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During the course of the semester, I started picking up random novels that were
mentioned in the seminar. I was not sure which one I would choose for this
portfolio, and initially I had aimed to design lesson plans for two books: The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Stargirl by
Jerry Spinelli, simply because they were the ones that I a) enjoyed the most, and
b) considered the most valuable and suitable for students aged 14-15. While I was
designing the first lesson, however, I quickly started to realize that, in order to do
justice to each book, I would have to dedicate at least four lessons to one single
novel. This is why I chose to focus on Mark Haddon’s text only. I picked The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time because of several reasons: One, I
believe it is a very quick and also quite easy read, extremely entertaining and
funny. Two, the style in which it is written and the narrative technique both make
this novel a unique piece of literature, providing a special insight into a special
teenager’s life.
I would use it in a 5th grade (14 year-olds) because I feel that both the topic and
language level are appropriate for learners aged fourteen or fifteen.
3. Lessons plans
3.1. Lesson 1: Setting the scene for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-
Time
This first lesson on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time will engage
the students in a number of pre-reading activities.
At the beginning of the lesson, I will show the students a picture of the cover or the
book cover itself (or both). I will have them guess what the novel could be about.
We will then listen to an English boy reading out the first chapter of the book. 1
Hence, the students will not only train their listening skills, but can also find out
1
http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/curious/.
1
what the story is about and whether they were somehow on the right track with
their own speculations about the novel’s contents. After having discovered what
happens in the first chapter, I will ask the learners to get together in groups of
three or four (depending on the size of the class) to discuss possible solutions to
the question of what will happen next. The purpose of this activity is not only to
spark interest by creating suspense, but also to develop the students’ speaking
skills by arguing and negotiating their versions of the story (there should be one
final version in the end which the whole group can agree on). I will ask a few
groups to present their stories to the class.
I will then hand out copies of the first few chapters (3, 5, 7 and 11) which we will
use to get started with the novel. Usually, I am not a fan of reading out whole
passages of a book in class, but I think short passages are OK because the
students can now check whether their speculations about the content of the story
were right or completely wrong. It also helps to get used to the author’s style and
also serves as a transitional exercise leading up to the next one: Learning about
Asperger (’s) Syndrome, the condition Christopher, the novel’s hero, suffers from. I
will hand out copies of a text about Asperger Syndrome which the students are
asked to read silently. We will then discuss in class what the main points are, and I
will point out to them to keep these in mind when reading the novel.
The next activity is a writing task for which they will have to adapt the theoretical
knowledge they have just gained for a specific purpose: writing a short diary entry
from Christopher’s perspective. It can be about a certain event or a whole day, but
it must somehow revolve around the hero’s disorder. When they are finished, I will
ask some students to read out their texts.
At the end of the lesson, I will hand each student a copy of the novel.2
Finally, I will set the homework, which is a (rather long) reading task: They are
supposed to read the first part of the novel, which is up to page 113, and to jot
down the references to Asperger’s Syndrome. (I have divided up the story into
three parts – part 1 reaching up to the passage on page 113 where Chris finds his
mother’s letters, part 2 until Chris’ escape to London on page 173, and part 3 from
174 till the end.)
2
The books are either to be found in the library or have been purchased by the teacher, who will then collect
the money from the students.
2
Lesson Plan 1
3
3.2. Lesson 2: Part 1 of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
At the end of the lesson, I will assign the homework for the following session: The
first task is to rewrite the incident with the policeman right after Christopher’s
discovery that Wellington was killed. The second task is to read the second part of
the novel (pages 114-173).
3
Cf. Appendix, p.20.
4
Cf. Appendix, p.20, question 3.
5
Cf. Appendix, p.20, question 4.
4
Lesson Plan 2
3 minutes: T explains homework: to write an inner monologue from perspective of policeman, and to read pages 114-173 of the novel
6
See Appendix, p. 20 for detailed description of activities and questions.
5
3.3. Lesson 3: Part 2 of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
At the beginning of the lesson which focuses on some more while reading
activities, I will collect the homework (to write an inner monologue from the
perspective of the policeman) from all students.
The first task in this lesson is to get together in pairs and take a close look at the
first letter from Chris’ mother (p.121), and to spot the mistakes in there. We will
then compare the results and I will write down the solutions on the blackboard.
This activity is meant to consolidate (or improve) the students’ spelling skills and
let them have a go at “playing teachers”.
Afterwards, I will ask the students to act out the scene between Mrs. Shears
(Eileen) and Christopher’s father (Ed Boone) when they are having their final
argument (cf. p. 150-152 of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time).
For this activity, I want them to find a partner again and to assign the parts. First,
each couple practices the dialog. When everyone is finished, I will ask a few
couples to act out their little play in front of the class.
What follows is a short analysis of the language used in The Curious Incident of
the Dog in the Night-Time. 7 I will point out which aspects could be explored before
the students get together in groups of 3 or 4. I will then try and pull together the
various suggestions made by the students and comment on the power an author
possesses when writing a story. This activity is meant to give the learners some
ideas of how a piece of literature could be analyzed and what effect a certain kind
of usage of language can have on the readers (e.g. to rouse sympathy or create
confusion). We will also talk about the point of view from which the story is told
and what the effect of this first-person narration is.8
The final activity for this session will be the following: The students are to propose
some ideas of how the story might end (including questions such as “Will
Christopher be reunited with his mother?” and “Will Chris forgive his father?”). In
7
See Appendix, p. 21, question 1.
8
See Appendix, p. 21, question 2.
6
case there are some students who have already finished reading, I will ask those
not to give away the ending.
The homework for the following lesson will be a) to finish the novel, b) to think how
they would create a movie of the book and c) to find the funniest and the saddest
part of the novel, and to explain why9.
9
See Appendix, p. 21 for detailed instructions.
7
Lesson Plan 3
2 minutes Explaining homework11: finish novel, think about movie, funniest and saddest part
10
See Appendix, p. 21, questions 1 and 2.
11
See Appendix, p. 21.
8
3.4. Lesson 4: Part 3 of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The overall aim of this lesson is to provide some fun and challenging post-reading
activities.
I want to start this fourth lesson on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-
Time with a still pose. The students are asked to, again, create a still pose of
the character constellation now that they have completed the novel,
comparing the new sketch with the old one (for this purpose, we will come
back to the first draft). Several students will represent their first AND second
still poses one after another, again using fellow students to stand for certain
characters. The purpose of this activity is to make evident the changes that
have come about in Christopher’s life, and to compare students’ notions of
these changes.
Next, we will discuss the homework, starting with the funniest and saddest parts
for the students. I want this to be an open-class activity where the pupils get
a chance to argue their choices and discuss what made them pick these
particular scenes.
What follows is a comparison of two amateur videos from YouTube.12 While the
students watch each video, they take notes. After having watched both, we
will briefly discuss what the learners liked and disliked about these movies. I
will encourage them to comment on whether and how these differ from their
own ideas of how to produce the movie (this is where the learners refer to
the written homework). I also announce that, next lesson, we will watch part
of the original movie.
The students then engage in a silent dialog with their neighbor: They are
supposed to recreate the conversation between Mrs. Alexander and
Christopher’s father (Ed Boone) having an argument about Mr. Boone lying
to Christopher. After having arranged who represents whom, one student
writes the first statement on a piece of paper, and then passes it on to their
12
Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aJPfS2wPh8&feature=related and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BAgQtq7WAw&feature=related for videos.
9
neighbor. In this way, a silent dialog is created, which is then read out in
class.
The homework for the following lesson will be to a) describe the novel in one
single sentence, b) to revise the novel as far as characters are concerned
(as we will host a press conference next time) and c) to write a review of the
novel.13
13
See Appendix, p. 22 for further details.
10
Lesson Plan 4
2 minutes Setting homework14: writing a review of the novel, revising characters Copies of reviews
14
Cf. Appendix, p. 22 for detailed instructions on homework exercise tasks.
11
4. Conclusion
This is the place to ask what the students have would have learned after these
four lessons. What was I trying to teach them, or make them aware of? Which
skills were trained?
Generally, I have tried to make the reading and the activities fun and somehow
creative, and this was my top priority. I wanted the students to take in the pleasure
of reading and experience how diversified working with a literary text can be. What
is most important to me is that some kind of “safe environment” is created where
they feel encouraged and welcome to state their own opinions, raise questions or
doubts and bring in their own ideas. It would be an absolute nightmare for me if
my pupils thought they had to learn by heart what I have said about the text
because they feel that they have to reproduce my ideas and interpretation of a
text. I believe that literature can only be taught at school successfully if the teacher
steps back more often than not and lets the students develop their own ideas, and
take pleasure in experimenting with the text. Introducing literary texts to (foreign)
language classes, in my opinion, is much more fun when the teacher
himself/herself is willing to take risks and to leave some space for spontaneous
decisions and ideas which are not all laid out and planned in advance. This is why
I tried to make the lessons as interactional as possible, leaving space for free
thought. I did have a handful of other fun activities in mind such as a press
conference and writing chapter zero; in fact, I could have designed many more
lessons on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time because it is one of
the most multifaceted books I have ever come across. (I am also aware of the fact
that many aspects of the novel were left unmentioned.)
I am afraid that not all of my ideas might actually work out in class or be embraced
whole-heartedly by the students, but I am still looking forward to trying out these
lesson plans some day.
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7. Appendix
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Activity Worksheet for Lesson 1
Asperger Syndrome15
Key Features:
The main areas affected by Asperger Syndrome are:
• Social interaction
• Communication
• Narrow Interests / Preoccupations
• Repetitive routines / rituals, inflexibility
Vocab:
disorder: malfunction, causes a part of the body to stop functioning properly
pediatrician: a doctor who studies and treats the diseases of children
to exhibit: to show
deficiency: deficit, shortage
to be preoccupied with sth.: to frequently think about or do sth.
cue: hint, signal
to learn sth. by rote: to learn sth. by heart, to learn the exact wording of a sentence/extract
15
This handout is a compilation of information found on the following websites:
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/,
http://www.maapservices.org/Publications/Rosalyn_Lord_Article.asp ,
http://www.maapservices.org/Publications/Stephen_Bauer_Article.asp.
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Activity Worksheet for Lesson 2
Get together with your partner(s) and discuss the following questions:
Homework:
1) Rewrite the scene with the policeman (chapters 11, 17 and 23) from the
latter’s perspective, in the form of an inner monologue. Write between 200-
300 words.
2) Read pages 114-173.
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Activity Worksheet for Lesson 3
Get together with a partner and discuss the following questions (and take notes):
1. What have you noticed about the style of the author? Consider aspects such as
choice of vocabulary, degree of formality/informality (=register), sentence structure
and overall tone.
2. How important is the voice of Christopher as the narrator of this story? How or
would this story be different if it were written by a different character - Ed Boone or
Siobhan, for example? How would the story differ if told by a third person
omniscient voice? What would be lost in such changes, what would be gained?
Homework:
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Activity Worksheet for Lesson 4
Homework:
1) If you had to describe the novel in one single sentence, what would it be?
2) Review all the characters from the novel. We will hold a press conference next
time, so make sure you have in-depth knowledge about all the main
characters!
3) Write a review of the novel. It might be helpful to read the example reviews to
get started. The review should be between 300-400 words. Make sure you
keep the balance between saying enough and not giving away too much of
the story’s ending! Say where it would be published and be sure to adjust
your style and register according to your target group!
Here are some model reviews. You may read through them to get some ideas for
your own review.
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The Curiously Irresistible Literary Debut of Mark Haddon
Dave Weich, Powells.com
It's not just the hook, though the hook is peculiar and oddly affecting. "When I was
writing," the author allows, "I really thought to myself, Who on Earth is going to want to
read about a fifteen-year-old kid with a disability living in Swindon with his father? And I
thought, I better make the plot good." The hook—the plot ? is significantly better than
good, but it's the irresistible voice of Mark Haddon's young narrator, Christopher Boone,
that elevates this literary debut to fantastic heights.
It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn
in front of Mrs. Shears' house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its
side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was
not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog.
"It's hilarious on one page," a member of the Powells.com customer service department
commented upon returning the company copy to its shelf in the office, "then two pages
later you want to cry."
From http://www.powells.com/authors/haddon.html
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Christopher's World
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by
Mark Haddon
Published by Doubleday
Review by W. R. Greer
The behaviors and demands of adults are mysterious and confusing to most children. To
15-year old Christopher Boone, the narrator in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time, it's completely beyond the realm of his understanding. Christopher is an
autistic savant and while he's a whiz at math and science, human emotions are particularly
complex for him. As the novel opens, he tells us "I know all of the countries of the world
and their capital cities, and every prime number up to 7,057." He finds a neighbor's dog,
named Wellington, murdered and decides to write about it. With the help of his teacher,
Siobhan, he decides to write a book about his attempt to solve this mystery. It's a search
for information that will ultimately upset his carefully constructed world.
Christopher lives alone with his father after his mother died from a heart attack two years
earlier. He never got to visit her at the hospital, but this doesn't bother him since he doesn't
like strange places or people he doesn't know. If people touch him, he will hit them. If his
senses become overloaded or his brain too confused, he will curl up in a ball and groan
loudly, perhaps for hours at a time. Becoming angry with him just makes it worse. He
hates the colors yellow and brown. His world needs order and precision. He will do math
problems in his head for hours just to pass the time or distract him from an unpleasant
situation. As he begins his investigation into Wellington's death, he assures us that
everything he will tell us is true:
I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person. But it is not
because I am a good person. It is because I can't tell lies.
Mark Haddon, who has worked with autistic children, has created a unique narrator to tell
this story. At first glance, an autistic child whose fantasy is to wake one day and find he's
the only living person left on earth would seem to be an unlikely narrator. We quickly
come to understand Christopher Boone and his understandings and misunderstandings of
how the world works. We sympathize with the adults who must suffer his fits and practice
extreme patience with the minute details with which he orders his life. Christopher's father
is the most patient with him, even if his manner is gruff at times. He quickly forbids
Christopher to ask anyone questions about Wellington's death and to promise to let the
matter die, which Christopher does, within the specifics of his promise. The questions he's
already asked, though, and the people he's already met have put events into motion that
will eventually send him on an adventure that will challenge all of his skills to cope with
the world that he is especially challenged to understand.
Because Christopher understands even less of the world than most 15-year olds, the result
is that seeing the effects of emotions, lies, and intrigue of the adult world through his eyes
lets them hit even more powerfully. Since he sees all this in his non-judgmental
perspective and only how they affect the careful order in his world, the flaws of the adults
are heightened by their disregard for the effect they have on Christopher while also being
tempered by the fact that his autism has placed incredible stresses on all their lives.
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Christopher is more than just a different medium for seeing the world. In Mark Haddon's
capable hands, he quickly becomes all too real, and while he can be incredibly frustrating,
he explains his world in a way that makes perfect sense. When events unfold that threaten
his carefully maintained world, his quest to solve the problem is as adventurous and
dangerous as any literary character. To Christopher, it's something he just must do.
Christopher Boone makes The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time a delightful
and different novel. It provides a different perspective on the flaws and foibles of man,
where adults can often act as childish and petulant as the children. While the redemption of
love and the bonds of family may be universal themes, Mark Haddon has provided a
touching look at how they affect one boy and one family.
When this book was initially released, it received rave reviews. After it had won awards
and stayed one of the most popular books on this site, I decided I had finally had to read it.
I shouldn't have waited so long. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time should
be on everyone's reading list.
From http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/curious_incident_of_the_dog/review/
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