Tailoring a Narrative IntelliMetric™ Prompt: A Customized MY Access! ® Lesson on Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon.
Contributed by: Stephanie Dixon. Stephanie Dixon is a former eighth grade English teacher, a user of MY Access!®, and a TOSA (teacher on special assignment) support provider for teachers using MY Access!® within her district. She used the following lesson with her students and was extremely pleased with their deep, insightful, and polished responses. She hopes that this lesson will connect with your students in the same way that it did with hers.
Target Grade Level: Middle School
Time: 2-3 class periods
Keys Concepts: Narrative writing, Writing Process, Point of View, Character Analysis, Prompt Customization
“Flowers for Algernon,” by Daniel Keyes, is a novella that is commonly taught in middle school English classrooms across the country. The story is creatively written as a series of journal entries composed by the main character, Charlie Gordon, who undergoes experimental surgery in an attempt to increase his extremely low IQ. As the story progresses and Charlie’s intelligence grows, he begins to accomplish tasks that were impossible for him to complete prior to his surgery. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Charlie experiences moments where he feels proud of himself.
Making MY Access!® Work Specifically for You: While MY Access!® has a literary prompt, “Human Engineering in ‘Flowers for Algernon,’” that is specifically aligned to the story, you can also assess your students’ understanding of Charlie’s emotional transformation by tailoring the narrative prompt, “Feeling Proud.” This process of adapting a narrative prompt to align with a literary text is an effective way to help students make the reading/writing connection and demonstrate their knowledge of a character.**
**However, Intellimetric prompts cannot be completely rewritten and still be effectively scored. Rather, if you are interested in refining or revising the text of an Intellimetric prompt to fit your instructional plan, we recommend that you consult with our Scoring Experts first. They can be reached by email at: ScoringCenter@vantage.com
Customizing the Prompt:
Step 1: Select the middle school narrative IntelliMetric, “Feeling Proud.” The prompt reads as follows:
From time to time, we do things that make us proud of ourselves. Sometimes we are the only ones who even know what we have done, but we recognize that performing a good deed is often its own reward. Write a narrative about something you did that made you feel proud.
Describe what happened and explain why you felt a sense of pride. Remember to make sure the reader has enough details about your experience so he or she can picture it in his or her mind.
Step 2: Using the Assignment Wizard, select your resources and assignment preferences in steps 2-5.
Step 3: Insert or type in the following revised text in step 6 “Special Instructions”
From time to time, we do things that make us proud of ourselves. Sometimes we are the only ones who even know what we have done, but we recognize that performing a good deed is often its own reward. Think about the many moments in “Flowers for Algernon” in which Charlie feels proud. For this story, put yourself in Charlie’s shoes. From Charlie’s point of view, write a story in which you describe one of Charlie’s proud moments and explain why he feels a sense of pride. Remember to make sure to provide enough details about the experience, so the reader can picture it in his or her mind.
Step 4: Print and distribute the revised assignment. NOTE: Although students will see the original text “Feeling Proud,” remind students that they will be writing to the revised text displayed in “special instructions” located on the dropdown menu under the PROMPT button (on the student writing screen).
Prewriting: It is essential that your students engage in a prewriting activity in order to gather their thoughts before responding to this customized prompt. Following this blog are two graphic organizers. These graphic organizers are exclusively designed to assist your students in preparing to write to the “Feeling Proud” prompt. Both organizers ask the students to recall three moments Charlie feels proud of himself. Though the prompt asks students to write about only one of these moments, it is helpful for them to prewrite on more than one proud moment, in case they hit a dead end in the beginning stages of writing and decide to change topics. The two organizers also direct students to bring each proud moment to life through the use of sensory detail. By processing these details before beginning their first drafts, students are able to begin their essays with strong senses of what they would like to communicate and what information they will use to do so.
Composing: Once students have finished their prewriting, they are ready to go online and begin drafting their stories! Remember, when students are drafting online or offline, it is important for teachers to circulate throughout the lab or classroom, providing positive instructional feedback and suggestions to their students. If you have limited access to the computer lab, have your students write their first draft by hand. Then, when the computer lab is available, they can quickly type in their stories, receive immediate instructional feedback, and begin to increase their writing proficiency!
Publishing: When students have completed their final drafts, encourage them to print a published version of their work by clicking on the “Publish” icon in their student portfolio. This feature allows their work to be printed in a variety of visually pleasing themes, including Western, Rose, and Ocean Blue. These printed pieces make wonderful wall décor for Back to School or Open House and give students a small taste of what it feels like to be a published writer.
Culminating Activity: Have your students research the author, Daniel Keyes. Students can easily find safe and authoritative resources in iSEEK In their research, students will discover that Keyes’ book was labeled as a banned book for many years. This is a perfect opportunity to transition into a debate on whether or not books should be banned, using iSEEK to research both sides of the argument, and the MY Access! middle school persuasive prompt, “Banning Books” as a writing component.
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This installment in our Author Series comes from Aaron Shepard, the award-winning author of One-Eye! Two-Eyes! Three-Eyes!, The Sea King’s Daughter, The Baker’s Dozen, The Legend of Lightning Larry, and many more children’s books from publishers large and small. His stories have also appeared often in Cricket magazine. Check out his website at http://www.aaronshep.com/ to get loads of free treats and resources for teachers, librarians, storytellers, children’s authors, parents, kids, and more. You’ll also find info on Aaron, his books, and his author visits.
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When I first began teaching in the 1990s, “Writing Process” or “The Writing Process” was familiar jargon in the language arts classroom. However, it wasn’t until I went through a California Writing Project Summer Invitational that I began to fully understand, internalize and embrace a process approach to teaching writing.
A few years later, when I started working as a teacher consultant in school districts throughout Southern California, the mere mention of “Writing Process” was sure to spark a heated debate. Teachers loved it or hated it. Some saw process writing as the only way to teach; others saw it as a waste of time and a “feel good” approach that didn’t accomplish anything. I quickly assessed that those who had a strong aversion to process writing simply didn’t understand it, and I enjoyed the challenge of showing them what process writing actually is. (more…)
When did you decide to become a writer, and what steps did you take from there?
When I got out of graduate school and was for the first time writing on my own with nobody telling me to, not part of an assignment, I was getting no grade. So I was a writer. What I was not was a published writer, and yes, it was discouraging. Some folks tend to think that in situations like that you need a thick skin and you don’t really feel the pain of it. But that’s not really the case. At least, it wasn’t for me. It was very painful. Every time I got a rejection slip, I wanted to put my head in the oven. But you keep plodding along, and you discover that in a couple of days, the sun continues to rise every morning. And you put your manuscript in a new mailing, and you put on the postage, and you send it out to one more place. If you try every place with your first book and that doesn’t work, you write a second book. That’s how it went for the better part of fifteen or twenty years. (more…)
Teaching Poetic Devices in Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” Target Grade Level: Middle School Time: 2-3 class periods Key Concepts: Literary Analysis, Reading Comprehension, Poetic Devices, Writing Process
Contributed by Dr. Madeline Pan. Dr. Madeline Pan has made a career of teaching English to students at all levels. As a district and school administrator, her emphasis was on providing professional development on research-based writing instruction to teachers at the middle and high school level. She thanks the 8th grade students in Red Clay, Delaware and Milwaukee, Wisconsin for their enthusiasm and well-written analytical responses for “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes.
Teacher’s Reflection. Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” is a poem for all ages and a delight to teach because students “get it” very quickly. They like it at first, love it soon after, and quote it throughout the year. Better yet, they don’t balk at writing a literary analysis about the poem, even writing about it very well, regardless of whether they have had experience writing a literary analysis or not. (more…)
By reading how writers have analyzed Scrooge’s responses to events, students can generate their own ideas and begin evaluating their own analysis of how Scrooge responds to challenges. (more…)
We all have a favorite person, someone who we like or respect more than anyone else. Think about the person in your life you consider your favorite. What is this person like? What does this person do to make him or her your favorite?
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What made you decide to be an author, and at what stage in your life were you when you made that decision?
I wanted to be a dancer when I was younger, but I couldn’t major in that in college. I always liked reading, so I thought of English – you get to read a lot of books! This brought me into some writing classes, and at that point I got bitten by the bug. I started out with poetry, since you didn’t have to fill up the page with poetry. I then moved to writing plays because it is mostly dialogue driven and is very, very natural. Then I ended up with young adult novels. That was my progression.
You indicated that reading played a role in your becoming a writer, what role did reading play in your youth?
I think it was just someone to relate to. I liked characters that were very different from me, that lived in different parts of the country, that went on different adventures; it broke a lot of barriers for me. I was a middle child, and you’re always looking to be heard and to be understood. Reading was very appealing to me for that reason, plus I lived two blocks from the library, so I went through a lot of books as a young person, pretty effortlessly.
When did you decide to become a writer, and what steps did you take from there? 
Duration: 2 class periods of 45-55 minutes
What made you decide to be an author, and at what stage in your life were you when you made that decision?