Sample Lesson Plan Using a Chat Room

 

(You may substitute any text for the one given.  Also, your objectives might differ according to the focus of your class.)

 

 

Lesson Topic:

 

The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

 

Lesson Goals/Objectives:

 

To help students understand the characters by permitting them to interpret them by adopting their personae.

 

 

Readings/Preparation Materials:

 

Students should have already read the General Prologue and the descriptions of the pilgrims.

 

 

What is Required of the Instructor Before the Class Meets:

 

  1. The instructor should have set up chat room software for the class and should understand how to use it.
  2. Also, the instructor needs to understand the limitations of the software he or she is using.  How many students can enter the chat before it crashes?  How many students can participate effectively in a chat?
  3. With that understanding in mind, set up an appropriate number of chat rooms for the number of students in your class.  Consider that more than 5-7 participants in a chat room make the tool less effective.
  4. Ideally, you will have an easy way for your students to find and access the chat room.  If you have a course home page, create a link to the chat room.  Otherwise, be sure to write down the URL and bring it to class.  Because URL’s can be lengthy, it might not be a bad idea to create a handout for this assignment, which lists the URL as well as the instructions on how to use the chat room.
  5. Consider whether this assignment will be completed in or out of class.  If you don’t have computer access in your classroom, you’ll obviously need to make this an out-of-class assignment.  Plan ahead for technical difficulties that might arise from students needing to log on to a chat simultaneously from a place other than the classroom at a designated time.

 

Segment #1 of the assignment:  Begin with a general introduction to the Prologue and to the pilgrims.

 

Segment #2:  Divide the students into smaller groups and assign each student a character.  That student should consider how that character interacts with the other pilgrims and with the world at large.  It may be possible to assign the same character to more than one student because there would not be repetition within a single group.

 

Segment #3:  Demonstrate how to use the chat room.  This instruction may be more difficult if you have no computers in your classroom.  A written instruction sheet, including how to access the chat room would then be necessary.

 

Segment #4:  Have students log on to the chat room using their characters’ names.  (If that kind of log on with a pseudonym is not possible, consider how to re-work this exercise).  Have them interact with each other as if they were the pilgrims from the Canterbury Tales.  The instructor could log on as Harry Bailey and ask the pilgrims a directed question to start the conversation.  An example might be, “What is the most important thing in life?” or any other such question that would ask students to actively consider the perspectives of each character.

 

Segment #5:  Ask students to respond to the exercise.  Did it affect their understanding of the pilgrims?

 

 

 

For next time, students will need to:

 

  1. Complete the assignment
  2. Consider how completing the assignment affected their reading of Chaucer.

 

For next time, the instructor will need to:

 

  1. Check up on the students’ progress.
  2. Be available for questions, should they arise.