

Time
(Mins) Enabling Objectives and Procedures

5 mins Procedures
Welcome.
● Students talk about the weekend.
○ “Did you guys get a chance to use English this weekend?”
Warmup
● Students read a randomly generated prompt from PickerWheel.com
● Students spend one minute preparing an unscripted response, jotting down
key words they plan to verbally expand on.
● Students perform an uninterrupted monologue on the topic for 1 minute and
30 seconds (teacher does not stop students who continue to talk past that
time, rather, waits for students to finish naturally).

Transition
● “Alright guys, who can tell me what we did last class? What do we need to
finish today?”
Enabling Objectives: Catch-up
Students will be able to
● match details from an audio file to a description of a fictional character’s
interests, schedule, and budget.
10 mins Procedures
Listening Matching Exercise
● Students take a moment to review what they wrote down from last class.
● Students listen to the IELTS “National Arts Center” Audio File Part 3
twice.
● Students correct any mistakes made from last class.
● Students who have correct responses explain their responses to their peers
who may not have correct responses.
Assessment
Students will have
● written the information for a National Arts Center attraction that best
matches the description of a fictional character’s interests, schedule, and
budget.
Transition
● “Did you guys like the speaker’s accent? It’s British right? Today, do you
want to hear some language that’s a little closer to home?”

Enabling Objectives
Students will be able to
● scan a text and summarize its genre and purpose.
● identify details that are most relevant in the reading according to given
prompts.
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● exercise bottom-up skills associated with reading success.

Procedures
5 mins Warmup: Schema Activation
● Students watch the “Wander Vision “Appalachian English” Video.
○ Teacher plays about two minutes beginning at 5:13 with the
discussion of local vocabulary.
○ Teacher turns on closed captions.
● Students repeat back some of the new words they learned and provide
rough definitions meaning (plumb, airish, dope, boomer / red squirrel).
● Students answer the question, “Is there a connection between vocabulary
and where you live?”
5 mins Pre-reading: Scanning
● Students receive the “Living Memory” reading.
● Students scan the reading for thirty seconds.
● Students share the genre of the reading and the purpose of the author.
15 mins While-reading: Reading by Inquiry
● Students read the following prompts written on the chalkboard:
○ “The people of Appalachia are people who . . .”
“Appalachia is a place that. . .”
“Southern Ohio is a place where . . . ”
“Right now is a time when . . .
● Students take as long as is needed to finish reading their assigned readings.
● While reading, students underline or highlight details that help them
complete the prompts written on the chalkboard.

Assessment
Students will have
● verbalized and revised (as needed) the genre and author’s purpose of their
given reading.
Transition
● Students attempt a summary of their reading, hearing the perspective of
their partner for the following activity.
Enabling Objectives
Students will be able to:
● choose photographs that best represent their understanding of the readings.
● transform highlighted details from a reading into sentences that describe
the chosen photographs.
● defend their decisions to their partner.
● accommodate and incorporate their partner’s reasoning in order to create a
final product as a team.
Procedures
3 mins Instructions
● Teacher produces the Appalachian People, Places, and Things photos as
well as the glue, markers, and poster paper.
● Teacher assigns partners.
● Teacher provides the following instructions.
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○ “Using the reading, talk with your partner to decide which pictures
best fit what you understand about Southern Ohio. Then, caption
the pictures by completing the sentences on the board as best you
can.”
● Teacher demonstrates what a final product would look like by drawing a
hypothetical photograph and a caption below it using a relative clause.
20 mins Post-Reading: “What is Southern Ohio?” Poster Activity
● Students recall the sentences on the board:
○ “The people of Appalachia are people who . . .”
“Appalachia is a place that. . .”
“Southern Ohio is a place where . . . ”
“Right now is a time when . . .
● Students refer to their highlights and annotations on the reading.
● Students verbalize their personal understanding of the prompts above and
negotiate with their partner a response that best represents both
understandings.
● Once students agree on a response, each student shares in the job of writing
that response on the poster.
● Students are free to decorate the poster with doodles, stickers (optional
material), etc.
● Students present their poster to the teacher and observer(s).

Assessment
Students will have
● defended their choice of photographs.
● written relative clauses that accurately represent the depiction of Southern
Ohio from the reading.
Transition
● “Great job! Let’s get some last-minute practice with the language we
learned today.”

Enabling Objectives
Students will be able to
● cite a reading for supporting details in a writing assignment.
● develop cultural schema of the local area by comparing it to their own.
● successfully use the relative pronouns who, that, and where in a short
comparative writing assignment.
15 mins Procedures
● Students write at least 5 sentences according to the prompt written on the
board:
○ “What is ‘Appalachia?’ Who lives there? What do they value and
how do their values compare to the values of your home culture?”
○ “Use Who, That, and Where” at least once each.”
Assessment
Students will have
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● cited details that are relevant to the context they have created in their
argument.
● fully responded to the prompt.
● submitted their composition to the teacher for review and annotations
5 mins Conclusion.
● Students share one thing they learned from class today.
● Students share one thing they liked about class and one thing they didn’t
like.
Transition
● “Great job! On Thursday we will continue talking about the local area
while getting some practice in with the IELTS reading test.”

Anticipated Problems and Solutions

Rationale
Anticipated Problems
● Only one student may attend.
○ The teacher will take on the role of the absent student. That is, the present
student will still have to defend their choices of pictures and details to the
teacher, which the teacher will challenge with content from the reading.
● One student may play a more active role than the other.
○ The teacher will monitor students for equal participation and encourage the less
active student with open-ended questions.
● Activities may take longer than expected, especially with the review from a previous
class.
○ Activities can be carried over into the next class.
Rationale
In previous classes, it has been noted that students appear to be avoiding the use of complex
sentences. Instead of complex sentences, students will overuse compound sentences. For
example, rather than using a relative clause for a sentence such as “The person who designed
the National Arts Center was born in 1946,” students opt for conjoining their ideas with a
conjunction: “The person was born in 1946 and she designed the National Arts Center.” This
lesson plan aims to scaffold students towards extended, complex verbal output using relative
clauses and then provide them both an opportunity to produce unscripted relative clauses
through an interactive pair activity.
This lesson plan is task-based and has a meaningful learning outcome. Ideally, students will
leave feeling more connected and curious about the area in which they live.
References
The Language and Life Project. (2008, sept. 12). Appalachian English [video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU
Leckrone, B. (2019). Living memory. The Post. Retrieved Sept. 28, 2021, from
http://projects.thepostathens.com/SpecialProjects/appalachia-storytellers-ohio-coal-
storytelling-west-virginia/
Sample test questions. (n.d.). IELTS. Retrieved Sept. 28, 2021, from https://www.ielts.org/en-
us/for-test-takers/sample-test-questions