Lesson+Plan+Final

Lesson Plan Final

Kalpana M. Iyengar 4th Grade **Instructional Planning Template** This lesson plan is designed to help students understand the text-picture relationships in picture books. The picture book chosen for this activity is “Tea with Milk by Allen Say. The participants will be able to recognize, apply, and elaborate on the text-picture relationship by using the text as a source. The chief objective of this lesson is to help 4th graders gain knowledge of how to use textual information while reading a picture book that is culturally relevant to immigrant families. According to Nodelman, the words have three effects on the illustrations – words provide schemata or cognitive maps, emotional importance, and help us understand the important and incidental elements in illustrations. On the other hand, Nikolajeva (as quoted in Sipe, 2008) posits that both pictures and text are crucial for spatial, temporal, and extended meanings. So, both text and illustrations are important for better cognitive process in children, especially in a book like “Tea with Milk”. The main character, Masako grows up in America. She enjoyed eating pancakes, muffins, and drinking tea with milk and sugar at her friends’ houses in the USA. However, she moves to Japan after she graduates from high school. In Japan, she does not have the freedom that she was used to earlier and she must train herself with the cultural practices in Japan. The question that comes to one’s mind through reading the book is if Masako will live happily in Japan? The book beautifully illustrates Masako’s turmoil through her facial expressions, posture, positioning, and colour (dull when she is alone and lonesome and bright when she is happy and with company) and the text also supports/depicts her feelings using concrete experiences when she is alone (with words like ‘heavy heart’) and when she finds people she likes (with words like ‘welcoming’). My choice of this book was primarily to introduce a culturally relevant text for the 4th graders in the USA and to help students recognize the importance or need for text-picture relationship in order to understand the book. The second objective was to enable students at that age to recognize the trials and tribulations that immigrant children go through when they move from one county to another. Such experiences cannot be taught without introducing a book that reveals the experience through pictures/illustrations with authentic and appropriate text support. The illustrations alone may not make sense to someone who has not moved from home, so the text is crucial for clarifying the character’s movement, mood, plight, stature, and opinions. In addition, children may be comfortable writing about familiar topics and when we introduce unfamiliar ones such as immigration, we have to guide them with specific examples. Tea with Milk is an appropriate text to teach topics such as alienation and displacement as experienced by immigrant children. By evaluating the illustrations, children can make sense of the cultural conventions, but they need the text to help them understand the experiences such as culture shock that characters are going through in the book. Students will be able to find out how text supports the illustration in the meaning making process and how illustrations ameliorate that meaning. Hence, picture-text relationship is crucial to bringing home the experiences of characters and understanding of the book. The mood of the character is depicted in the picture on the chosen page. The full bleed page layout with the main character standing all alone looking down at the ground as if she is lost depicts the lonesome and aloof feeling she is experiencing. Other pages with pictures, where the character feels lost although she with a group of people, is illustrated through the choice of colours. The mood of the character is revealed through the expressions on the face of the main character. On the other hand, the depiction of the same character when she is comfortable or happy is brought out through introducing other people who are happy or when Masako is with someone she can relate to or discuss her point of view. This is beautifully illustrated on a page where she is with the man she falls in love with. The illustrator seats them next to a window with bright light spilling into the room (which reveals the mood of the Masako). The characters are sitting in a relaxed position and are attentive to each to each other at the tea table. The posture is impressive and helps the readers understand the mood of the characters. We will examine the experiences of a Japanese girl who moves to Japan from the USA after she graduates from high school. We will look at the illustrations carefully and then read the text twice to understand how the character feels. I would like for each one of you to look at the pictures with the examples I discussed with you earlier (under justification) and then read the text carefully so the author’s message is not lost. I would like for you to pay attention to the following questions as you read the book Pay attention to the words and the expressions on people’s faces as depicted by the illustrator. These questions/answers are crucial in the comprehension of the picture book “Tea with Milk” by Allen Say. You all are very bright and let me help you read the book while you all look at the illustrations. Then, you will read the book while I look at the illustrations. Later, we will have a discussion to find out what we learned from reading the text and looking at the illustrations.
 * Lesson Objectives**
 * Text**
 * Text: Tea with Milk by Allen Say**
 * Grade Level**: Reading level is 3.5 (Lexile measure 450 L). The book is an excellent text to introduce culturally relevant material and to understand the text-picture relationship and parallel story telling strategy.
 * Genre: General Fiction**
 * Synopsis**
 * Justification**
 * Lesson Narrative**
 * 1) **Introduction**
 * 1) How do the text and illustrations help you understand Masako’s feelings?
 * 2) Do the text and illustrations help you to understand the character? About where she is from, what clothes she wears? Who her friends are? How does she feel about the changes? and how does she cope with the move?
 * B. Step-by-Step Description of Lesson**
 * 1) Split the students into groups of five. The teacher will provide the students with information about the text-picture relationship and model the same using the chosen book
 * 2) Second, the students will generate ideas in writing about the book in general and then apply the ideas to a few illustrations
 * 3) Third, the students will look for information missing in the illustrations and try to fill in the gaps
 * 4) Fourth, Each student individually will fill out information the teacher needs (a table will be provided/see appendix A attached below)
 * 5) Fifth, students will talk about the findings and present the same in class. The class discussion will help students to understand the text-picture relationship in the chosen book. The teacher will help children with a model for this task
 * 6) Sixth, students will apply the understanding by attempting to designing their own book
 * 7) Seventh, students present their own books that they created for discussion

The teacher will look for specific comments in the table provided. The teacher will also look at the picture book that the students designed and evaluate the text description that goes with the illustrations. The writing they do should be representative of the characters they create and the text should reveal more or less the same aspects that the character feels or experiences. In other words, the text must compliment the illustrations, so the illustrations and text are inter dependable in order for us to make sense of the picture book designed by the students. The mood of the character is depicted in the picture on the chosen page. The full bleed page layout with the main character standing all alone looking down at the ground as if she is lost depicts the lonesome and aloof feeling she is experiencing. Other pages with pictures where the character feels lost although she with a crowd of people is illustrated through the illustrations choice of colour and revealed through the expression on the face of the main character. On the other hand, the depiction of the same character when she is comfortable or happy is brought out through introducing other people or when with someone she can relate to or discuss her point of view. Students’ Responses (sample)
 * C. Evidence of Learning**
 * The main character casting a shadow is depicted standing all-alone in the center of the page, which may tell us that she is without any friends
 * The subtle colours on the page may suggest that the main character’s life is not exciting
 * The illustration of masako in a Kimono, where she is staring at the wall with a sullen face may help us understand that she feels alienated in Japan
 * The illustration, where Masako is looking away from the man’s stuff/paraphernalia may tell us that she is not interested in learning the Japanese art
 * Sentences such as “She did not want to leave the only home she had ever known” helps us understand how she felt about the move
 * “So Mikaso wandered around the empty school yard” suggests that she was miserable
 * “Why do I have to do this” clearly explains why Masako does not want to learn Calligraphy”
 * “I am a foreigner in my parent’s country, she thought” depicts Makaso’s feeling of alienation
 * “I would enjoy that very much” points out that she found an activity that she liked

Context of literacy program Student’s understanding of the text-picture interplay for meaning making process and interpretation using two different modalities I firmly believe that students will be able to recognize the importance of text-picture relationship for comprehensive understanding of a picture book such as “Tea with Milk” because it is a book about a Japanese girl. The illustrator’s use of colours (bright and dull), design elements such as lines to show movement or
 * 1) **Follow-up**

The teacher’s primary goal of this lesson plan is to help students understand the text-picture relationship. The secondary goal is for the students to write out information based on the pictures they select. This lesson should teach the students to read and write using illustrations and understand parallel story telling strategy. Students will be able to experiment with test and illustrations and learn to compose and draw through this lesson. According to Sipe (2008), “synergy” is a good descriptor of text-picture or multimodal relationships in picture books, because all the sin systems, together, produce an effect that is greater than the effect that either would produce alone, resulting in an aesthetic whole that is greater than the sum of the individual parts (p. 23). Hence, it is beneficial and appropriate for teachers to use both text and illustrations (picture book genre) while teaching children culturally relevant materials and topics such as immigration and transnational travels. In addition, interpretation using text-picture relationship will facilitate better application of the skill later in children’s life when they visit a museum or attend a painting exhibition. **Appendix A**
 * 1) **Student’s learning through the lesson**


 * Direction**: Please use the table below to identify how text and pictures mean the same. Please feel free to just choose one from the list. You need not do all of them.


 * **Tea with Milk by**
 * Allen Say** || //Words and picture say the same thing// || //Words and picture add to each other’s meaning// || //Pictures help understand the mood(s) of the character (s)// || Words help in meaning making when pictures are difficult to follow || Pictures help in meaning making when words are difficult to follow || Words help understand culture || Pictures help understand culture ||
 * Examples from the text ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * Examples from the Illustrations ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||   ||

**References** Say, A. (1999). Tea with Milk. New York, Houghton Mifflin. Sipe, L. (2008). Storytime: Young Children’s Literary Understanding in the Classroom. New York, Teacher’s College.