Basic Intermediate Advanced

Lesson Plan (60 Minutes)

Business/Materials
Computer; LCD; board; paper;
charts; pins; markers;
pictures/slides of hills covered in
snow and of white elephants; slides
of parts of uncompleted dialogue;
the rubric of a good dialogue and
narration done by teacher and
students; rubric provided by the
teacher for the assignment
Lesson Objectives
Improving students ability to understand and analyze
contextual clues and key words/phrases to understand
the major characters, identify the main ideas/themes,
and identify the authors voice.
Improving students ability to write coherent dialogues
and narration reflecting their own voice as writers
Improving students ability to reflect on the major
themes presented in the story and link them to real life
context

Warm-up and Objective Discussion

Warm-up (7 minutes)
Teacher will present the title of the story on board with two pictures, one with a series of hills
covered in snow and the other with a white elephant, to class using power point and LCD;
teacher will ask students the following questions:
- Have you ever been to a place with hills?
- Have you ever seen a white elephant?
- What do you think the connection might be between hills and white elephants?

Teacher will ask students to write down their responses to the third question as bullet points
or phrases in their notebook and keep it for later; teacher and students will have a discussion
about the title and then introduce the lesson objectives.

Objective Discussion (3 minutes)

Teacher will hang the lessons objectives, already written on charts, on the walls of the class;
teacher and students will discuss the objectives; teacher will ask students to keep objectives in
mind while reading and discussing the story.

Instruct and Model R W L S

(15 minutes)

Teacher will present the title, the first paragraph (narration) and a part of the following
dialogue with the major two characters of the story to students using a power point; teacher
will ask students to look for elements of nature and repeated/emphasized/interesting
words/phrases; teacher will present a series of questions on board (mentioned below) and ask
students to do a brainstorming where they have to write down all of their ideas/thoughts/
responses/ predictions as bullet points or phrases in their notebooks in response to each
question

- Why do you think the author uses white elephants? why white? And why elephants?
 - Why do you think the writer uses long and white hills across the valley while using
on this side there was no shade and no trees?
- How do you consider the tone of the man and the girl? Can you mention a major
attitude for each of which?
- What do you think the author want to say through this story? Can you find his voice?
What message does he try to convey?

Teacher will have a discussion with students on their responses and point out how the author
uses the different elements of the story, e.g. settings, characters, etc. into manifesting the
major theme of the story; teacher will point put to the strengths of the dialogue and the
narration and how the settings, character and the language are all used in a way that implies
the main theme of the story; teacher and students will come out of a rubric of their main
findings of how a good dialogue and narration might look like.

Teacher will support the discussion by illustrating the main idea as a key word on board and
drawing all the sub ideas around it in different colors as a mind map in cooperation with the
students;

Using the different elements provided in the text that is presented and discussed, teacher will
talk about the voice of the author and how strong it is emphasizing how it is manifested
through all the elements the author presents in the story. Teacher will point out to this story as
a good example on how a strong voice might be.

Guided Practice R W L S
(15 minutes)
Teacher will introduce the final part of the story including the final dialogue between the
major two characters along with the closing narration using power point to class; however,
teacher will present it in two versions, one with the girls responses and the other one with the
mans response; teacher will divide class into groups representing two categories, one for the
girl and other one for the man;

Teacher will ask each group to imagine they are the man or the girl and try and come up with
new ideas/responses/lines for the man/the girl; each group will brainstorm their new ideas and
then draw a mind map of the final ideas/themes/settings/characteristics they want to write
about; teacher will emphasize that the new rewritten dialogue has to emphasize the voice of
the man or the girl;

Once finished, students will present their mind map to class; teacher and students will discuss
some of the mind maps and allow students to share their ideas on the strengths and weakness
of them;

Independent Practice R W L S
(20 minutes)
Activity (1)
Teacher will present the major points discussed in the story through the previous activities on
board through the power point with emphasis on key words/phrases/tones/characteristics/
settings/ analysis and other points; teacher will divide the class intro groups of 2, one
representing the girl and the other one the man; using the mind maps of the previous activity,
each pair will rewrite the final dialogue and closing narration emphasizing their own voice and
writers; students are encouraged to add/delete certain elements from the mind maps they
created in the previous exercise

Activity (2)
Once activity (1) is done, teacher will ask each pair to submit their work to another pair of
students for review; each pair will review their colleagues work in the light of the rubric used
in previous activities; once finished, teacher and students will listen to some of the rewritten
dialogues and narrations and discuss their major strengths and weaknesses.

Assessment R W L S
Note: This activity will be done as a homework; students will hand in their assignment to
teacher and results will be discussed at the beginning of the next class and through office
hours.

Reflecting on the major themes highlighted in the story and the discussion in the class,
teacher will ask each student to submit an assignment of two components:

A: a report on Hills Like White Elephants including:

- Brief Analysis of the settings and major characters of the story (100- 150 words)
- The authors voice, message through the story (150-200 words)

B: a dialogue of your own

Teacher will ask students to imagine themselves in the middle of a problem/situation/crisis,
whether from real life or imagination, and to write a dialogue with one or more characters. The
dialogue has to be proceeded or followed by a narration paragraph. The text should have
350-500 words. The voice of the writer has to be clear in the story. Teacher will provide
students with a rubric to consider when writing it.

Teacher will encourage students to visit the reading zone and share their ideas on
Hemingways story discussed in class along with the stories they will write.