Julie of the Wolves Lesson Plan | Introduction
This unit has been designed to develop students' reading, writing, thinking, and language skills through exercises and activities related to Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. It includes eighteen lessons, supported by extra resource materials.
The introductory lesson introduces students to Alaska. 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 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 three-part worksheet for approximately 8 to 10 vocabulary words in the upcoming reading assignment. Part I draws on students' general knowledge of the words, asking students to write down what they think the words mean. Part II adds the element of context to aid the student 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 III nails down the definitions of the words by having students find the words in a dictionary and write down the definitions appropriate for the contextual uses of the words. 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.
The group activity which follows the discussion questions has students working in small groups to plan a camping trip.
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 inform: students write a letter from Julie to Amy in which Julie tells Amy about her life in Alaska. The second assignment is to persuade: students write a letter from Amy to Julie persuading her to come to San Francisco to live. The third assignment is to give students a chance to simply express their own opinions and be creative: following the group activity, planning a camping trip, students write a narrative about their imaginary trip.
In addition, there is a nonfiction reading assignment. Students are required to read a piece of nonfiction related in some way to Julie of the Wolves. After reading their nonfiction pieces, students will fill out a worksheet on which they answer questions regarding facts, interpretation, criticism, and personal opinions. During one class period, students make oral presentations about the nonfiction pieces they have read. This not only exposes all students to a wealth of information, it also gives students the opportunity to practice public speaking.
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: multiple choice or short answer. As a convenience, two different tests for each format have been included. There is also an advanced short answer unit test for higher level students.
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. Student materials may be reproduced for use in the teacher's classroom without infringement of copyrights.