The Pigman's Legacy Lesson Plan | Introduction
This unit has been designed to develop students’ reading, writing, thinking, and language skills through exercises and activities related to The Pigman’s Legacy by Paul Zindel. It includes eighteen lessons, supported by extra resource materials.
The introductory lesson introduces students to one of the themes of the novel (sharing with others and leaving a legacy) through a bulletin board activity. Subsequent lessons focus on such themes as concerns of America’s aging population, parent-child relationships, pet ownership, the responsibility of pet ownership, adolescence, and love.
The reading assignments are approximately 12 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 7 to 10 vocabulary words they will encounter in their reading. You may want to ask them to do the vocabulary exercises along with their reading so that they can try to understand the words in context.
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.
The vocabulary work is intended to enrich students’ vocabularies as well as to aid in the students’ understanding of the book. Prior to or along with each reading assignment, students will complete a two-part worksheet for approximately 7 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 a thorough understanding of all of the words as they are used 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 extra discussion questions, 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 reading of the book, two lessons are 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. These questions may be done as a group activity. Using the information they have acquired so far through individual work and class discussions, students may get together to further examine the text and to brainstorm ideas relating to the themes of the novel.
The group activity is followed by a reports and discussion session in which the groups share their ideas about the book with the entire class; thus, the entire class gets exposed to many different ideas regarding the themes and events of the book.
There are three writing assignments in this unit, each with the purpose of informing, persuading, or expressing personal opinions. The first assignment is to write from personal experience: is true love possible at age sixteen? This assignment helps students to relate at least one of the ideas in The Pigman’s Legacy to their own lives. It also helps them to express logical views on a topic that generally is approached only emotionally. The second assignment gives students the opportunity to inform. Derived from the Colonel’s Game of Life in The Pigman’s Legacy, students are to devise their own game of life and to inform readers of how to play it. This assignment will underscore what students have already read and cause them to move from the text to their own ideas about life. The third assignment is to give students a chance to persuade: students are given six choices of possible arguments. All are based on the book.
In addition, there is a nonfiction reading assignment. Students are required to read a piece of nonfiction related in some way to The Pigman’s Legacy. 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, but it also gives students the opportunity to practice public speaking.
There is an optional class project (Project Aging) through which students gain first-hand knowledge of the situation of America’s aging population and are offered ways to take part in helping to do something about the concerns of this group of citizens.
The review lesson pulls together all 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 three separate formats:
matching/short answer/essay/vocabulary (2 tests)
matching/multiple choice/essay/vocabulary (2 tests)
matching/short answer critical thinking/essay/vocabulary (1 advanced test)
Also in this unit is a resource section with suggestions for an in-class library, crossword and word search puzzles related to The Pigman’s Legacy, and extra vocabulary worksheets. There is a list of bulletin board ideas which gives suggestions for bulletin boards to go along with this unit. In addition, there is a list of extra class activities the teacher could use to enhance the unit or as a substitution for an exercise the teacher feels is inappropriate for his or 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 copyright. No other portion of this unit may be reproduced without the written consent of Teacher’s Pet Publications, Inc.
