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Teacher Lesson Return to "The Facebook Fight That Fractured My Face"
The Facebook Fight That Fractured My Face
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Lesson: Facebook Fight: Reading, Short Writing Exercise, and Vocabulary Development

• Reinforce the main components of a story or article.
• Give students practice in developing mental pictures about a story before they start reading.
• Learn the meaning of some unfamiliar words.

Before the activity: Do the activity yourself: read the headline, look at the drawing, answer the questions (see below), read the story, and see if your predictions agreed with the story.

Write these words on the board with the heading: “Words in the story”

irrational mutual
unprovoked surreal
virtual immense
confrontation escalate
embolden tendencies
intensify audacity
desensitized perilous

Underline these words in your copy of the story.

Write the following on the board, or make copies of it to hand out:

Predictions about the story I am about to read

The Setting: Where will the events take place?

The Characters: What will the people in the story be like?

The Problem or Conflict: What might the characters want that leads to a conflict?

The Plot, or Actions: What might happen in the story?

The Resolution: “Resolution” means how things worked out. How might the story end? Will anyone get what they want?

Activity #1: Reading and Discussion
Tell the group they are going to read a story by a teen who was assaulted by someone she had words with on Facebook.

Give each student a copy of the story. Tell them to read the title of the story, look at the picture of the author, and look at the illustration picture but not to read the story yet.

Then ask them to look at the questions on the board (or on handouts). Tell them the questions are asking them about the main elements of most stories: setting, characters, plot, conflict, and some ending or resolution.

Ask them to read the headline again and ask themselves what will happen in the story.

They have five minutes to write 2-3 sentences or phrases for each question.
Stress that this is not a quiz or test. It is a way of “warming up” before they read the story. What they write are notes to themselves and don’t have to be grammatically correct.

After 5 minutes, read the story as a group. You can do this silently or ask for volunteers to read sections.

After the reading, ask them to look at their predictions. Ask for volunteers to say what they got right and what surprised them. After a few minutes of discussion, ask them if doing the pre-reading exercise helped them enjoy the story. Did knowing a little bit about what might happen make it easier to read?

Words on the board: Look at the lists of words on the board. Write down three words that you know the meaning of and three words that are unfamiliar

Ask for volunteers to state their unfamiliar words. Quickly locate the word in the story and read the sentence out loud, or just the phrase the word appears in. Ask the group if they can think of a substitute word or phrase the author could have used instead.

Give them an example of a substitution: “Someone had the audacity to record it on their phone” could be “Someone had the nerve to record it on their phone.” Reinforce each example, saying something like, “Audacity means boldness or daring or nerve.”

Activity #2: Story Elements and Written Response

Give them a homework assignment. They are to write a one-page response to the story. They should summarize what happened and then--most importantly--give their opinions on how the story ended. Were they happy with the resolution? Did they think justice was done? Did they approve of how the writer handled the situation?

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