Name: Tommy Brown

Lesson Title: Paint Your Picture

Grade: 10
Type of Lesson:

Date of lesson: Spring 2015

Content Area: English LA
School: Seton Catholic High School

Introductory
Practice/Review
Mastery

Multicultural Goal (integration and

assessment):
Cultural Consciousness:
Inward - students realize that they have
culture even if they aren't the minority
- This will be accomplished when students
are analyzing their own religious
characteristics and beliefs when comparing
and contrasting religions of different beliefs
from different cultures.
Multiple Historical Perspectives:
Look at events from all views involved in
the situation
-This will be accomplished when students
are researching famous historical paintings
of Heaven and Hell in preparation for their
own artwork creation.
Intercultural Competence:
Outward-students become competent in
another culture
-This will be accomplished when students
are analyzing their own religious
characteristics and beliefs when comparing
and contrasting religions of different beliefs
from different cultures.

Learning Goal(s):

Assessment Task(s):

(1) Distinguish their

own interpretation of
afterlife and compare
it to that of others
(2) Predict whom
they would meet in
Heaven and what they
would learn

1) Students will
summarize what they
believe Heaven looks
like and compare and
contrast with their
partner how their
interpretations and
why they are similar
or different.

Assessment Tool(s):
1) Journal Entry
2) Painting of Heaven
Assessment Criteria:
1) Journal Entry
2) Students personal painting
3) Identification of those they might meet in
Heaven and why.
Evidence of Mastery:

(3) Deduce how ones

actions affect the lives
of others on a daily
basis
(4) Create their own
interpretation of
Heaven and what it
looks like to them

2) Students will
organize their
thoughts as to who
they believe they will
meet in Heaven and
what they would learn
from them.

1) 100% of students will describe their own

belief of what Heaven may look like and why.
2) 100% of students will create their own
painting visualizing their own interpretation of
Heaven.

3) 90% of students will be able to think of 5

3) Students will create people they feel they may encounter in
a painting depicting
Heaven and why.
their view of heaven
and what they feel
they would learn in
Heaven
Academic Standards/Professional Standards (Include a sentence or phrase, not just the
standard number.)
Primary focus (most students will be able to):
9-10.RL.2.1
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what a text says explicitly as
well as inferences and interpretations drawn from the text.

9-10.RL.2.2
Analyze in detail the development of two or more themes or central ideas over the course of a
work of literature, including how they emerge and are shaped and refined by specific details.

9-10.RL.2.3
Analyze how dynamic 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.

9-10.W.5
Conduct short as well as more sustained research assignments and tasks to build knowledge

about the research process and the topic under study

9-10.W.4
Apply the writing process to
Plan and develop; draft; revise using appropriate reference materials; rewrite; try a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience;
and edit to produce and strengthen writing that is clear and coherent.

Differentiation (content, process, product):

(content) Students will be able to think of their own interpretation of Heaven, what it looks like
and how it works.
(process) Students will be able to research any artwork of Heaven in history and analyze their
own understanding of what Heaven looks like.
(product) Students will be able to create their own painting of their interpretation of Heaven in
any way they choose.
Accommodations:
Student on an IEP will be allowed to work on her artwork in the teachers lounge by herself.
(Supervised by office Para)
Prior Learning:

Prerequisite Skills:

1) Students should understand their religions

view of Heaven

1) Ability to Whip Around

2) Ability paint their depiction to the best of
their ability

Vocabulary development:
1) Michelangelo
2) Hieronymus Bosch
3) Representation
4) Heaven vs. Hell

Anticipatory Set (Recall prior learning/create interest.):

1) Vocabulary Pairing Activity
2) Once paired, in preparation for our artwork assignment tomorrow, our introduction for the unit
will be to take ten minutes and have the students write down their idea of what Heaven look like.
What do they believe Heaven looks like? A city? A park? Their favorite place? Once students
have completed their description of their personal idea of Heaven, students will do a Whip
Around and discuss with their partner their ideas of Heaven and how they are similar or
different.
Procedures (model; instruct (with explicit connection to Blooms Taxonomy); samples; guided
and independent practice; monitor progress, etc.):
Day One: Religion and Spirituality
As a class, we will discuss Mitch Alboms depiction of Heaven and where we have seen this so
far in the novel, especially in chapters 9 and 10 they read for homework. (15 Minutes)
-We will then break up into our literature circle groups and I will pose the following questions;
1) Imagine that Albom's depiction of heaven is correct. Ask students to list the five people they
think they would meet in heaven, and the lessons their five people would teach them.
2) Pose this question to the class: If it is true that one's actions and choices do affect others, how
might a person live more peaceably with his neighbors?
3) What are the 3 major religions in the USA today? Which is the fastest growing?
4) List other practiced religions in the USA.
5) Divide the room into groups and assign each group a religion. Ask each group to research
what their assigned religion teaches its followers about heaven and/or afterlife. Report findings
to class and describe how they are similar or different from those of Catholics and/or Mitch
Albom.

Day Two: Art History

1) When Eddie realizes that he is responsible for the Blue Man's death, he believes he is in
heaven for punishment. For centuries artists depicted the pleasures of heaven and the horrors of
hell.
2) Divide the class into groups. Ask each group to research famous paintings of heaven and hell
(i.e. Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Hieronymus Bosch's work, etc.). Share and discuss the
paintings with the other groups.
3) Discuss how an artist (painter or writer) can influence a non-reading public.
4) Do modern artists influence people's beliefs today?
5) Once we have gained a background knowledge of their idea of Heaven and their research of
famous paintings of Heaven and Hell, we will take a field trip to Mrs. Greens classroom, our
schools art teacher who has prep during this period, and students will be assigned to paint their
very own depiction of Heaven and the main lesson they believe they would learn in Heaven if
they were Eddie. Students are to depict this message in their paintings.-ALTERED! Instead, Mrs.
Green did this activity during their art class 5th period, rather than during the second half of my
class period. For the remainder of the class, we played basketball vocabulary. We broke up into
two teams and tested our knowledge of our vocabulary words through an engaging, active
activity.
Closure (restate learning goal & connect across curriculum/real life application and extends
learning):
Students will have the ability to share their paintings once completed. If they are not completed
in class, students will be aloud to work on them during 5th Period while they are in art class with
Mrs. Green. We will discuss their representations and share as a class. I will also assign the

students to read through the end of the novel by Monday, giving them four days to read these 3
short chapters.
Materials:
1) Novel
2) Journals
3) Research Groups
4) Paints
5) Brushes
6) Canvas/Poster Paper

Technologies Implemented:
1) Netbooks for researching famous paintings
of Heaven and Hell
2) Projector
3) iPad

ATTACH: any lecture notes, strategy explanations, handouts, rubrics and so on that you
use.

Thomas R. Brown
Seton Catholic High School
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Lesson 7
1-27-15
I have never used an anticipatory set that has nothing to do with the topic we are
leading into before. I had the students do this quick vocabulary review activity and the
level of engagement was very impressive! I gave the students 90 seconds to find their
vocabulary connection (Word matched to definition) but they were not aloud to speak a
word or make a noise. The kids were running all around the room frantically! It was
really neat to see how well the students knew their words and it was obvious as to what
students still needed to study certain words. I found this to be a very engaging way to pair
students together for an activity. Rather than just saying Student A, your with Student
B, and so on. This activity made for productive time rather than wasting class time.
What frustrated me today was that students were doing more talking rather than
collaborating about their memoir writing. I had to remind the class three times to get back
on track and to discuss the topic at hand. For me, it was frustrating because I felt that we
were simply wasting time. What I did not realize until it was too late was that we did not
have our daily 3-minute discussion to talk about everything they were talking about
rather than working on their task at hand. I realize now that this routine actually meant
something to the kids. Unfortunately, I failed to fulfill my end of this routine today and it
directly impacted my classroom management and timeline.
In order to prepare for Thursday, I introduced our basketball vocabulary review
game. I brought in a Little Tikes basketball goal in my classroom from day one and they

have been extremely eager to try it our. We took the last 10-minutes to review the rules
and how to play the game. I am hoping that this competitive nature will inspire the
students to study and review their words more, in order to improve our test scores on
their summative Wordly Wise unit assessments. Depending on the results of Fridays test,
this review game will be a bi-weekly activity or a flop. (Im hoping for success!)