TEKS Based Lesson Plan
Subject: English II
Weeks: 4th Nine Weeks Group 2
Unit of Study: How does popular culture shape our perceptions?
Essential Questions:
• How do you, the writer, connect personal experiences in your writing?
• How does text evidence convey the author’s message to the audience?
TEKS/Essence Statements: Reading/Media Literacy/Writing/Literary Texts
• (12) Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds
work together in various forms to impact meaning.
• (14) Students write literary texts to express their ideas and feelings about real or imagined
people, events, and ideas.
Critical Skills/Postsecondary Goals: The section needs to be completed based the students in your
class.
Instructions/Classroom Activities: Personal Text
Small Group Instruction:
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•
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Write the words “trials” and “tribulations” on the board. Look in the dictionary to find the
meanings of these words. A trial can mean the act of trying, a hardship, or a source of annoyance. A
tribulation is a cause of misery or distress.
Ask students to think of some minor trials and tribulations they experience. Maybe a student must
wait outside in very cold weather to catch the bus or maybe a student has great difficulty tying
his/her shoes. Remind students that everyone experiences some trials and tribulations.
Bring the Sunday comics to school or check out a comic book from the library. Display the Peanuts
comic strip and ask students if one of the characters in the cartoon experiences trials or tribulations.
Watch video clips of Charlie Brown as he interacts with his friends.
Charlie Brown and football www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlzVDDSfeeA
Charlie Brown Christmas tree www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiq_VvgEC1Y
Charlie Brown tree www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=bPhqMJpQsYQ&NR=1
Charlie Brown Halloween www.youtube.com/watch?v=5thwITwhSg&feature=related
Charlie Brown baseball www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZXRgka1MLA
Charlie Brown sore arm www.youtube.com/watch?v=McxeOnA2Rtg&feature=fvsr
Charlie Brown Valentine www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZwrix7UkQ&feature=fvsr
As a class, make a conclusion that Charlie Brown experiences many trials and tribulations and
manages to go on despite his difficulties.
Small Group Activity
• Pass out the foldable handout attached to this lesson. Help students cut along the dotted lines and
fold along the solid line.
• Show a video depicting the trials and tribulations of a main character and the positive solutions to
his problems. For example, show a Charlie Brown video to the class. If a video is not available, use
four comic strips as the example for the lesson.
• Students will identify four trials of the main character and the positive solutions to each problem.
Students will write the details in the foldable and decorate the cover.
• A similar activity will be used in the following lesson. You may want to keep the completed
foldable as a reference.
North East Independent School District
Stations/Centers:
• Word Wall Vocabulary Words: trial, tribulation, hardship, annoyance, misery, distress, solution,
difficulty. Add these vocabulary terms to the Word wall words in your classroom.
• Communication Station: Interview another student or adult about some trials and tribulations they
experienced. Ask for positive solutions they took to solve the problems.
• Newspaper Activity: Read the Sunday comic sections to find more examples of cartoon
characters experiencing trials and tribulations. Cartoon artists use comic strip characters with
difficulties because they can depict the trials and tribulations as funny events.
Individualized Communication Planning: This section needs to be completed based on the
individualized communication needs of the students in your class.
Differentiated Tasks:
Level 3
The student will locate a
difficult event for a character in
a comic strip or video and
describe it as a trial or
tribulation.
Level 2
The student will examine and
respond to a comic strip or video
in which a character experiences
trials and tribulations.
Level 1
The student will acknowledge a
character in a comic strip or
video depicting trials or
tribulations.
Materials/Resources:
Dictionary
Sunday comics
Charlie Brown video
www.youtube.com
Assessment Strategies: The section needs to be completed based on the strategies appropriate for the
students in your class.
IEP Connections: This section needs to be completed based on the IEPs documented in the students’
ARDs in your class.
North East Independent School District
__________________________________________
Trial #4 __________________________________
__________________________________________
Trial #3 __________________________________
__________________________________________
Trial #2 ___________________________________
__________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _stop
Trial #1 ___________________________________
fold here
Trials and
Tribulations
cut here_
_______________________________________
North East Independent School District
fold here
__________________________________________
Solution #4 ________________________________
__________________________________________
Solution #3 _______________________________
__________________________________________
Solution #2 ________________________________
__________________________________________
Solution #1 ________________________________
Solutions