Introduction
The nature of this lesson is to understand the use of dialect within a selected text. You are assigned to read the short story "Thank You Ma'am" independently. You will understand how dialect influences author's writing. Also, you will examine the impact and influence that different dialects from different parts of the country have on a character's personality and language.
The essential questions:
What is the definition of dialect?
what is the purpose of using dialect in texts?
How does dialect influence the meaning of text?
How does dialect reveal the character's geograp location?
Task
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to decide the area of the United States that Roger is from due to the dialect that he is using throughout the short story. You will also be able to recognize the purpose of the use of the dialect.
Students will:
1).The students will read the selected text
2). The students will make inferences of why the author used the choice of dialect that he used.
3). The students will explain the influences that dialect has on "Thank You Ma'am.
4). The students will create a paragraph displaying their knowledge of dialect
5). The students will be assessed by independently creating a chart on dialect.
Process
The students will complete:
Step one: Read the short story "Thank You Ma'am"
http://staff.esuhsd.org/danielle/english%20department%20lvillage/rt/Sho…
Step two: Decide on the selected dialect in the text.
http://www.businessinsider.com/dialects-of-american-english-2013-12
Step three: Give five reasons and explanations for the author to want to use different dialect in this short story.
http://mail.mhrd.k12.nj.us/~rmandel/FOV1-00016902/FOV1-00016921/UNDERST…
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-literary-elements-does-langsto…
Step four: recreate a paragraph about any topic using any dialect that you would like.
https://www.standoutbooks.com/can-include-accent-dialect-dialogue/
Step five: Reveal some of the words in the text that have a dialect.
http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/discoveringfiction/DF-SB2-CH2.pdf
Evaluation
The students will create a five column chart displaying the five different examples of dialect, it's 5 examples of its uses, and a definition meaning of each of the words in the dialect language. The students must get atleast four out of five answers correct in each of the examples of dialect and its uses section.
The students wil be scored by:
| 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Chart is correctly labeled (has headings, is organized, is easy to understand) | Chart has 1-3 errors (Some words are understandable) | Chart has more than 3 errors |
| The examples of dialect are all correct | 1-3 of the examples of dialect are correct | More tham 3 errors |
| All of the definitions of the words in dialect are correct | 1-3 of the words in dialect are incorrect | More than 3 errors |
Conclusion
In the lesson, the students learned how to apply dialect into writing. The students learned the purpose of dialect and the reason it is included in "Thank You Ma'am. The student now understands the meaning of dialect and its purpose. He or she has taken a formal assessment that will be graded based on the rubric in the evaluation section. There are multiple resources provided that can be useful when researching.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialect
http://www.literarydevices.com/dialect/
http://www.justaboutwrite.com/A_Archive_Uses-Abuses-Dialect.html
