The Brave Thin Soldier

Title of Activity
The Brave Thin Soldier

Description of educational activity
Duration: 90 minutes
Pupils’ age: 15-19
Organization of the class of pupils: group work

The aim of the lesson: The aim of the lesson is to improve the reading literacy of the students. The students cooperate and help each other when solving various tasks.

Support materials: The number of the tools according to the number of the groups.

Scarves.
The text of the story cut in eight pieces.
Packages with pictures.
Packets with three riddles.
Picture puzzles.
Sheets of paper for making ships.
Papers with math tasks.

Activities:

The students are divided into groups of 4. The students learn that each of them suffers from a kind of disability – one is blind, one is dumb, one is without legs, one is without arms. They will exchange their disabilities after completing every other tasks.
Each group gets Task 1 – a package with a picture which should be described by the blind person. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 2 – a set of three riddles. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 3 – a picture puzzle which should be put together. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 4 – The dumb person gets the instructions to the following task which should be completed by the whole group. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 5 – they have to make a paper ship. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 6 – they write a love poem about a one-leg tin soldier and a beautiful paper lady. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 7 – a math task. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
Each group gets Task 8 – they make three living pictures involving all the group members and illustrating three moments from the story. After the task has been completed, the group gets the first part of the story.
The students lose all their disabilities. They stay in their groups and discuss their ideas about the story end. They should choose one idea and illustrate it using one more living picture.
Discussion – their experience from sorting out the tasks with different disabilities.

Evaluation and assessment method:

Throughout the lesson, ensure that your students are backing up their choices with accurate supporting details.
Teacher's observations of student preparedness, student work samples, and participation in group activities and discussions.
In order to evaluate and assess the effective impact of the previous activities upon the students, all of them should actively participate in the final discussion.

Effect of the activity on RSP reading:

Practices that support students´ choice, collaboration, and shared control of learning outcomes can be linked to self-expressed interest in reading and engaged reading behaviours. Teachers can organize reading instruction to develop self-efficiency, competence, and engagement in teenage students.

Connection to curriculum

Grade: 1 – 4 grade of secondary studies

Curriculum: The study of literature is focused on reading and comprehending literary texts of historical and cultural importance and relevancy either in the world or Czech literature. Students are taught to work with texts and information in different ways, to adopt the processes of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, generalization, abstraction, specification, comparison, organization, selection. The students should be able to interpret, summarize and evaluate the texts.

Knowledge:

Understand the stages of development of a hero
Develop reading fluency
Improve reading comprehension
Organise information in a specific way

Skills:

Use imagination, fantasy
Distinguish reality and fantasy
Make predictions, deductions
Use logical thinking
Compare and contrast
Summarize
Work effectively in groups, respecting others

Competences:

Make connections between fiction and real life or personal experiences
Be able to visualise material read
Follow specific instructions and conventions
Evaluate evidence
Support and justify an opinion

Bibliographic reference to be used during the activity

Hans Christian Andersen

Publisher: https://americanliterature.com

Year of issue: 2016

Digital sources

A short video based on the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsYU8RJ4B7w

Results

The expected outcomes of the lesson are:

The students will be able to cooperate in groups and overcome model physical and psychical difficulties.
The students cooperating in groups have to solve various tasks from different fields.
The students experience life with different disabilities which will help them understand problems of other people.

Recommendations

Both the teaching method and the text can help in increasing students’ interest in reading. The activities for reading this story offer more active approach which is in contrast with what we normally connect with reading. The students get the text in smaller pieces which more suitable for RSP readers. The teacher monitors the students so as to make sure they cooperate effectively.