The great Gatsby - Methodology

Title of Activity
GREAT GATSBY- Who is responsible for Gatsby’s death?

Description of educational activity
Duration: 2 X 45 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 motivate the students to read in the way that reading comprehension enables them to understand the relations between the characters and understand the responsibilities one has when it comes to serious situations with death consequences.

Another goal is to enable Ss develop their speaking skill to express and defend their point of view.

Ss will gain knowledge and understanding of a famous 20 century novel.

Support materials:

“The Great Gatsby” film clipping to give the incentive for the task.
there are 4 sets of excerpts from the book The Great Gatsby – to do with the four main characters. Students have to define in what way they were responsible for Gatsby’s death.

1^st set DAISY

2^nd set TOM

3^rd set GATSBY

4^th set MYRTLE

The excerpts are attached.

Activities:

1. The Ss are divided into 4 groups of 5.

2. The Ss watch the final scene from the movie – the killing of the main character.

3. Each group gets a picture from the movie of a character with the name on it.

4. Each group gets different excerpts from the book The Great Gatsby about the character form the picture. Each student reads one excerpt and after having read it, reports to the groups what he has learned from it. Their task as a group, after having read and reported on these excerpts to be able to

describe the character
understand the relationship with the main character
identify and define the responsibility towards his death
to justify their decision

5. each groups gets 5’ to read and report among themselves.

6. Discussion: The students are enabled to interact, to discuss within the group, to argue for or against an opinion.

Evaluation and assessment method:

Throughout the lesson, the Ss will give their reasons for their opinion with accurate supporting details.

Teacher’s role - monitoring Ss’ work, their interaction, reading for details, making notes, and participation in group activities.

In order to evaluate and assess the effective impact of the previous activities upon the students, they are asked to elaborate a short paper in no more than 5 minutes where they make an In-depth analysis of the main character.

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: 4th

Curriculum:

Civic education – responsible behaviour, developing empathy, foreseeing consequences

World Literature - classics works of art - reading and valuing

History – post-war situation , consequences, related to reality, going back to real life

Knowledge:

Understand the difference between dreams and real life
Develop reading fluency
Improve reading comprehension
Organise information in a specific way

Skills:

Use video incentive
Distinguish ethical and non ethical behaviour
Make predictions
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

F.S.Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

Publisher: The ebooks at Planet ebook.com

ISBN:

Page count: 193

Year of issue:

Digital sources

Results

The expected outcomes of the lesson. The students will be able:

to understand the task by reading the extracts.
to connect ideas and themes across texts.
to offer character descriptions,
to make connections,
to evaluate the relationship between the characters,
to justify their reactions
to speculate,
to interpret,
to make decisions and define the task in response to the excerpts.

Recommendations

Both the teaching method and the text can help in increasing Ss’ interest in reading. This text promotes the consciousness of responsibility towards other people and ourselves.

The teacher monitors the students so as to make sure they cooperate effectively.

The volume of given fragments of books can be adapted to the language level of a group - fragments can be shorter - by cutting less important paragraphs, or be expanded to additional fragments of the same novel.