You are on page 1of 7

Lesson Plan Title: Conversations with Puns

Date: February 14, 2018


Subject: English Language Arts 7
Grade: 7
Topic: Puns
Essential Question: What is the difference between homophonic and homographic puns? How can I
incorporate puns into a conversation?

Materials:
 Notebook for notes
 Pencil or pen
 Lined paper
 Pencil crayons or markers
 Pun conversation example
 Pun Representation rubric
 YouTube clip

Stage 1- Desired Results – you may use student friendly language


What do they need to understand, know, and/or able to do?

Students need to understand the difference between a homographic pun and a homophonic pun. The partner
pun conversation activity will help students to understand the differences of the pun. Students still need to
understand that a person’s background knowledge on the pun’s content and English language will ultimately
determine if they understand the pun and believe it is funny.

The students need to know how to properly incorporate a pun into a conversation. A script of two will talking
will be shown to the students along with a YouTube clip to provide two representations of conversations and
how puns are incorporated into dialogue. Students will also know the components of a pun and why a
particular word makes a pun a funny. This information will help the students know how to create their own
pun because they know what is needed to make a pun.

Students will not only be able to form their own pun and come to represent their pun through a visual
representation, but they will also be able to incorporate a pun into a conversation. Students will also be able
to pick out the word in a pun that makes the pun funny. Students will also be able to differentiate between a
homophonic and homographic pun.

Broad Areas of Learning:

Developing Thinking: Students will be able to apply prior knowledge that was gained through the previous
lesson to the activities in this lesson. Students will be able to apply their knowledge regarding puns, the
components of puns, and the types of puns to the conversation activity. Students will be able to think
creatively by creating a conversation between two people using puns.

Developing Identity and Interdependence: Students will continue to learn how to gain a sense of care and
appreciation for their classmates though class discussion and partner work opportunities. This means
students will be able to contribute their ideas and opinions. Students will need to be able to recognize the
differing thoughts and ideas of their classmates but still be open-minded towards their classmate’s thoughts
and ideas in a respectful and accepting manner. Students will ultimately learn how to welcome, appreciate,
and value the ideas of their classmates.

Developing Literacies: Students will practice and improve on multiple literacies throughout the lesson. The
YouTube clip will allow the students to view a visual representation of a conversation that uses subtle puns
throughout its entirety. The YouTube clip also connects to the technological side of literacy. Students will also
view a written script of a conversation on the document reader, which is a different way to represent the
practice assignment the students will be doing. Students will also practice their listening and speaking skills
during the partner activity and the sharing activity. Students will also practice their writing since they will be
asked to write a script of two people talking.

Developing Social Responsibility: the social responsibility of all students is to be accepting and kind to their
classmates. This lesson will do exactly that since the students will be expected to respectfully listen and
appreciate the thoughts and ideas of their classmates. Students will be expected to show support to their
classmates when their classmates decide to contribute. Students will also engage in communitarian thinking
and dialogue. The students will be instructed to brainstorm together and discuss their script with a partner.

Cross-Curricular Competencies:

Sense of Self, Community, and Place: The partner activity along with the class discussion will help create an
inclusive learning environment for students to feel welcomed and valued by their peers. The partner activity
will allow students to help one another, and therefore creating a learning place where all students can
succeed. All contributions made during the class discussion will be valued, welcomed, and appreciated not
only by the teacher, but by all students as well. This will help create a safe place for students to learn and
share and explore new ideas without being afraid of ridicule.

Lifelong Learners: Students will learn how to work with one another during the partner activity. Students will
learn how to be sensitive towards another student and any struggle they may show during this activity. This
will create a respectful and accepting environment for students. Students will also practice their viewing,
listening, writing, and speaking skills, which are skills that are used in and out of the classroom.

Outcome(s):

CC7.5 – Create and present a variety of representations including visual and multimedia presentations such as
displays, illustrations, and videos, and enhance communication with appropriate graphic organizers, charts,
circle graphs, timelines, maps, and sound effects.

CC7.6 – Use oral language to interact purposefully and appropriately with others in pairs, small groups, and
large group situations (e.g., contributing to sustaining dialogue, expressing support for others and their
viewpoints, discussing and analyzing ideas and opinions, completing a variety of tasks, and contributing to
group consensus building).

PGP Goals:

 1.1 – The ability to maintain respectful, mutually supportive and equitable professional relationships
with learners, colleagues, families and communities.
 1.2 – Ethical behaviour and the ability to work in a collaborative manner for the good of all learners.
 1.3 – A commitment to social justice and the capacity to nurture an inclusive and equitable
environment for the empowerment of all learners
 2.2 – Proficiency in the Language of Instruction.
 2.4 – Ability to use technologies readily, strategically and appropriately
 3.1 – The ability to utilize meaningful, equitable, and holistic approaches to assessment and
evaluation

Stage 2- Assessment

Assessment FOR Learning (formative) Assess the students during the learning to help determine next steps.

The first activity in this lesson will help the teacher assess the students during the learning. The teacher will
ask the students if they are confused about some terms during the recap lesson, which will show the teacher
what the students need help understanding. The teacher will be walking around during the partner pun
conversation activity. His will be a great opportunity for the teacher to see what students are still struggling
with homophonic and homographic puns. The teacher can determine if the teacher needs to quickly pause
the activity to provide more information, examples, or explanation to the students if there is still struggle
present. The share your pun activity will be an opportunity for students to present their pun and drawing in
front of the class. A student’s presentation will not be graded, but will be used as evidence for the teacher to
determine if the student understands their pun and the components that make it funny. The partner pun
conversation will not be graded, but rather handed in for the teacher to assess their understanding of the two
types of puns. This conversation will help the teacher determine if the students learned the difference
between the two types of puns, learned how to identify both type of puns in a conversation, and can
successfully incorporate puns into conversations.

Assessment OF Learning (summative) Assess the students after learning to evaluate what they have learned.

The students will be asked to hand in their Pun Representation assignment at the end of the class along with
their rubric. There assignments will be marked using the rubric and handed back to them the following week.
The teacher will use the assignment to see if the students followed the rubric and understood what was
expected. The assignment will also be used to assess student learning regarding puns. The students’
explanation paragraph on the back of the page will show if the students can explain their pun, explain what
makes it funny, identify the type of pun their pun is, and justify their representation effectively and properly.

Stage 3- Learning Plan ( 1 hour class – 60 minutes)

Motivational/Anticipatory Set (introducing topic while engaging the students)

Activity 2.1 – YouTube clip

The students will be shown a quick YouTube clip (8 Hilariously Subtle Puns) that shows how puns can be
incorporated into a conversation. This activity will help introduce the Pun Conversation assignment that will
be assigned at the end of the lesson. After the clip is shown the teacher will discuss why the video is
important and how it connects to the assignment at the end of the lesson.
“this clip is important because there will be a practice activity where you will have to create a conversation
between two people, but you must include both a homophonic and homographic pun into the conversation
somehow”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7kESrT2abw (3 minutes)

Duration: 5 minutes

Main Procedures/Strategies:

Activity 2.2 – Lesson #1 Recap

The lesson from the previous day will be recapped. The following will be discussed:

 The definition of a pun


 The two types of puns – Homophonic and homographic
o Phone: talking and sounds (homophonic – words that sound the same)
o Graph: visual representation of numbers (homographic – words that look the same)
o Examples:
 Why did the spider go to the computer? To check his web site (homographic)
 This is a homographic pun because “web” has two meanings but the word
looks the same. Web could mean a web a spider make or the internet
 This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore
(homophonic)
 This is a homophonic pun because the word “herbivore” sounds like “her
before”
 the components of a pun – one particular word makes the pun funny because it can either look or
sound alike but have different meanings
 a person’s knowledge of the English language and the probability of a pun being funny – a person’s
knowledge of a word and its meaning will determine if they believe it is funny or not
 Clarify the Pun Representation assignment
o The picture and pun needs to be included on the front page of the paper
o The picture needs to be coloured
o The write up is on the back and must include:
 An explanation of your pun (what makes it funny; which word makes your pun work)
 Identify if your pun is homophonic or homographic and why – is there a word that
sounds like another word but has a different meaning or is there a word that looks
like another word but has a different meaning – if yes, then identify which word that
is and what’s that word’s definition
 Example: “put it on my bill” – this is a homographic pun because the word bill
looks like a duck’s bill or the bill you get at the end of a dinner at a restaurant.
The word looks the same but has two different meanings.
 Explain why you decided to draw your pun the way that you did in your
representation.

The teacher will ask the students if they remember anything from the previous lesson that they struggled with
or have questions so that the teacher can provide clarity and help them to understand and succeed.

Duration: 10 minutes
Activity 2.4 – Sample Conversation

The teach will now introduce a practice activity that involves the students partnering up to work on a pun
conversation, but before this the teacher will engage with a modeling activity with the students so that the
students know what is expected from them

This activity will be introduced to the students as a practice activity to better understand homophonic and
homographic puns because there was a lot of confusion with homographic and homophonic puns the
previous day. The purpose of this activity it to increase student understanding regarding homographic and
homophonic puns.

The teacher will show a conversation between two people using the document reading. The teacher will read
out the conversation. The teacher will point out the homographic and the homophonic pun in the
conversation and explain why each pun is funny and why it is either a homophonic or homographic pun.

Duration: 5 minutes

Activity 2.5 – Pun Conversation

The teacher will partner off the students into groups of two for this activity. The students will be asked to
make a conversation with two people using the following criteria:

 The students’ names and date on the top right hand corner
 A title for your conversation
 The setting of the conversation needs to be identified – as easy as writing “Setting: the school” on
your paper
o **Note: the setting is important when telling a pun. For example, if I was inviting Ms. D to go
bowling I would say “Do you want to come bowling? Only if you have any spare time.” You
wouldn’t say that joke if you were inviting a friend to the mall because the mall has nothing to
do with bowling a spare
 At least 1 homophonic pun and 1 homographic pun needs to be included in the conversation
 Each person in the conversation script needs to “talk” 4 times. This means there will be a total of at
least 8 lines (explain lines if they are confused).
 The people in the conversation need to have names – can’t just be person one and person two.
 Highlight the homophonic pun in blue
 Highlight the homographic pun in pink

This activity will be handed in as an exit slip at the end of the lesson, which means you cannot leave this
classroom until you hand in the conversation.

Duration: 15 minutes

Activity 2.6 – Finish Pun Representation

The students will be given time to work on their puns and the drawing of their pun from the previous day. The
recap may have provided more clarification and students may have realized they did the assignment wrong.
Some students may start again. If this is the case, assign the assignment for homework.
Duration: 10 minutes

Activity 2.7 – Share Your Pun

The students will be encouraged to share their puns and their representation of their pun to the class after
they have completed their representation of their pun. The students will be asked to share what pun they
created, explain their pun (why is it funny), their representation of their pun, and explain why they chose to
represent their pun the way that they did. This is not mandatory for all students to do. This is for students
who want to share, and it students will be highly encouraged to share.

Duration: 10 minutes

Adaptations/Differentiation:
A YouTube clip will be shown as the motivational set. I will turn on the subtitles during the video so students
with any hearing impairments can read along in order to understand what is happening. For the students who
struggle with creating their own pun will be provided with extra guidance from the teacher. The teacher will
participate in side-by-side learning with the student to provide extra clarification and answer any questions
the student may have. Providing extra help to the students who struggle can help the student achieve success
with the pun assignment similar to their peers. I will pair up the students who seem to understand the
difference between homographic and homophonic puns with a student who does not. This will create an
opportunity for the student who understand to explain and help the student who does not.

Closing of lesson:

Activity 2.8 – Exit slip and Lesson #2 Recap

The students will be asked to hand in their partner pun conversation in as an exit slip for the teacher to assess
their understanding of the two types of puns.

The teacher will also discuss the lesson and what big ideas were discussed in the lesson. The teacher will once
again go over the two types of puns and how we can incorporate puns into our conversations with friends and
family!

Duration: 5 minutes

Personal Reflection:

This lesson was well-received by the students, and this was noticeable by how engaged they were with creating
their own script. However, the students did get a little out of hand at times. This was because they were excited
about their scripts and wanted to share their scripts with their peers. My co-op teacher suggested some
strategies that I could use in the future to capture the students’ attention in order to remind them about the
noise level. The next time I teach a lesson I would like to implement the strategies she suggested in order to see
how the students would react to it. I also should have told the students that there would be time at the end of
the class to share their scripts. This way the students would have kept their scripts a secret until the end of class,
which would ultimately control the level of noise in the class more. Next time I need to provide a full outline of a
lesson to my students so they know what to expect.
Ms. Ferguson and Ms. D
Setting: The school

A Teacher’s Life

Ms. Ferguson: Hey, Ms. D. Do you think you could take this really heavy box back to the
office?

Ms. D: Nah, I can’t. I’ve got a weak back.

Ms. Ferguson: Really? When did you get it?

Ms. D: about a week back.

Ms. Ferguson: Okay, never mind. I will ask someone else.

Ms. D: Okay, perfect because I have to go anyways. I’m taking the Gr. 7’s to the Coca-
Cola factory.

Ms. Ferguson: That will be fun! You should give them a pop quiz.

Ms. D: that’s the plan!

THE END!

You might also like