Dicey's Song Lesson Plan | Introduction
This unit has been designed to develop students' reading, writing, thinking, and language skills through exercises and activities related to Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt. It includes seventeen lessons, supported by extra resource materials.
The introductory lesson introduces students to the novel through a short discussion of moving and relocating. Following the introductory activity, students are given a transition to explain how the activity relates to the book they are about to read. Following the transition, students are given the materials they will be using during the unit. At the end of the lesson, students begin the pre-reading work for the first reading assignment.
The reading assignments are approximately thirty pages each; some are a little shorter while others are a little longer. Students have approximately 15 minutes of pre-reading work to do prior to each reading assignment. This pre-reading work involves reviewing the study questions for the assignment and doing some vocabulary work for 8 to 10 vocabulary words they will encounter in their reading.
The study guide questions are fact-based questions; students can find the answers to these questions right in the text. These questions come in two formats: short answer required or multiple choice. The best use of these materials is probably to use the short answer version of the questions as study guides for students (since answers will be more complete), and to use the multiple choice version for occasional quizzes. It might be a good idea to make transparencies of your answer keys for the overhead projector.
The vocabulary work is intended to enrich students' vocabularies as well as to aid in the students' understanding of the book. Prior to each reading assignment, students will complete a two-part worksheet for approximately 8 to 10 vocabulary words in the upcoming reading assignment. Part I focuses on students' use of general knowledge and contextual clues by giving the sentence in which the word appears in the text. Students are then to write down what they think the words mean based on the words' usage. Part II nails down the definitions of the words by giving students dictionary definitions of the words and having students match the words to the correct definitions based on the words' contextual usage. Students should then have an understanding of the words when they meet them in the text.
After each reading assignment, students will go back and formulate answers for the study guide questions. Discussion of these questions serves as a review of the most important events and ideas presented in the reading assignments.
After students complete reading the work, there is a vocabulary review lesson which pulls together all of the fragmented vocabulary lists for the reading assignments and gives students a review of all of the words they have studied.
Following the vocabulary review, a lesson is devoted to the extra discussion questions/writing assignments. These questions focus on interpretation, critical analysis and personal response, employing a variety of thinking skills and adding to the students' understanding of the novel.
There is a group activity in which students working in small groups to create "Dicey's Song," actual lyrics to a song that would be appropriate as Dicey's Song.
There is a unit project in which students must create something. Many of the characters in the book actually make things; they are doers. This project turns your students into doers (for at least one assignment!) and gives them the opportunity to show off their own talents.
There are three writing assignments in this unit, each with the purpose of informing, persuading, or having students express personal opinions. The first assignment is to express personal opinions: students have the same assignment Dicey did for her essay--to write a composition about someone they know who has a conflict in his/her life. The second assignment is to inform: students write a composition in which they prepare for their oral presentation relating to their unit projects. The third assignment is to persuade: students are temporarily turned into marketing agents responsible for creating a full-page advertisement for Dicey's Song to be distributed by the book-of-the-month club.
In addition, there is a nonfiction reading assignment. Students are required to read a piece of nonfiction related in some way to Dicey's Song. After reading their nonfiction pieces, students will fill out a worksheet on which they answer questions regarding facts, interpretation, criticism, and personal opinions. Most students will complete this assignment in relation to their unit project.
The review lesson pulls together all of the aspects of the unit. The teacher is given four or five choices of activities or games to use which all serve the same basic function of reviewing all of the information presented in the unit.
The unit test comes in two formats: all multiple choice-matching-true/false or with a mixture of matching, short answer, multiple choice, and composition. As a convenience, two different tests for each format have been included.
There are additional support materials included with this unit. The unit resource section includes suggestions for an in-class library, crossword and word search puzzles related to the novel, and extra vocabulary worksheets. There is a list of bulletin board ideas which gives the teacher suggestions for bulletin boards to go along with this unit. In addition, there is a list of extra class activities the teacher could choose from to enhance the unit or as a substitution for an exercise the teacher might feel is inappropriate for his/her class. Answer keys are located directly after the reproducible student materials throughout the unit. The student materials may be reproduced for use in the teacher's classroom without infringement of copyrights.