Eighth Grade Standards:
LA8R1 Students demonstrate comprehension and show evidence of a warranted and responsible explanation of a variety of literary and informational texts.
ELA8R2 Students understand and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in reading and writing.
ELA8R3 Students read aloud, accurately (in the range of 95%) familiar material in a variety of genres, in a way that makes meaning clear to listeners.
ELA8R4 Students acquire knowledge of Georgia authors and significant texts created by them.
ELA8RC2 Students participate in discussions related to curricular learning in all subject areas.
ELA8RC3 Students acquires new vocabulary in each content area and uses it correctly.
ELA8RC4 Students establish a context for information acquired by reading across subject areas.
ELA8W1 Students produce writing that establishes an appropriate organizational structure, sets a context and engages the reader, maintains a coherent focus throughout, and signals a satisfying closure.
ELS8W2 Students demonstrate competence in a variety of genres.
ELA8W4 Students consistently use the writing process to develop, revise, and evaluate writing.
ELA8C1 Students demonstrate understanding and control of the rules of the English language, realizing that usage involves the appropriate application of conventions and grammar in both written and spoken formats.
ELA8LSV1 Students participate in student-to-teacher, student-to-student, and group verbal interactions.
ELA8LSV2 Students listen to and view various forms of text and media in order to gather and share information, persuade others, and express and understand ideas. Students will select and crucially analyze messages using rubrics as assessment tools.
VA8MC.1 Students engage in the creative process to generate and visualize ideas.
VA8MC.2 Students identify and work to solve problems through authentic engagement (thinking, planning, and experimenting) with art methods and materials, exploring the nature of creativity.
VA8MC.3 Students demonstrate how artists create and communicate meaning in artworks.
VA8MC.4 Students participate in aesthetic dialogue about his or her artwork and artwork of others.
VA8CU.1 Students discover how the creative process relates to art history.
VA8CU.2 Students investigates and discovers personal relationship to community, culture, and world through making and studying art.
VA8PR.1 Students engage in art making process with care and craftsmanship.
VA8PR.2 Students create artwork reflecting a range of concepts, ideas, subject matter.
VA8PR.3 Students produce an array of two-dimensional and three-dimensional artistic processes and techniques using a variety of media and technology.
VA8AR.1 Students critique personal artworks as well as artwork of others using visual and verbal approaches.
VA8AR.2 Students reflect and expand the use of visual language throughout the artistic process.
VA8AR.3 Students plan and present appropriate exhibitions for works of art.
VA8C.1 Students apply information from other disciplines to enhance the understanding and production of artworks.
VA8C.2 Students develop fluency in visual communication.
VA8C.3 Students expand knowledge of art as a profession and/or a vocation and develops personal life-skills through artistic endeavor.
Lesson Plan:
One of the most famous authors in children’s literature during the Victorian era was Beatrix Potter in England. In order to mimic the style of this classic author in Peter Rabbit, the students will design, write, and illustrate a children’s novel of their own.
Students will first draw one portrait of their pet or imagined pet, and then write three or more facts about the character that will tell the readers about the character, as an introduction. (Example: Barabbas the Gecko eats worms for breakfast and does not drink coffee, although he likes its smell.) With the picture in front of them, the students will construct a narrative in which there is a moral or lesson that they convey. (For emphasis on literature, the students may incorporate such elements as the narrative curve, etc.) For an extra challenge, the teacher may choose to have the students set the story in the Victorian era, and imitate the English countryside pictured in Beatrix Potter’s books. For a slant on history, the teacher can set the scene in the westward expansion ideology of the 1800s, as well. In addition, the teacher may choose to add points for each artifact the students picture or mention in their books.
The students should then divide the narrative into five or more sections for which they can draw an illustration of the animal acting out that part of the novel. In order to make the assignment more practical, the teacher may choose to have a competition in which all the students read their books aloud and then vote on the most creative or effective book. Another opportunity to practically apply the students’ hard work is to have them volunteer to read them aloud to a younger class of students in the school.
