The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 Lesson Plan | Introduction
This unit has been designed to develop students’ reading, writing, thinking, listening, and speaking skills through exercises and activities related to The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. It includes 20 lessons, supported by extra resource materials.
The introductory lesson introduces students to the story. Following the introductory activity, students are given an explanation of 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. They are also introduced to the nonfiction assignment.
The reading assignments are approximately 30 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 6 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 two-part worksheet for approximately 6 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 gives students dictionary definitions of the words and has them
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 extra discussion questions, there is a vocabulary review lesson which pulls together all of the separate 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, 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. These
questions are done as a group activity.
Using the information they have acquired so far through individual work and class discussions, students 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 persuade. Students will take the role of Kenny and persuade Byron to improve his behavior. The second writing assignment is to inform.
Students will create a notebook like Momma’s to plan for a trip. The third writing assignment is to
express personal opinions. Students will respond to a statement that Kenny says in the last chapter
of 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 Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963. 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.
There are five different unit tests included. Two are multiple choice, two are short answer and there is also an advanced short answer unit test.
There are additional support materials included with this unit. The resource materials sections include 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.
