The One That Got Away

When I was five years old, I took a boat out on __________

[choose a body of water that your students are familiar with] and went fishing by myself. I really wanted to catch a fish! But they were not biting.

I stayed in my boat for three days, waiting. A couple of times, I thought I felt a fish nibbling on the bait at the end of the fishing line. The first time I pulled in my catch, it was not a fish; it was an old tire. The second time, it was a shoe. Finally, at the end of the third day, I felt a strong pull at the end of the line.

The pull was so strong that my boat raced in a hundred circles, faster than you can say the word seafood. I needed all my strength just to hold onto the fishing rod. I pulled, and I pulled, and I reeled in the biggest fish that ever swam on the Earth! It weighed more than everyone in this room put together! Then something terrible happened.

After I had pulled the huge fish into my boat, I realized that we were sinking under its weight! Water was pouring into the boat from all sides! I am not a very good swimmer, so I was scared.

Although it was the hardest decision I ever made, I had to let the fish go. I pushed it back over the side of the boat, and we waved good-bye to each other as it swam away.

48 2 0 1 1 N U M B E R 2 | E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M

Classroom Activities

Take Out the Trash

Level:Advanced

Time required:60–90 minutes

Goals:To create and ask open-ended questionsto learn more about marine debris; to orally sum-marize information learned through reading; to create persuasive outreach materials as part of an action campaign.

Materials:A plastic bag or another plastic itemthat is a common form of litter; chalk and a chalkboard; photocopies of the cards provided or large pieces of paper and markers to create posters instead of cards

Preparation:Your class will work in groups offour to carry out a Jigsaw Discussion. Each group will be made up of students playing the role of an Interviewer, an Example Expert, a Consequence Expert, and a Prevention Expert. Each group member will need information from only one of the cards provided (see page 52). You can give this information to your students in one of several ways:

Option 1:Write the information from eachcard on a large piece of paper—four pieces of paper altogether—and hang them around your classroom. Find places to hang the posters where students will focus only on the information they have been assigned to read for their role. If pos-sible, keep the information covered until it is time to read.

Option 2:Create one copy of the cards. Givethe Interviewer card to one of the Interviewers, the Example Expert card to one of the Example Experts, and so on. Those four students will share the information with other students who are playing the same role, either by reading the information aloud or writing it on a large piece of paper.

Option 3:Make photocopies of the cards so thatyou can give one card to each student.

Procedures:

1. Generate vocabulary and background knowledge that will aid students as they move through later activities.

a) Ask a student volunteer to define the term litter. If no one in the class knows this word, you could have someone look up the meaning in a dictionary. Or you could demonstrate the act of littering by throwing a candy wrapper or crumpled piece of paper on the floor and asking a student to describe, in English, what you did. (Remember to pick up the trash and throw it away after your demonstration!) Check under-standing by asking students to brainstorm a list of local places where litter is commonly found and/or a list of common litter items.

b) Show the class a manmade item that has become a common form of litter (e.g., a plas-tic bag or the plastic rings from a six-pack of drink cans). Ask students to consider what happens when this item is not thrown away properly. Encourage students to think about the effects the item could have on the environ-ment—both in the place where it is discarded and beyond.

2. Tell students that another name for litter is debris and that they are going to learn about a kind of litter called “marine debris,” and why it is on the minds of environmental scientists and con-cerned citizens. Discuss the meaning of the word marine. Ask for a student volunteer to define it or to look it up in a dictionary, if possible.

3. Tell students that at the end of this activity, they will work as a team to create a campaign to edu-cate the public and reduce the effects of this kind of waste on the environment.

4. Have students count off in fours. Then assign the following roles:

a) Ones will be Interviewers. Their job is to lead the discussion by asking the marine debris “experts” questions about what they have read.

E N G L I S H T E A C H I N G F O R U M | N U M B E R 2 2 0 1 1 49

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 666