ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD.

 DIPLOMA IN TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Lesson Plan number 2Prepared by: Miss Nida Khan

PROSE AND SHORT STORY

CORE OBJECTIVES:To enable the students to: Have the essential knowledge about prose Define prose and its importance in literature Understand short story as a genre of prose,

its purpose and five elements Have the essential knowledge about

humour and its purpose Read for specific purpose and information,

and pleasure

GRADE: INTERMEDIATESUBJECT: ENGLISHTOPIC: MY FINANCIAL CAREER

LESSON OBJECTIVES:By the end of lesson the students shall be able to: Discuss Stephen Leacock’s style briefly Identify and list down the synonyms in the

text provided Identify, list down and use the newly

learned vocabulary Answer short questions and complete the

given tasks Interact and collaborate in pairs and

groups Translate the given extract and learn to

work independently

METHODOLOGY

•Direct Method• Audio- Visual

TIME: 50 Minutes

PREPARATION

•Projector•Hand outs•Worksheets

PRESENTATION

Have you ever had the experience of feeling out of place or being the laughing stock?

(The response time that shall be given will be 3 to 5 minutes only)

APPROACH:

The teacher shall read out the text, underline and mention the humorous instances and situations.

CONTROLLED READING

Stephen Butler Leacock, (30 December 1869 – 28 March 1944) was an English-born Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humorist. In the early part of the 20th century he was the best-known humorist in the English-speaking world.

WHO IS STEPHEN LEACOCK?

STEPHEN LEACOCK

Prose is ordinary language that people use in writing such as poetry, stories, editorials, books, etc. The word prose is derived from the Latin word 'prosa' meaning straightforward.

Prose comes in two types of text - narrative and expository. Narrative text is defined as "something that is narrated such as a story. Expository text is non-fiction reading material such as Description, Analysis, Classification, etc.

WHAT IS PROSE?

It is a genre of prose. Story is an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot.

WHAT IS A SHORT STORY?

FIVE ELEMENTS OF SHORT STORIES

• SETTING -- The time and location in which a story takes place is called the setting.

 • PLOT -- The plot is how the author arranges

events to develop his basic idea; it is the sequence of events in a story or play.

 • CONFLICT-- Conflict is essential to plot.

Without conflict there is no plot. It is the opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move.

• CHARACTER -- There are two meanings for the word character:

1) The person in a work of fiction. 2)The characteristics of a person. Characters

are... 1. Individual - round, many sided and complex personalities. 2. Developing - dynamic, many sided personalities that change, for better or worse, by the end of the story. 3. Static - Stereotype, have one or two characteristics that never change and are emphasized e.g. brilliant detective, drunk, scrooge, cruel stepmother, etc.

• THEME -- The theme in a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. It is the author's underlying meaning or main idea that he is trying to convey.

Short stories are written by professional authors. You can learn the following things by studying a short story: How to write proper English sentences How to spell correctly How to create vivid images in a reader's

mind How to communicate your ideas How to tell a story How to describe things How to make a short story instead of a book It is short so it keeps the reader engaged

WHY DO WE STUDY SHORT STORIES?

You also learn whatever was in the story itself, the information in the background of the story, all about the characters and setting of the story, the emotions generated by the story, and you remember that story and maybe even wonder about some of the things you have read and want to learn more.

Humour, in the main, is something that pleases us, a characteristic alone that can help writers to improve the quality of their literary fictional stories. A sense of humour is the ability of a human to experience humour. Humour, however, is specific for each individual and depends on a host of variables: location, culture, maturity, education, intelligence and context. Humour pleases readers of literary fiction and develops characters into memorable and useful entities. Here are specific advantages a writer can expect to acquire when learning to understand how humour works in prose fiction.

WHAT IS HUMOUR?

Humour: arouses interest in the story sustains attention helps reader connect with characters helps emphasize and relate ideas helps create images in reader's mind makes story more memorable makes readers feel good

PURPOSE OF HUMOUR

Synonyms are different words with identical or at least similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy.

An example of synonyms is the words car and automobile. Similarly, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation, “a widespread impression that … Hollywood was synonymous with immorality" (Doris Kearns Goodwin).

WHAT ARE SYNONYMS?

What is prose?What is the importance of short stories?

Recall at least one purpose of using humour.

CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING

PRACTICE

Activity 1Students work in pairs and list down the synonyms that they find. Students then share their lists with each other.

Activity 2Students work in pairs and answer the short questions given on the worksheets together. The whole class then participates and discusses the answers with each other.

WORKING IN PAIRS

Activity 3All the class participates in this activity. Starting from the left, the first student writes the first word that he/ she finds difficult, folds the paper and passes the paper to the student on his/ her left. The second student does the same and one by one the paper gets passed on to the whole class. When the whole class will have had its turn, then the words shall be listed down on the board. The students shall try to guess their meanings contextually at first without looking for their meanings from the dictionary. Afterwards, the completely unknown words shall be searched from the dictionary and noted down.

GUIDED PRACTICE

Do you know what prose is? Do you know the purpose of using prose?

Do you know the key elements and the purpose of using short story?

Do you know what synonyms are? Do you remember the meanings of the half of the new vocabulary?

RECAPITULATION

PRODUCTION

ACTIVITY 1Translate the following lines from the story:

My idea was to draw out six dollars of it for present use. Someone gave me a chequebook through a wicket and someone else began telling me how to write it out. The people in the bank had the impression that I was an invalid millionaire. I wrote something on the cheque and thrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it.

ACTIVITY 2Select at least ten words from the new vocabulary and use them to write a story of 350- 400 words on the following topic:

“The day when I felt awkward and out of place”

INDEPENDENT WORK

THANK YOU FOR BEARING

THIS WITH PATIENCE